Milwaukee Wedding Photographer Joel NisleitIf you need a classic-style wedding photographer covering anywhere in Southeast Wisconsin, contact me today.

A glimpse of me, what I do and why it matters

Our 4-year-old foster daughter Hailey looked up at a portrait in our hallway of my wife Heather and I and asked, "Are we not in there?"

It'd only been a month and a half since she and her 3-year-old sister Ellie had been placed with us, and we hadn't had time to settle down enough to even think about having a foster family portrait done.

We'd had dozens of family pictures on our iPhones and iPads, and hundreds of others of the girls -- our new foster family. 

But out of the endless screens of digital snapshots we'd already had, many of which the girls took, Hailey instinctively recognized that a portrait on the wall meant we were a family, or weren't.

A 4-year-old girl showed me exactly why I do heirloom wedding photography better than I could. How can I represent anything less?

Imagine everything your wedding portraits could mean and how important it is to choose a photographer who represents that.

Qualification mumbo jumbo

As someone entrusted with weddings, I believe in being an active, fully-trained professional in good standing with the business community. As a proud member of the Horicon Chamber of Commerce, I help support local businesses and find ways to give back to the community through photography education. I'm also a member of Professional Photographers of America.

I've spent hundreds of hours studying, training and honing my craft at all levels. I continue to study the latest business and photography techniques to improve my service and results.

While I have made many discoveries, such as that I like cole slaw as long as it's from a Memphis BBQ joint, one thing I didn't discover was my passion for images. That was always there. It just took a lot of years and a lot of work to turn it into a career.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be like my dad, who loved to photograph our travels. When he introduced me to an SLR camera for the first time when I was about 10, I became fascinated with learning what it all did and have been studying and practicing ever since.

From 2004 to 2010, I worked as a photojournalist/reporter for the Dodge County Pionier in Wisconsin, where I was an innovative photographer, page designer and writer, winning Wisconsin Newspaper Association awards (click; under second group) in those categories in 2007 and 2008.

But I wanted to create fairy tales and saw a need for higher quality and better service in the wedding market. So I began studying and practicing wedding photography in 2012. I briefly contracted with American Wedding Group and Edward Fox Photography before specializing in wedding portraits full-time on my own in 2014.

The juicy stuff

Most recently played tracks: Trolls soundtrack

Most recently watched movie: Trolls, Trolls, and Trolls

Most consumed beverage of the week: Mountain Dew (to get through more Trolls)

The really juicy stuff

• I'm a poet published in literary magazines Phantasmagoria and Wisconsin Review.
• My favorite color is sapphire blue.
• I love EDM, Tool and Chopin, with a few guilty pop pleasures here and there.
• Movies that blew my mind: The Matrix, The Avengers, LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring, The Descent, Blue Velvet, The Mist, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire. Dances With Wolves did everything right.
• Stuff I watch in bed: Big Bang Theory, Star Trek: Next Gen, Frasier, Golden Girls (I'm not ashamed!).
• The B'b'b Bacon burger at Slater's 50/50 in San Diego was so good, it made me cry.