Seattle · Washington
Look like you. Feel like you.
Shine like never before.
The Artist
I'm Tim Hanley — a Seattle photographer and digital artist with severe colorblindness. I've spent my whole life navigating a world of color I couldn't fully see, building an eye for light, composition, and feeling because the data everyone else relied on simply wasn't available to me.
Early on, someone told me I'd be better off trying to put lipstick on a pig than waste my time editing color photographs. That I should just do black and white and call it a day.
I bought the domain LipstickOnAPig.com that same week.
What started as defiance became obsession — and obsession became a craft. I learned to see color through light, through relationship, through feel. I stopped trying to see the way everyone else saw and started building something new. Every composite I create is built from that place.
Whether you're a performer who needs art that stops the scroll, or someone who simply wants a portrait unlike anything you've seen — this is the work I was made to do.
Portfolio




















































The Craft
Original Photograph
Composite Creation
Original Photograph
Composite Creation
Original Photograph
Composite Creation
Original Photograph
Composite Creation
The Road Traveled
Every artist begins somewhere — hijacked by the winds of wonder, reacting to a burning desire to create something, not yet certain where they'll land or even what color the landscape is they're flying over.
These are not the images I offer. They are the road that brought me here — landscapes shot before I found my niche, early portraits, standard sessions, and the moments where something shifted. The work changed. So did I.
Below is also something more personal: a series of photographs of my grandson — the one who reminds me every day why any of this matters.
Things Pa Would Say
A grandfather's notes to his grandson — written not in words, but in photographs. Every image is a real moment. Every quote is original. Both the camera and the words belong to the same man.








Signature Collections
Ballet, contemporary, and aerial performers placed inside impossible worlds — crystal spheres, Diagon Alley, walls of light, and chaos made graceful. Movement captured and elevated into something otherworldly.
Dragon riders, enchanted beaches, and worlds that blur the line between photograph and storybook. For those who have always known they belong somewhere that doesn't exist yet.
Women suspended in the natural world — nestled inside lotus blooms, walking flower-lined boardwalks, gazing at miniature versions of themselves. Rooted in Vietnamese culture and the symbolism of purity and rebirth.
Starfields, blood moons, floating candles, and the infinite dark. Subjects suspended between worlds — portraits for those who feel most at home in the cosmos.
Composite worlds built from real landscapes — mountain lakes, railway lines stretching into fog, beach sunsets alive with floating bubbles. Your portrait placed inside a world that couldn't exist without art.
Your photograph transformed into a masterwork — complete with visible brushstrokes, canvas texture, and the look of a commissioned fine art portrait. Art about art — and you at the center of it.
Conceptual composites that tell a story beyond the portrait — layered realities, dreamlike veils, subjects placed inside scenes that redefine what a portrait can be.
Custom worlds built around your art — a ballerina inside a crystal sphere surrounded by floating instruments. Promotional imagery that commands attention and stops the scroll.
The Pacific Northwest through a photographer's eye — Milky Way arching over Mount Rainier, Seattle sunsets on the water, mirror-still reflection lakes. The world as it rarely lets itself be seen.
Commercial Work
Beyond the portrait studio, Rain City Studios creates commercial imagery for musicians, songwriters, and publishers — album covers, single art, and book covers that stop the scroll and tell the story before a single note is played or a page is turned.
How It Works
We discuss your vision, select a series or build a custom concept, and plan wardrobe and logistics.
Studio or on-location shoot, 1–2 hours. You'll be guided through poses designed for the compositing work ahead.
Background worlds are built, light is matched, and each image is crafted over several days of careful digital artistry.
Finished digital files and/or fine art prints delivered in high resolution, ready for display or digital use.
Investment
Commercial Art
Album covers, single art, book covers, and magazine covers for musicians, authors, and publishers. Every cover includes full commercial licensing and delivery in all required formats — square, portrait, and landscape — at no extra charge.
Own the Art
Select images from my portfolio are available as archival fine art prints — produced on museum-quality paper or canvas, signed, and limited to 25 editions each.
A woman nestled within the heart of a lotus blossom, surrounded by still water and soft mist — a portrait of purity and quiet strength.
A solitary figure suspended among stars and drifting candles, adrift in a cosmos that feels both infinite and intimate.
A portrait in traditional Vietnamese áo dài amid a blooming garden — a celebration of cultural heritage, grace, and feminine identity.
Two figures suspended inside a luminous bubble above a Philippine coastal sunset — a dreamscape where love, wonder, and the sea exist together outside of time.
Archival, acid-free paper · Limited editions of 25 · Signed & numbered · Ships within 2–3 weeks
Follow the Journey
New composites, behind-the-scenes process & works in progress · Updated weekly
Follow on InstagramGet in Touch
Every project starts with a conversation. Tell me what you're imagining — or let me help you find it.