Behind the Camera: Crafting Stories with Professionalism, Creativity, and a Heart for Inclusion and Community.
Join me on a journey where every click tells a story, blending professionalism, creativity, and a warm embrace of inclusion and community spirit.
Hi there!
I’m Shawn Pierce. I’m the owner of, and the creative voice behind, Studio Two Seven Nine.
Who am I? Well, I am a dad to my creative, free-spirited, daughter and a husband to my amazing, successful, wife. I am a photographer, an artist, and a small business owner in my adopted home community of Rochester, New Hampshire.
With my work, I value, above everything else, authenticity. I strive to stay true to who I am as a photographer and artist while working in a collaborative fashion with my clients to capture their own uniqueness and authenticity.
The Studio Two Seven Nine Story
I haven’t always been a portrait photographer. In fact, when I started my career in 2012 portrait photography wasn’t even on my radar. Nope. I always wanted to be a motorsports photographer. So, for the first 8 years, that’s what I pursued. I traveled from race track to race track. Photographing big multi-day race weekends and small, intimate track days. Honing my craft, networking in the industry, and learning to tell stories with my photography. During this time my work was published in magazines on both sides of the Atlantic and used in regional and national ad campaigns. In 2018 I landed my dream job: Staff Photographer for my favorite place in the world, Lime Rock Park, a historic race track in Northwest Connecticut where I’d been attending races since I was 5 years old and the location where I can trace the roots of my love of photography. Honestly, things were going great.
In the summer of 2019, my life changed forever when my daughter was born and I became known by a new title… Dad. As every parent knows, the arrival of a child changes everything. Kids re-orient our goals, make us re-evaluate what’s important, and help us see the broader picture of life. For the next year and a half, I tried valiantly to keep up my hectic travel schedule while also serving as a stay-at-home dad but, the logistics were just too complicated and I needed to figure something else out.
So, over the winter of 2020, I decided that I would push myself into a new and intriguing field of photography and I opened Studio Two Seven Nine in the Salmon Falls Mills in Rollinsford. I had literally no experience with portrait photography, but it fascinated me. So, I set to work. I hired a lighting expert to teach me everything I needed to know about studio lighting to get started. I immersed myself in education and had someone in front of my camera as often as possible. After a year or so I noticed my work was starting to find its voice. And, more importantly, I started to notice that I was getting good at getting my subjects to relax and allow their authentic selves to come to the surface.
Once I was comfortable in the studio and producing unique and creative work, it was time to bring Studio Two Seven Nine home to Rochester. So, after a 2-year run in Rollinsford, I moved into my permanent location above the Rochester Chamber of Commerce on South Main Street. Having my studio located only about a mile from my home has allowed me to spend much more time building Studio Two Seven Nine into the go-to portrait and headshot photography studio in Rochester.
Oh, and I still get to play at the race track. In fact, 2023 was my sixth season contracted as a Staff Photographer for Lime Rock Park.
Life is good.
I have a 5-star rating on Google. Check out what some of my clients have said about working with me.
My work has won many awards over the years and I continue to enter my work in competitions and shows with an ever-present eye on improving my craft.
My daughter Olive in her Halloween costume in 2022.