Jonathan found his love of photography and light while working in Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1999. During his time there, he mentored under a professional photographer that taught him how to see and capture light - the very foundation of photography. Upon returning home to St. Louis after that summer, he began pursuing a career in professional photography. In 2002, Jonathan accepted a position with a St. Louis Studio as a portrait & wedding photographer and studied under five different Master Photographers. In 2006, he and his wife Lindsay moved to Colorado and opened Jonathan Betz Photography in Colorado Springs.
Jonathan earned his Masters of Photography Degree (M.Photog.) in 2019 and Certified Professional Photographer (CPP) in 2015, conferred by The Professional Photographers of America. His work has been recognized with honors at the national and international level, most recently receiving the Platinum Medal and earning highest honors with a Grand Imaging Award. Jonathan served five terms as the President of the Professional Photographers Guild of Colorado Springs. He has served on the Board of Directors for state and regional professional photography organizations. He's committed to lifelong learning and continually seeks to elevate his craft through professional training, education, and teaching opportunities to help younger photographers refine their skills and businesses.
Studio Manager | Lindsay Betz, Cr.Photog
Lindsay joined the photography industry when she and Jonathan moved to Colorado in 2006, filling the integral role of studio management in the business. Our client families benefit from her guidance for everything before and after the photography session.
As she has embraced the photography industry, she loves opportunities to teach and present to the community of professional photographers from her expertise on the business side of photography. She has presented to professional photographers on the national platform every year since 2018. In 2022, she was recognized with the National Award for Business Education by Professional Photographers of America (PPA).
In 2019, she earned her Photographic Craftsman (Cr.Photog.), the degree that recognizes those in the photography industry that serve through professional-level teaching. She was elected to the National Council for PPA in 2016 and continues that leadership into her third term. She also serves on the PPA Education Advisory Board Committee. Additionally, she has served on the Board of Directors for the Professional Photographers Guild of Colorado Springs since 2015.
Kevin is a highly accomplished musician on the flute. He performs in Pine Creek High School’s orchestra and in the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony and plans to pursue a career in performance. With flute playing such a huge role in his life, it was well-featured in his senior session in the beautiful, lush, woodsy setting of Cheyenne Cañon.
Enjoy favorites from his portrait session below. Kevin, we wish you our best as you pursue your dreams to be a full-time career musician! We know that passion and dedication fuel all the hard work and countless hours of practice that lead to accomplishing those dreams – enjoy the pursuit of chasing after them!
Hannah is both creative and athletic. She loves expressing her creative side in the digital art medium. Her athleticism has found a home on the wrestling mat where she has excelled in high school level competition and will continue competitive wrestling at the collegiate level.
We love the broad range of attire she chose for her senior portraits session: her sporty look for her wrestling; the simplicity of a black jacket with jeans; and two different dresses along with a fun hat. The variety of looks is awesome and showcases a broad range of personality and expression. We always encourage this, and Hannah embraced it!
Her session landed toward the end of the senior season as Falcon High School gives one of the latest due dates for the yearbook. With that extra time, she has the beauty of snow featured in her portraits. At that time in December, little did we know how rare the snowfall would be this season that has felt less like “winter” and more like an extended fall to spring. The frostiness complements so well the pastel of her gorgeous lavender formal dress with the warmth of the sun giving a beautiful glow across her session.
Congratulations, Hannah, on your upcoming graduation! We wish you the best in all your next steps as your collegiate studies toward a degree in Physical Therapy begin!
Every season of the year you’ll find Jonathan photographing sessions outdoors. The most important aspect of family portraits is capturing the people you love most and honoring the relationships that matter, and when we live in such a scenic place, portraits that feature the people you love in the beauty of the outdoors is the most popular setting for portraits. Here are our thoughts on the seasons and how they impact outdoor photography:
SUMMER (June-August) is a favorite for the most vibrant, lush green tones throughout the outdoor landscape. We often have the consistent afternoon showers in June making that one of the best months for green. Summer also boasts the fields of wildflowers, best from mid-July through August. With daylight extending well into the evening, session times land after parent work days and golden hour is magical. It’s the warmest time of the year, though since we schedule our outdoor sessions for best light, you’ll always have an evening session during the summer months when the temps lessen from the heat of the day.
FALL (September-November) offers pleasant temperatures and golden tones across the natural landscapes. At Colorado Springs’ elevation, the true fall colors emerge in October, but our natural grasses already transition from greens to golds beginning in September. For leaves on trees, we recommend completing your session before November.
WINTER (December-March) offers a cooler palette in our outdoor settings. Snow on Pikes Peak and sometimes on the foothills is our favorite benefit of a winter session, and there’s certainly chances for snow! Since you can’t plan ahead for a snow session, we keep a list of families hoping for a snowy landscape for sessions and wait for the right days to come to see if everyone can make it happen. Our snow days can be few and far between, so snow for your session is never a guarantee. We also lean to certain locations over others in these months as locations with evergreens and a more consistent variety of year-round colors present better than those with deciduous trees during the winter months.
SPRING (April-May) is often one of the shortest seasons in the mountains and one of the least predictable as one day to another can feel like a completely different season. You have the potential for snow, rain, or a gorgeous warm day with newly-opened leaves on the trees and the early greening of the grasses. Flowering trees can be a special part of this season. Wind is most prevalent in Spring and definitely a factor to expect during an outdoor session in this season. We guarantee you’ll love your portraits with us, so when and if weather interferes on your session day, we will always reschedule or pivot to our indoor studio space. Spring sessions are often most in demand around graduation time when extended families are all together to celebrate a grad, and the days right after graduation celebrations are perfect for a short studio session to capture your Grad in Cap & Gown with the diploma in hand.
Ultimately, whatever time of year gathers your loved ones together to create family portraits is the time to do them! When you have flexibility, we hope our thoughts above guide you to your desired season. June through November are peak for our outdoor photography calendar, so it’s important to start the conversation with us weeks (or months!) ahead of when you want to be photographed. With Jon’s talented eye for composition and mastery of natural and augmented lighting, our families love their portraits regardless of the season, and each season has something to celebrate.
We seriously have the best job. And the best clients who give us such a high compliment with repeat business and the joy of becoming a family’s go-to photography team.
Hunter had his senior portraits captured by us long enough ago that he is now ENGAGED (yay!) and knew Jonathan was who he wanted to capture engagement portraits. It has been so fun to catch up with Hunter and meet his delightful fiancee.
Engagement portraits are such a special set of portraits to tell the story of that unique season of anticipation leading up to the start of marriage. The excitement and romance present in this season for couples is unmatched and worth celebrating and remembering as the relationship deepens and matures so significantly when marriage begins. You want to freeze these priceless memories from the engagement, and we are honored to have done just that for Hunter and Jade.
He proposed on a 14er, and we love that they brought that part of their story into the engagement portraits. The fall colors were one of their main requests, and the colors showcased so well for their fall session. We’re excited to share favorites from their photography and trust these will forever bring smiles to their faces and a flood of favorite memories from their engagement.
We loved serving this family with family portraits that had been in mind for over a year prior to completing their session. We understand that many dynamics and challenges often make scheduling and coordinating time across all the family members difficult…especially when you find yourself in that time in life that the kids are young adults and out of the house!
And yet…The effort is worth it.
Family portraits are priceless opportunities to freeze the season you’re in and forever create a connection to the best moments and memories from that fleeting time. Families are always changing…a new child is welcomed, kids grow and change (and quickly!), marriages happen and the family expands, grandchildren come, and certainly the moments that hit the hardest happen when we experience loss. There are both joyful and grief-filled changes. And all of them matter. It’s so important to mark some of the seasons in the life of a family and give your family the gift of connecting the present to the past. And it is a gift to have portraits visible in your home spaces, filling your home and heart with joy and sweet memories of the people you love most in this world.
For the Olds family, these summer portraits captured the final season as a just family of 5 as they welcomed a daughter-in-law to the family last fall! We’re excited to share favorites from their portraits completed last July. June and July are the best months for the vibrant, lush green tones of the grasses and trees, and their location of Cheyenne Cañon showcases those beautiful greens so well.
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