[2] Using a handheld 35 mm camera, natural side lighting and dramatic darkroom techniques, the portraits he generated out of his own Jefferson Street studio were known as having the "Sheffer look".

His clients included actor Jimmy Stewart, comedian Tallulah Bankhead, and politician Joseph McCarthy who he photographed for Life (magazine).

A long-time Milwaukee resident, Sheffer is among that small group of people in love with the face of the city, and he is, in addition, an artist acutely sensitive to its many moods and its slightest changes of expression.

"[5] Among his most notable students at the Layton School of Art, where he taught from 1952 to 1970, was photographer/film maker Larry Clark who often named Sheffer as an early artistic influence and once described him as "the society photographer in town, but he was very hip.

"[6] After years of decreased activity due to personal strife in the 1970s and early 1980s, Sheffer gained national attention in the mid-1980s for his "Faces of Aging" photographic series.

[1] Sheffer continued to photograph friends and maintained a flower garden on the roof top of Christopher Street East Health Care Center until his death.