ERIE – Have you ever looked at a picture of a product and said, “I’ll take it”? There’s a chance Steve Sullivan helped you decide to buy it.

Did you ever flip through a grocery flier in the newspaper and say, “Mmm, that looks good”? Then you probably saw his work (although you would have needed to be an Eagle-eyed shopper to spot it).

Or maybe you saw a photo of a green machine and said, “Nothing looks like a Deere.” If so, then Sullivan may have been the one to make sure you looked at it.

The Erie man’s work has been seen by countless consumers, ending up in mailboxes and magazine racks near and far, and websites around the world.

Sullivan is a commercial photographer who works behind the scenes to set the scene for clients through his freelance business, Steve Sullivan Photography. It’s a job that can be summed up in a few words: pop, stop and shop – make products pop so people will stop and shop – and though his job is a snap, he’s had a lot of time behind the lens to make it look effortless, more than three decades and counting, the last 18 as a freelancer.

“It’s got to make you stop,” Sullivan said. “Whether you’re presenting a product, or introducing someone new, it’s got to draw you into it.”

Since graduating from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale with a photography degree in 1991, Sullivan has made a career out of telling stories and selling products with the click of a button. He grew up in Rock Island and worked for a professional photography studio in Bettendorf until making the leap into freelancing in 2007. He and his wife, Tori, moved to Erie in 1999 to be close to her family, and Steve has a small studio next to their home, where he works.

As a freelancer, he can choose to accept or decline assignments, some that have been nearby and some that took him a few hours from home. He’s shot product photos at Johnson Rauhoff, a creative agency in Benton Harbor, Michigan; and for companies including Walmart, Sur La Table, Cabela’s and Newell Brands. Bethany Lowe Designs, a vintage holiday decor company, also called upon Sullivan for its print and online catalogs.

Closer to home, Sullivan has done photos for John Deere, Jumer’s Casino in Rock Island, Erie Foods, Drives (now Timken Drives) in Fulton and Rock Island-based Eagle grocery stores — the photos in the now-closed grocery chain’s Wednesday sales fliers were his work.

Sullivan’s business keeps him busy. With companies wanting to get photography work done as quickly as possible, there’s little wiggle room on the schedule, so Sullivan has to make sure each click counts. Stylists, sales reps, and the occasional hand model work with Sullivan during each photo shoot to help position products so they look their best – they call the shots and he takes them, making sure the light’s right and the camera settings are set. The photos are snapped and then it’s onto the next assignment.

“The stylists … assign you – ‘Here’s the layout’ – and you have to follow what their direction is. An account rep is there, too. They have it laid out and they call the shots. … You follow whatever they give you.”

With almost 35 years in the profession, the process has become second nature to him.

“I’m reliable, I show up and I do what they ask,” Sullivan said. “I’ve been doing it a long time, so I kind of know what I’m doing. I don’t stumble through it because I’ve done it for so many years. I won’t tell you I’m the best, because there is a lot of good talent out there, but I have years of experience and will get it done. There won’t be a lot of sitting around, and with this, you can’t. It’s off to the next one and they’re ready, ready, ready.”

Businesses not only rely on him to make their products appealing, but to make the people behind them look good, too, with his professional staff portraits and convincingly casual candids.

When it comes to people, Sullivan’s work has included assignments for American Rental Properties in Moline and various shots and events for John Deere. He recently accompanied a 5-year-old and his family on a tour of one of the Deere facilities in the Quad-Cities through the Make-A-Wish program; his shots captured the child’s experience and were given to the family as a keepsake.

Another recent event for Deere was for a “Women in Ag” program, where he captured candid shots showing the reactions of office workers getting a look at how some of its equipment worked on the field.

“That’s all candid, looking and pointing at the equipment,” Sullivan said. “That’s fun, because I don’t have to shape it or fold it into a nice neat box, I’m going around looking for smiles.”

Sullivan’s photography experience began in the days when a photo shop was a dark room, not a computer program, and has evolved along with the advances in technology, when memory cards and megabytes have replaced canisters and rolls of film. He’s not young anymore, he’ll admit, and he realizes a new breed of tech-savvy photographers has joined the field.

That doesn’t deter him, it helps make him better, he said.

“It takes some skill,” Sullivan said. “There are people out there who are really advanced: You got to do the Photoshop, the computer work and on the camera end. I learn a lot from other people. Even today, it’s my favorite thing to do, to talk to another person about what they’re doing, in the photo world especially. Back in the old days of film, it took a little more effort. Now a lot of that can be fixed on a computer.”

Today’s photographers can learn from Sullivan, too. Sometimes old tricks still work, like the time he showed a photographer how using the graphite from a pencil to make an etching on a glass filled with clear liquid pop out — no Photoshop necessary.

“She was making the drinks according to layout, and one of the glasses had an etching on it with a little design, but you couldn’t see it in the photo,” Sullivan said. ”I got my finger dirty with a pencil and I rubbed it on the glass, and it popped. She looked at me and goes, ‘You are old. The young kids would have tried to fix it in Photoshop, but you fixed it right here.’ With film, you kind of had to fix it right there because there was no retouching. It gave it a little bit of gray, with the liquid being clear, and you could see it."

On days when he’s not on jobs or editing photos, he works on his new passion — this own artist’s “blue period,” as it were.

Sullivan has recently renewed his interest in another form of photography, cyanotype, a primitive form of blue and white imagery.

Cyanotype photography is a cameraless technique that involves laying an object on paper coated with a solution of chemicals before exposing it to ultraviolet light and washing with water to create stunning white and Prussian blue (cyan) images. Since April 2024, Sullivan has captured natural items such as leaves and grass using the process. His works are displayed and sold at The Loft on Main in Morrison and Ember on the Hill in LeClaire. His works also were featured throughout July in a monthly art gallery at CGH in Sterling.

“I remembered it from school, but I couldn’t justify buying the chemistry and paper for that, and in my mind there was no way I was going to make a living on it,” Sullivan said. “I saw other people do it, and I recently visited someone in a hospital and I was in a hallway, and they had these big blue [images]. I did a little reading on them, tried a couple for myself, and a couple of people said they were amazing. Here I am a year later. I’m having a blast.”

Whether it’s putting products in the spotlight or creating art out of the blue, Sullivan’s storytelling through photos is an ever-evolving adventure, and one that keeps him going after all these years.

“I’ll go until my body quits,” Sullivan said. “I plan to keep doing it. I try to keep up. I like talking with people that come from different experiences, and then maybe they can tell me things.”

Call 309-659-7269 for more information on Steve Sullivan Photography in Erie. Find him on Instagram (@sullycreated) to see his latest cyanotype artwork, or view them at The Loft on Main, 112 E. Main St. in Morrison.