My name is Shannon K. Culpepper, I'm a transplant from Iowa but have enjoyed being a Bostonian for the past seventeen years. Taking pictures became my creative passion at the age of twelve and it has developed into a full-blown artistic obsession. Wanderlust and photography have a torrid symbiotic relationship for me. From the magical minute I laid my hands on my first camera the need to see the world began consuming me and I was determined to to see it differently than everyone else. As a child, I was an avid reader and it was a book that began my photographic journey; a novel about a photojournalist wrapped up in the intrigue of finding the dead sea scrolls. When the character described how she felt pressing the shutter release button and what it was like to see her black and white images slowly developing in the chemical trays, I knew I was destined to be a photographer and my first stop in the world was going to be the middle east. By the age of fifteen I was well on my way to becoming a photographer and I spent every last dime of my babysitting money on film and processing. Manuals and instructional videos were good and all but I really preferred the more expensive, trial and error method. At seventeen I travelled outside the country for the first time and went on an archeological dig for two months in Jordan. Talk about a dream come true and it was everything I imagined and so much more. What an experience and incredibly different form urban Iowa where I grew up. Since that trip I've been addicted to maps, tickets stubs from all modes of transport, trip brochures, passport stamps, souvenirs but most of all collecting images from the places I've visited. If I can't take a picture of it, I almost feel like I didn't really experience it. I then went to Hawkeye Community College for their technical photography program and with the help of some excellent friends, teachers and mentors I found my photographic voice and won first in prominent national and state competitions. My photography degree is in commercial advertising, but my portfolio includes everything: fashion, portrait, weddings, fine art and commercial. So from the age of twelve to the present day, photography has been a powerful part of my life whether as an art form or a career. To check out my photography gallery please follow this link. Photography Services >
I started developing and designing websites about thirteen years ago. Because my degree in commercial photography had a strong emphasis on advertising, I found segueing into web design a natural progression. I enjoy taking the whole of a company and reducing it to an elegant design that encapsulates everything the company stands for, providing them with a digital representation that rings true and is uniquely designed just for them. I don't believe in templates, stock photos, impersonalized text, or making a site that looks like it was mass produced. Every time I build a site it's tailored to clients style / preferences, it includes outstanding real images of their company, staff and products, new graphic design that is cutting edge and eye catching and I also include branding, marketing ideas, and business coaching. As social media became popular I couldn't help but be drawn to the networking power of worldwide communities and I include social media training and some free social media ads with a web design package. To find out a little more about SK Culpepper web design please follow this link. Web Design > Print Design >
Being entrenched in photography from such a young age and always seeing my entire life through a viewfinder either with my camera or my mind, I embraced the idea that a picture was worth a thousand words and viewed writing as the inferior form of communication for me, even though I spent hours upon hours entrenched in other people's word built lands. But about five years ago my mind began weaving its own stories and it got to the point where they grew and expanded so large that they could no longer stay confined in the prison of my mind, forcing me to actually begin the torturous process of birthing them in ink and paper. This was something I didn't want to do. I never paid attention in writing classes, couldn't tell you the difference between a predicate or a participle and had zero interest in ever taking the time or effort to sculpt words into pictures because I was so addicted to the instamatic nature of photography. The only reason I began to begrudgingly write was because all these stories were crowding out my photography thoughts and I felt like if I didn't get them on paper and out of my head, my photography, my first love, would never be the same. But once I started to build worlds, word by word, like legos, I fell in love with the transformative energy of the written word. I came to the realization that the power of writing not only lies in the hands of the writer but also in the minds of the readers and the seeds of imagination that sprout and unfurl new lands in their minds as well. Even though a million people may read the same story, each imagined mind movie replicated from that story will be as unique as a snowflake. I'm part of a weekly prompt writing group called Scribbler's Ink and have quite a few short stories and a full young adult sci-fi novel nearly ready to send out to publishers. To find out more about my writing please follow this link. Writing >