Find the Best Photographers in Great Falls

Dawna Kraus has been behind the camera since 1990, and that three-decade run shows in the ease she brings to a newborn session in Great Falls. Rather than treating a session as a single event, she folds newborn work into a broader practice that spans maternity, family, and wedding photography, which means she’s spent years learning how a household changes in the weeks after a baby arrives and how to work around that unpredictability. Parents describe her sessions as unhurried, she lets a fussy baby settle rather than rushing through a shot list, and she works in natural light rather than a fixed studio setup, which keeps newborn portraits looking soft and true to how the nursery or living room actually looks. She’s a Montana native, which matters here more than it might elsewhere: she’s built her business around the reality of scheduling around Great Falls winters and short newborn windows, not a transplant learning the market as she goes. Her online gallery leans heavily on real client sessions rather than styled stock setups, and her Maternity & Newborn portfolio sits alongside her wedding and family work, so the same eye she brings to a bridal portrait carries into how she frames a sleeping infant. For families who want a photographer who’s been doing this since before most wedding vendors in town existed, she’s a straightforward, locally rooted choice. 

Nyla O’Brien photographs newborns, couples, weddings, elopements, maternity, and portraits out of Great Falls, with newborn sessions sitting alongside a wider mix of life-stage work rather than standing as her sole specialty. She charges no travel fee anywhere within Montana, which matters for a newborn booking specifically since families in the first days after birth are rarely in a position to drive far for a session. Clients booking through her online profile describe her energy as relaxed and fun, with more than one reviewer specifically mentioning how entertaining she keeps a session, a trait that helps with older siblings who need distracting while a newborn is being photographed. Her page shows a consistent five-star rating across fourteen reviews collected over bookings running from 2024 into 2026, with a review posted as recently as this past spring calling her work great and praising how amazing she is to work with. Rather than running a standalone studio website, she operates through a photographer booking platform where clients can see her availability, packages, and reviews in one place and request a session directly. For Great Falls parents who want a documented track record of recent, verifiable client feedback before booking a newborn session, that transparent review history is part of the appeal. 

Loni Judisch runs her lifestyle photography business out of Ledger, a small community outside Great Falls, and covers a service area that stretches across north-central Montana: Conrad, Choteau, Pendroy, Shelby, and Great Falls itself, with additional availability around Missoula, Essex, and the Glacier National Park area. Her newborn work is packaged as a one-hour Lifestyle Newborn, Baby, and Maternity session starting at $450, and she gives families a choice between an in-home shoot or an indoor studio-style space depending on what a particular family prefers. For home sessions, she assesses the house’s natural light ahead of time rather than bringing in a full studio lighting setup, which keeps the session feeling more like a home visit than a production. She notes that in-home newborn sessions work best when the baby is under a week old, before the deep sleep and curled-up poses of the earliest days give way to a more alert, active infant. Weekday availability across Conrad, Shelby, Choteau, Fairfield, and Great Falls gives rural families in the area a realistic option without requiring a long drive into a studio. For parents in the smaller communities surrounding Great Falls who’d rather not travel with a days-old newborn, having a photographer based just outside the city who works on their schedule and in their own space is a meaningful convenience. 

Shawna Lynn built her photography business around a straightforward pitch: she was born and raised in this part of Montana, and it shows in how she talks about her work. Based in Great Falls, she describes her newborn and family portfolio as aiming for genuine, timeless moments rather than heavily directed poses, and her client base extends well past the city limits; she regularly travels to Helena, Bozeman, Missoula, and Billings, and describes herself as willing to go beyond Montana entirely for the right booking. That regional reach matters for newborn work specifically, since new parents often can’t travel far in the first weeks after birth, so having a photographer willing to come to them across Central Montana removes one more logistical hurdle during an already exhausting stretch. Her portfolio mixes newborn portraits with broader family photography, suggesting a practice built around staying with families as their kids grow rather than a single newborn session and nothing after. She frames her connection to the region as a point of pride rather than a marketing line, positioning herself less as an outside photographer passing through and more as someone documenting a place and its families that she’s known her whole life. For Great Falls parents who want a home-state photographer rather than someone flying in for the day, that local grounding is a real differentiator. 

Valerie Smith photographs newborns exclusively in the family’s own home, a decision that shapes everything about how her Great Falls business runs. Rather than a studio backdrop, her sessions happen wherever the baby actually lives: the nursery, the living room, wherever the light and the family’s routine make sense that week. She offers two versions of the session, a Classic booking that runs one to two hours and covers the whole home with a full gallery of images, and a shorter Petite option focused on a single room and one outfit for parents who want something simpler. Her website describes the goal as documenting life with a new baby surrounded by the people and small details that matter, which in practice means parents, siblings, and pets end up in the frame alongside the baby rather than being kept out of it. She also shoots maternity sessions and maintains a blog aimed at Great Falls parents, including a local pregnancy and baby resource guide and posts explaining the case for booking a lifestyle newborn session over a traditional posed one. Families can reach her directly at (406) 750-3355 or by email to check availability, which for newborn work usually needs to happen well before the due date given how quickly that first week passes. 

Joelle Owen started Ivory Photography in Great Falls in 2021, describing her beginning bluntly as picking up a camera with a toddler on her hip and never putting it back down. Five years later, her business has grown into a wide-ranging practice covering families, maternity, couples, weddings, seniors, and business branding, with newborn sessions handled as part of her family and maternity work rather than a separate, heavily produced category. Client accounts describe her arriving directly at a family’s home for newborn sessions; one family recalled how she made them feel at ease the moment she walked in the door and handled their baby with visible patience. Another set of parents credited her with gentle, careful work during a combined maternity-and-newborn booking, praising the timeless quality of the resulting images. As a firefighter’s wife and mother of three herself, Joelle describes her style as warm, candid, and joy-filled, prioritizing real connection over stiff, posed setups. That personal history with young kids at home shows up in how she talks about her work: less about achieving a particular look and more about documenting a specific, unrepeatable stretch of family life. Great Falls parents looking for a relaxed, in-home newborn experience rather than a studio production make up much of her client base. 

Brittany of MB Wilson Photography works Fresh 48 hospital sessions into a practice built mainly around family and senior portraits, serving both Great Falls and Missoula. A Fresh 48 session means she’s willing to show up at the hospital within the first two days after birth, when a family is still adjusting and a baby’s features are at their most newly-arrived. She has raised four children of her own, which she brings up when talking about why those first images matter so much; she knows firsthand how quickly a newborn’s look changes week to week. Her stated philosophy pushes against over-styled, Pinterest-perfect setups in favor of what she calls real, genuine moments, an approach that carries over from her family sessions into her newborn work. Parents drawn to a documentary style over heavily posed studio portraits tend to be the best fit for her sessions. Because she works across two cities, scheduling a hospital visit means coordinating around whichever location she’s covering that week, so families are encouraged to reach out as early as possible once a due date is set. She also runs seasonal mini sessions and standard family portrait bookings, giving Great Falls clients a photographer who can stay with them from the hospital room through every milestone that follows. 

Jules Photography and Gallery operates out of a studio at 497 Flood Road in Great Falls, a space Jules opened after relocating from Miles City in 2014. Her path into photography started early; she was the photography editor for her high school newspaper before working at the Miles City Star, then earned a media arts degree at Montana State University and trained further at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography in Missoula. She ran her own studio in Miles City for five years before a move brought her to Great Falls. Her gallery is organized by life stage: Growing Belly for maternity, Baby Love for infants, then children, families, seniors, and weddings, which means newborn portraits sit inside a broader practice built around documenting families as they change year to year. That structure suits parents who would rather stick with one photographer through pregnancy, the newborn stage, and beyond rather than starting over each time. Clients can reach the studio directly at 406-853-4999. Jules describes photography as something that turns ordinary events into lasting memories, an outlook shaped by years spent finding meaningful moments in daily assignments long before she ever ran her own studio. For Great Falls families wanting a local, established photographer for their baby’s first portraits, her gallery-based approach gives newborn sessions a place inside a much longer family story. 

Kristen Parko runs a Great Falls studio that treats newborn photography as one piece of a much wider practice; her session menu runs from weddings and engagements to seniors, boudoir, maternity, and babies, with newborn portraits listed as their own dedicated category rather than an add-on. She describes her approach to photography broadly as an art of observation, finding something worth noticing in an ordinary place, which shows up in newborn work as a preference for genuine expressions over forced setups. Something that sets her practice apart: she offers complimentary photography to Great Falls families facing terminal illness or stillbirth, a policy that speaks to how she thinks about what a photograph is actually for in the hardest and most tender moments of a family’s life. With more than five years behind the camera, she has built a client base that returns across life stages, from engagement photos to maternity to the newborn session and years of family portraits after. She travels for destination weddings but keeps newborn sessions local to Great Falls and the surrounding area, working around the unpredictable schedule that comes with a baby who is only days old. Parents looking for a single photographer to grow with their family over years, rather than booking separately for every occasion, are her core audience. 

Since 2011, Becky Monroe has built a newborn photography business in Great Falls around a simple preference: babies who are only a few days old, still curled and sleepy from the womb. That narrow window is where she says she does her best work, posing tiny limbs and tucking blankets with the patience the job demands. Families who reach out to Becky Monroe Photography are usually calling within the first week after birth, before the newborn stage passes and those particular wrinkles and curls smooth out. Her studio has become a fixture for Great Falls parents who want portraits made before the fleeting early days are gone. She also offers birth photography, documenting labor and delivery for families who want that chapter told in full, and baby and child sessions as kids grow past the newborn stage. Reach her at (406) 781-8396 to talk through timing; for newborn work in particular, she’ll often ask about the due date well ahead of the birth so a session can be scheduled fast once the baby arrives. Fifteen years into this work, she still describes tiny hands and sleepy expressions as what keeps her behind the camera, and clients note her calm, unhurried approach with brand-new infants who don’t exactly follow direction. 

Kristen Parko has spent more than five years building a portrait and wedding photography practice out of Great Falls that has since drawn national recognition, with her work multi-published across photography outlets beyond Montana. Her wedding coverage sits within a wider practice that includes engagement and couples sessions, senior portraits, newborn and children’s photography, family portraits, boudoir, and maternity work, giving her a photographer’s fluency with people at nearly every life stage — useful on a wedding day that often includes grandparents, toddlers, and everyone in between in the same family formals. She books destination weddings nationwide in addition to her local Great Falls client base, so couples marrying elsewhere but wanting a Montana-based photographer have that option. Beyond the paid side of her business, Kristen offers free photography sessions to Great Falls families facing terminal illness or stillbirth, a quiet but meaningful piece of her practice that speaks to how she thinks about the emotional weight photography can carry beyond weddings. That same instinct for capturing significant, sometimes difficult moments with care shows up in her wedding work too, where she is known for staying attentive to the family dynamics unfolding around the couple rather than only focusing on the two people at the altar. 

David Rabenberg’s portfolio covers more ground than most wedding photographers in Great Falls, spanning weddings, engagements, senior portraits, landscapes, families, and — unusually — NICU reunion photography, sessions that document families reconnecting with children who spent time in neonatal intensive care. That last specialty says something about his approach generally: he treats photography as a way to preserve emotionally significant milestones, not just to produce pretty images, and that sensibility carries into how he covers a wedding day, watching for the meaningful exchanges between family members alongside the standard ceremony and reception shots. His galleries are organized by category on a Zenfolio-hosted site, with a dedicated wedding gallery showcasing dozens of images from real Montana ceremonies rather than a small curated sample. He serves Great Falls and the surrounding Montana region, and his site includes upfront wedding pricing information along with a client access portal for delivering finished galleries. For couples who want a photographer whose interests extend beyond weddings into documenting family milestones more broadly, and who value someone with genuine range across landscape and portrait work, Rabenberg’s varied portfolio makes the case for itself. 

Melissa Wilks has been drawn to photography since childhood, and M.Wilks Photography channels that long-running interest specifically into weddings and engagement sessions rather than spreading across every portrait genre. Her stated priority is documenting each magical moment of a wedding day without pricing herself out of reach for couples working with a realistic budget, and that budget-conscious positioning has earned her strong early reviews from clients who felt they got high-quality coverage without overpaying. Based in Great Falls, she serves couples across Montana and is recommended by 98 percent of the couples who have reviewed her on wedding planning platforms — a strong signal for a newer entrant in a market with several established studios. Because her business is intentionally focused rather than trying to be all things to all clients, couples booking with M.Wilks Photography are working with someone whose primary craft focus is squarely on weddings, not someone treating wedding photography as a side offering next to a larger portrait or commercial practice. She communicates directly with clients by email to walk through timeline, coverage hours, and shot-list priorities ahead of the wedding day, which suits couples who prefer a more personal, hands-on planning process with their photographer before booking. 

John and Elisha Mack run Really Montana Photography as a husband-and-wife team out of a studio at 413 Central Avenue in downtown Great Falls, and that storefront presence gives them something many wedding photographers don’t have: a physical, walk-in home base clients can visit before booking. Alongside full wedding-day coverage, the studio handles family photography, senior portraits, commercial headshots, and business photography, plus a photo booth rental that some couples add on for their reception. That breadth means the Macks are shooting people constantly, in formal and informal settings alike, which sharpens the instincts they bring to a wedding day’s mix of posed family portraits and unscripted reception moments. Client reviews describe John and Elisha as phenomenal photographers and even better people, with praise for how quickly finished wedding galleries come back after the event — a common pain point with photographers, but not one that comes up in their reviews. Their approach centers on three stated principles: keeping sessions fun, maintaining professional standards throughout, and continuing to learn and improve their craft rather than resting on past work. For Great Falls couples who want a local, established team with a real storefront and a track record across multiple photography disciplines, Really Montana Photography is a straightforward, low-risk choice. 

Sarah Gillaspie built her business around a simple idea: a wedding album should let a couple feel everything exactly as they did in the moment, not as a stiff reenactment of it. She shoots with an emphasis on warmth, earthiness, and adventure, favoring genuine laughter and happy tears over posed smiles, and many of her galleries lean into Montana’s outdoor scenery, including mountain hikes and lakeside ceremonies that take full advantage of the state’s landscape. Wedding packages through Sarah Gillaspie Photo run four to eight hours depending on coverage needs, and she includes a complimentary engagement session with most bookings, giving couples a low-pressure chance to get comfortable in front of her camera before the wedding day itself. A distinguishing feature of her business is the videography add-on, handled by her husband, which lets couples book coordinated photo and video coverage from a single vendor rather than managing two separate contracts and two separate teams on their wedding day. She works primarily across Montana with availability for destination weddings elsewhere, and her online presence, active across Instagram and TikTok in addition to her own site, shows a consistent style across dozens of real weddings rather than a handful of curated portfolio pieces. 

Joelle Owen started Ivory Photography in 2021 and has since become enough of a fixture in the Great Falls wedding scene that the community voted her Best Photographer in Great Falls in 2025. Off the clock she is a firefighter’s wife and mother of three, and that home life seems to inform her approach on wedding days: she has a knack for reading a room full of relatives and easing everyone, from anxious brides to camera-shy grandparents, into a comfortable rhythm before the first formal photo is even taken. Her stated goal is freezing real, honest moments rather than orchestrating a magazine spread, and clients describe her as extremely personable and attentive, willing to go the extra mile for a shot while still keeping the day feeling relaxed instead of rushed. Alongside full wedding-day coverage she offers second-shooter add-ons for larger weddings, engagement sessions, and destination and travel photography for couples marrying outside Montana. Her portfolio also includes family, maternity, senior, and business branding work, which means she brings a photographer’s versatility to a wedding day rather than only knowing how to shoot ceremonies. In five years of business she has built a loyal local following largely through word of mouth and repeat referrals from past couples. 

Patricia Hammill runs Buckskin and Blue Photography from a home base near the Highwood Mountains just outside Great Falls, where she also raises bucking horses with her partner — a detail that isn’t incidental to her work. Her ranch background gives her an unusual specialty among Montana wedding photographers: equine and Western-lifestyle photography sits alongside her wedding, engagement, and family portfolios, and it shows in how naturally she handles outdoor, rural venues that trip up photographers used to indoor ballrooms. Originally from Oregon and shaped by fifteen years living in southern Idaho before settling in central Montana, she brings what she calls a gypsy soul to her shoots, always chasing the next interesting light or backdrop rather than defaulting to the same three poses at every wedding. Couples who book her for ranch weddings, barn receptions, or anything involving horses in the background get a photographer who isn’t learning that environment on the fly. Her client reviews reflect consistent satisfaction, with an average five-star rating across eight reviews. Beyond weddings she also shoots engagements, senior portraits, and business photography, but it’s the combination of formal wedding-day polish with genuine comfort around livestock and open range that sets her apart in the Great Falls market. 

Mackenzie Keough markets herself, only half-jokingly, as a fine art wedding photographer for adventurous souls who are wildly in love, and her portfolio backs that up. She mixes film, photojournalistic framing, and traditional posed portraiture within a single wedding, switching approaches depending on what a moment calls for rather than sticking to one formula all day. That range has earned her recognition beyond Great Falls: her work has been featured in Smitten Magazine and she carries vendor badges from several wedding publications, a sign that other industry professionals, not just clients, rate her images highly. Locally she has built a strong reputation with a 5.0 rating across nine reviews, and couples who have worked with her describe a laid-back shooting experience that still produces striking, editorial-quality final galleries. Her practice extends past Great Falls into California and destination weddings, which means she brings big-production experience back to her Montana clients even when the wedding itself is a smaller, local affair. She offers trash-the-dress sessions and post-wedding portrait shoots for couples who want more images than a single day allows, and she is known for staying past the contracted hours when a reception is still going strong, rather than packing up the moment the clock runs out. 

Megan Jean Rolin describes her job as being a professional moment scouter — a phrase that sums up her entire approach to wedding photography. Rather than choreographing every shot, she spends a wedding day watching for the split-second interactions that couples never think to ask for: a father’s face during a first look, a best friend cracking up during toasts, hands finding each other under a reception table. She has run Megan Jean Photography out of Great Falls since 2019, building a body of work centered on Montana’s wide-open landscapes as a backdrop for real, unscripted connection. Her wedding coverage leans documentary, but she is equally comfortable directing a formal portrait session when a couple wants those classic shots for their parents’ mantle. What sets her apart locally is consistency: after several years shooting Montana weddings in every season, from golden-hour July ceremonies to snow-dusted winter elopements, she has learned how the state’s light and terrain behave and plans coverage accordingly. She keeps her client list intentionally manageable so she can give each wedding her full attention rather than treating it as one of many bookings that weekend. For couples who want a mix of authentic storytelling and a few of those unforgettable, obviously-posed hero shots, she offers both without making either feel forced. 

Brenna Hohn has built one of Great Falls’s most reviewed photography businesses one wedding at a time, and it shows in how comfortable her couples look in front of the camera. Her studio handles engagements, ceremonies, and receptions with an eye toward genuine reactions rather than stiff, staged poses, and she keeps sessions loose enough that nervous couples relax within the first few minutes. Clients consistently mention how much fun their shoot felt, which is exactly the point: Brenna believes photos taken under stress read as stressed, so she works hard to keep the mood light even during a jam-packed wedding-day timeline. Beyond weddings, her portfolio spans boudoir, maternity, Fresh 48 newborn sessions, and family portraits, giving her a broad sense of how to photograph people at every stage of a relationship, from engagement through the arrival of a first child. That range means she is comfortable directing large wedding parties one weekend and working quietly with a newborn the next. She works throughout Great Falls and across the state of Montana, traveling to venues from downtown ceremony halls to rural family ranches. With roughly thirty client reviews behind her, she has become a go-to name for couples who want their wedding album to feel like a true, unscripted record of the day rather than a highlight reel of poses.