Oak Park’s Ebert Studio is celebrating 100 years in business by taking a walk down memory lane and highlighting the photography techniques of four generations from the family business.
Tintype exposures on metal; black-and-white photos painted with oils; Ebert’s signature brand of families photographed in natural light; and owner Jeff Ebert’s emerging MOD style are featured over the course of the year’s celebration.
During a recent tour of the residential home, converted to a photography studio in 1980, Ebert said the studio is offering special deals throughout the year that highlight the various techniques.
He said it’s been a century of change for the studio founded by his great-grandfather, Henry Ebert, in 1915 on Chicago’s West Side at Madison and Crawford. The studio relocated to Oak Park at Lake and Austin in 1960 and then again to its current site at 227 S. Marion Street.
But the more things change the more they stay the same, he said.
“What makes Ebert Studio unique is that we have kept the original art of creating family heirlooms, coupled with the satisfaction of helping clients enjoy their portrait experience,” Ebert said. “We are in the business of making people feel special – and that hasn’t changed since my great-grandfather began the business.”
He says the equipment has changed with the advent of digital photography but what has stayed the same is the natural-light technique developed by his father, Bob Ebert.
After completing college at the University of Wisconsin in 1991, Jeff Ebert began working at the family business. Jeff began working with digital about 10 years ago as his father entered retirement.
“I think he held on a little longer because he thought I was going to convert behind his back,” Ebert joked.
“He taught me all about painting with (natural) light in any outdoor or indoor environment,” Ebert said of his father. “I learned to be consistent and to never compromise my art. Don’t take shortcuts. Work hard.”
As technology has moved Ebert studio forward, it’s also given the business the chance to move backward. Laser printers that recreate images on metal plates allow Ebert Studio to recreate the tintype technique practiced by his great-grandfather.
For decades, the studio has focused its brand on using natural light in its portraits, rather than strobe lights used by other studios, Ebert said.Â
“I think the reason (my father) fell in love with the natural light and the reason I like it is because it’s the way you see people,” he said.
In homage to Jeff’s grandfather, Will Ebert, the studio has begun offering painted portraits.Â
In his day, Will offered black-and-white portraits that were then painted with oils, Jeff said. The new painted portraits are subtler in their brushstrokes and technique than in decades past, Ebert said.
Ebert said he’s using the business’s big anniversary to roll out his own technique, a modern style using vivid backgrounds that give the portraits a 3-dimensional quality. The technique strays from the traditional positioning of subjects and encourages them to be themselves.
“It’s so different for me to not perfect everything; it was a big challenge,” Ebert said.
He said that one thing that’s stayed the same throughout the generations is the business’s commitment to family.
Contact: tim@oakpark.com