Jennifer Lindberg Studio: A Portrait Destination in Lockhart 

By Anthony Collins

LPR Editor                                             

   When Jennifer Lindberg and her husband, Jim, moved to Lockhart in 2010, they weren’t chasing a business plan. They were chasing a life.

   The couple dreamed of restoring a historic home and raising their family in a small town with character. Lockhart quickly won them over. Its historic square, welcoming pace, and strong sense of community offered something they couldn’t find in a larger city. What they didn’t know then was that the town would eventually become the foundation for one of Central Texas’ most distinctive portrait studios.

   By 2016, the idea of relocating Jennifer Lindberg’s photography business from Austin to Lockhart began to surface, but it felt risky. Trusted voices warned that clients wouldn’t travel for portraits. That assumption changed when close friends offered to sell the couple a building on the square. With early support from Sage Bank, which believed in the vision from the beginning, the Lindbergs restored the space into what is now Jennifer Lindberg Studio located at 103 E. San Antonio Street.

   Today, that leap of faith has paid off. Between 500 and 700 people travel to Lockhart each year from Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and beyond to be photographed at the studio. Many turn their appointment into a full-day experience, shopping, dining, and exploring downtown, making the town itself part of the portrait.

     “The visit becomes part of the memory,” Lindberg says. “That sense of place matters.”

   Lockhart has also shaped the studio’s growth. While raising their two youngest children in town, the Lindbergs expanded from a two-person, mom-and-pop operation into a team of six portraitists and two assistants. The studio now operates by appointment in both a downstairs studio and an upstairs loft, allowing room for creative flexibility and a more personal client experience.

  Jennifer Lindberg Studio is best known for its spare, museum-minded black-and-white portraits. Drawing from Lindberg’s photojournalistic background and her admiration for classic black-and-white masters, the work prioritizes presence over polish.

     “These photographs are meant to be evidence,” Lindberg explains. “Proof that someone lived and mattered.”

   Clients most often request portraits of women with their dogs, female athletes of all ages, and mothers with their children. Each project pushes back against the quiet erasure many women experience in family photo histories, placing them squarely at the center of the frame.

   What sets the studio apart is a threefold commitment: artistic integrity, exceptional service, and women’s visibility.

   Every portrait is created with an eye toward longevity rather than trends. Clients receive a white-glove experience from booking through delivery, including museum-quality printed and digital artwork and professional installation for large-scale pieces. Editing remains natural and restrained, allowing the subject, not filters or effects, to take precedence.

     The result, Lindberg says, is work that “ages like art, not short-lived snapshots.”

   Community involvement is not an afterthought for the studio, it’s woven into its mission. Lindberg regularly introduces visiting clients to Lockhart’s shops and restaurants, helping circulate business throughout downtown.

   Over the years, the studio has hosted exhibitions during First Fridays, created Artist Projects with waived fees to increase access, and donated directly to local causes, including a recent $1,000 gift to the Lockhart Animal Shelter. Since opening, Jennifer Lindberg Studio has raised and donated more than $65,000 to Central Texas organizations supporting 

animal welfare, breast cancer services, flood relief, and youth disability sports.

   As the studio looks to the future, its growth remains tied to Lockhart. Plans include expanding mission-driven exhibitions, such as the popular women-and-dogs series, publishing a charity book and magazine to benefit Central Texas flood relief, and collaborating more closely with interior designers so portraits live in homes as lasting works of art.

     Lindberg believes the cultural moment is shifting.

“As people tire of over-filtered images and AI,” she says, “there’s a renewed desire for authenticity and for the real, shared experience of making memories together.”

   That philosophy mirrors Lockhart itself, a place where history, humanity, and craft still matter. And for Jennifer Lindberg Studio, it’s exactly where the work belongs.

      For more information, visit www.jenniferlindbergstudio.com.