A Life Behind the Lens

SHANNON ROCK SHARES STORIES OF FINDING HER PASSION, AND THEN USING IT TO HEAL

 BY NORA HESTON TARTE / D SHANNON LEA ROCK

Shannon Lea Rock is an accomplished photographer. In addition to gracing the pages of San Joaquin Magazine frequently with her work, she has also photographed countless couples, products, small businesses, and editorial shoots, as well as big brand promotional content for large companies like Deloitte Digital. The truth is, she’s done a little of it all, impressing the masses with her editorial approach to still photography. Despite the obviousness of how perfectly Shannon fits behind a camera lens, the path to get to where she is today was not a straight one.

The military vet got into her first career in large part because, at 17 years old, she was financially motivated. Being a cook, at the time, came with the largest cash bonus in the service, so learn to cook she did. After serving, Shannon continued on her culinary path as a chef but soon learned feeding the masses wasn’t really feeding her soul.

It was around this time that a past significant other suggested film as a career choice. Always enamored by TV and movies, the professional shift made sense to Shannon, and she pursued a degree in motion pictures and television—one that fizzled when she learned the film industry lifestyle wasn’t really her speed.

Shannon did, however, put her film degree to good use when her brother got married and she gifted him and his new spouse a wedding video as a present. She posted it online, and immediately the inquiries started trickling in. Shannon was hired and her new job was as a wedding videographer. So why, she had to ask herself, was it still not sitting right? Luckily, Shannon had gotten close with this gig, and it was a natural transition into still photography where now she runs Preserve Studio, a Photography and Film company offering high-end portraits, business branding through imagery, marketing and product shoots, editorial images, and commercials, along with photography and videography for local elopements and weddings and destination and adventure nuptials. In the midst of this, she had a sister company with her mother, a wedding floral design company called Rosemarry & Vine, which has since morphed into floral workshops, mentorships, and floral design for editorial shoots.

“It took a couple of steps to get there,” Shannon says of her path to photography. But now that she’s arrived, she wouldn’t trade it for anything. And while off-beat elopements, couples shoots, portraits, and branding imagery are her favorite avenues, Shannon has also ventured off into another project, one that explores inner beauty through highly stylized and emotional photoshoots that aim to capture the truth, substance, pain, suffering, and triumph of her subjects. It’s a project that once landed her the cover of San Joaquin Magazine (January 2021) and later earned her a one-week exhibit at the Haggin Museum. Her subjects include everyone from women struggling with outer beauty as they undergo breast cancer treatments and body-altering surgeries, to those who have lived with and survived bulimia, anorexia, depression, mental health difficulties, and even suicide attempts.

While the portraits evoke both the beauty and the inner turmoil of her subjects, the messaging is hopeful. Subjects share their stories as they are coming out of the anguish, showing the importance of inner beauty and being who you are despite how the world may meet that somedays. “There’s something very intimate about it,” Shannon says of her photography. “I feel like I’m getting a chance to reveal their soul, visually. The end goal for anyone seeing my work is to feel emotion, and if I am doing it right, to walk away in awe.”

The project is still developing and has even shifted gears a few times, but as Shannon collects stories to tell, she is also prepping to create a coffee table book—one that will send proceeds to the nonprofits of her subjects’ choosing. “Every single experience within it makes me feel so amazing,” she says. “To help someone, to make them feel beautiful, to help them heal, to validate their lives and their stories, and finally to give the onlooker hope as well.”

It’s also, in an indirect way, an avenue for Shannon to heal her own traumas, from childhood bullying to losing her father to suicide to a handful of abusive relationships. “In the beginning, it was about making people feel beautiful,” she says. “I didn’t realize how much help I needed to give myself and how much healing I needed to do until I started diving into that project.”

Looking to the future, the book isn’t the end of her journey to help others. Shannon wants to start mentoring a team of photographers to assist in handling the growing load of weddings and more. She also wants to help others in getting their businesses off of the ground both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.