As a wedding photographer, it is my responsibility to deliver exceptional photos, every event, without fail. Every wedding is a ballet, telling a love story through emotion and the subtleties of light.  Carrying a case full of Sigma lenses, such as the extremely versatile 24-105mm f4 Art, along with a few primes like the tack sharp 85mm f1.4 Art and the indispensable 12-24mm f4 Art wide angle lens, I can capture that love story, creating something magical. I recently had the opportunity to document the wedding of the Grammy Award winning couple Kate and Forrest O’Connor, and build a video slideshow featuring their own music.

© Steve Chesler | 2017 Armed with a collection of Sigma lenses, such as the 24-105mm f4 Art lens, I have the tools necessary to create spectacular images at every wedding. Exposure 1/200th second at f18 iso 500. Focal length 24mm

The wedding took place at the magnificent Belhurst Castle, perched high above the shore of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes Region of New York.  Weddings by nature involve constantly changing conditions with both lighting and setting. My lens of choice to capture a large portion of the wedding due to it’s versatility and sharpness is the Sigma 24-105mm f4 Art lens. That being said, I have several lenses in my arsenal that I use for specific purposes throughout the day.

© Steve Chesler | 2017 The Sigma 24-105mm f4 Art lens is my primary lens at every wedding for it’s versatility as a wide angle, telephoto and light gathering ability with a constant f4 aperture. Exposure 1/200th second at f16 iso 500. Focal length 24mm.

©2016 Steve Chesler

At the end of every hockey season, I get to play with strobes on the ice at my local ice rink in Western New York. This year I had the opportunity to play with the new Sigma 24-35mm f2 DG HSM along with the Sigma 10mm F2.8 DC Diagonal Fisheye. Shooting with wide angle lenses for sports action allows for a unique look compared to the typical telephoto compression on most sports images.

If you only had 8 seconds to shoot the perfect shot, which lens would you choose? When I had the opportunity to shoot the Attica Rodeo in Attica, NY, I immediately reached for my Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 Sport lens. I knew the action would be fast, I didn’t know what the lighting would be and there would most certainly be dirt and dust flying. The lens could handle all of it, even if the lighting was less than optimal. Fortunately, it was a beautiful late summer day, so I didn’t have any lighting curve balls thrown at me. What I wasn’t counting on being thrown at me came from a bulls rear end.

A good friend of mine, Brody Wheeler, an excellent photographer himself has been involved with the Attica Rodeo for years, along with several generations of his family. He was able to get me inside access that I may not have had otherwise.  I wanted to shoot down low with the action coming toward me to stack the subjects. The best vantage point to do this was from the bull riding shoot for the events that didn’t involve the bulls such as the calf roping, barrel racing and team penning.

© 2015 Steve Chesler | Shooting from a low angle with a wide aperture with the Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 Sport lens with the action coming toward me made for some dramatic images.

As a member of the Sigma Pro Team, it’s always Christmas with new lenses arriving for me to play with. When the Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM | Sports lens showed up at the door like a baby being delivered by a stork, I couldn’t get it on my camera fast enough. My son had a little league game later in the afternoon, so I was very eager to give the lens a work out of it’s own.  As with many things in life, like ice cream, you can have too much of a good thing. With such a small field, I was right on top of the action which was too much for such a strong lens. Instead of switching to a shorter lens, I decided to switch to a bigger field, so I contacted the Rochester Red Wings, the Triple A farm team of the Minnesota Twins.

© 2015 Steve Chesler | Rochester Red Wings pitcher Lester Oliveros tosses a pitch to the plate against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. With the exceptional pulling power of the Sigma 150-600mm Sport lens, none of the action was out of reach.

© 2015 Steve Chesler

The World of Outlaw Late Model Series came to Weedsport Speedway in Upstate New York on June 23rd. A few weeks earlier I photographed the wedding of one of the series’ top drivers, Tim McCreadie, so this was a perfect opportunity to spend an evening with him at the track to get some behind the scenes footage with some new Sigma lenses.

© 2015 Steve Chesler | Sigma 120-300mm F2.8 DG OS HSM | Sports

© 2015 Steve Chesler | Sigma 120-300mm F2.8 DG OS HSM | Sports

My main focus was to put Sigma’s 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sport to the test on the track, along with using the versatility of the Sigma 17-70 F2.8-4 Contemporary lens for some of the pit action. Once the sun went down, I switched over to the Sigma 120-300 F2.8 DG OS HSM Sport lens for the feature race.

© 2015 Steve Chesler |

I was about 13 years old when I saw the USAF Thunderbirds air demonstration team for the first time. I knew at that moment that I wanted to be a fighter pilot, but alas, it was not meant to be. My eye sight wasn’t 20/20, which back in the 80’s meant that I was ineligible. Nevertheless, my passion for flight never dwindled and I make it a point to see every air show that I can. At this years Rochester International Air Show, I had the opportunity to photograph the Navy’s Blue Angels with Sigma’s 150-600mm Sport lens. Could this lens possibly be the best lens ever to photograph an air show?

Walking in to the gym at our local high school, you can’t help but notice the two 20 foot wide by 6 foot tall vinyl sports banners of both the boys and girls varsity basketball teams. I’ve received numerous comments on them including one person who said, “As soon as I entered the gym, I knew it was a ‘Chesler’ image.”

It’s a marketing jackpot that pays for itself over and over in exposure to other teams and high school seniors for their portrait sessions. In this blog post I will go over how I got the job, how I shot it, how I created it and the sales I made from it.

© 2015 Steve Chesler

© 2015 Steve Chesler |

Shooting hockey tournaments on a regular basis, I consider myself a seasoned veteran on the ins and outs of shooting hockey, such as keeping the equipment up and running in cold rinks and how to adjust for the challenging lighting situations. As experienced as I am with these, I still feel I was caught a little off guard when I agreed to shoot the Great Lakes Girls Hockey League Playoff Tournament at an outdoor twin rink complex in Buffalo in late February.