Antisdel's Story

Just Finished the KC Parent October Cover Shoot!

We went on location tonight to photograph the KC Parent Cover Kids Contest Winners for the October edition. It was quite an experience. I scouted the new location this last week, got permission from the farmer who told me just to make sure I closed the gates behind us. He didn't mention the hot wire on the inside of the barbed wire that was HOT. We had to watch out for that!

All 3 of our models were so cute.

 

 

I love thinking up a pose and putting everyone where they go. It was so nice for it to be cool enough to wear my jeans and cowboy boots. Boy am I ready for fall!

Now, I just hope they'll stay where I put them. That's the million dollar question, isn't it?

A cow pasture always has lots of treasures. These purple clover are my favorite because the nectar is sweet in each petal.

Will I get my last shot? I watched our models play to see if it would happen. Look for the October cover on the news stands to see what we came up with.

Mud Pies are Sweet!

We've had so much fun with our mud pies sessions. Here are a few of the framed products I photographed with my phone! 



This image is a wrapped canvas of my kiddos. It's 24" long which seemed really big until I got it into my house. When I put it up on a wall in my living room, I was shocked that it was not big enough for the space. I ended up putting it in a small space by the door of my bathroom. I love seeing all their happy faces.



I thought of this idea after I did the test session with my own kids and rushed to make it happen for some of our first mud pies sessions. We decorated frames with muddy hands and feet prints to create personalized art to frame our darling mud pies images. This is one of my favorite products we've made - ever!. I love them so much that we'll be offering the mud pies sessions again next summer. Put that into your calendar if you love this look too.



You know what else I loved about this session? That the girls had just as much fun as the boys. As you can see, both of these girls got quite covered in glorious mud - with no help from us. What a fun experience!

Congratulations to antisdel.s photography Cutest Kid Contest Winners!

ANKITA is our grand prize winner! She will receive a framed 30x40 print displayed in Oak Park Mall that is hers to keep after the display, a portfolio of images from the her Cutest Kids session and a $100 Target gift card. Good Job, Ankita and friends. Your pictures are beautiful!

DREW is our First Runner Up! He will receive a framed 16x20 print displayed in Oak Park Mall that is his to keep after the display and a $50 Target gift card. Awesome job on the voting, Drew and family! Your pictures are so fun!

AVA is our Second Runner Up! Both of her brothers, Ben and Logan were so close that we are going to award them all the 2nd runner up prize -a framed 10X14 print displayed in Oak Park Mall for each of them that will be theirs to keep after the display. It was so fun to watch your votes tally up! Can't wait to display your pictures at the mall!

 

Our additional prize winners: Peyton in the zebra outfit receives a big basket of fun items from mommyshop (some of it will be monogrammed just for her), a darling hair accessory from Rosie Face and a gift certificate to Mady & Me!

 

more prize winners: Brynn and Braelyn both receive cute items from A Perfect Treasure, a basket of fun items from mommyshop and a gift certificate to Mady & Me!

and our last prize winner: Presley receives a gift certificate to Mady & Me!

Watch the mall for our display of our Cutest Kids Contest winners and a new wall of senior portraits. We'll be moving the Cutest Kids images back to the studio in a week or 2 so visit it soon! Thank you everyone for voting and participating! We raised over $2000 for Hope's House orphanage in Nepal.

 

 

Go to the Mall to see all antisdel.s Cutest Kids!

We've updated our display outside of Nordstrom's at Oak Park Mall with all of our cutest kids portraits. So, now you've got an excuse to go shopping!

 

Along with all of the darling children's portraits, we've put up a card with a new fangled QR code to scan with your phone and go to antisdel.s photography fan page to vote. 

 

We've only got 2 more weeks to vote so enjoy our Cutest Kids images.

These are some phone shots taken by Todd after he did a wonderful job setting up the display. He tried to take some pictures of some of our cutest kids, Ava, Ben and Logan who were at the mall with their mom. The phone was giving him trouble so he said he was going to leave the photography to us. I think he did a super job with the display.

 Thanks, Dad! Lucky that KU wasn't playing or the Cutest Kids would not be at the mall yet.

 

Sign up for our Cutest Kids Contest and help support orphans in Nepal

Throughout February, we are offering our Cutest Kid Contest sessions to launch the 2011 Year of Giving for antisdel.s photography. Although we have always given as a business and as a family privately, this year we’ve chosen Giving as a theme and we want to share it with you. 

We are exposed to many people who need help through our family and photography so throughout the year, we will be sharing these special people and causes with you and offering ways for you to get involved. 

 All of the session fees from our Cutest Kid Contest will go to help orphans in Nepal. Our good friends and fellow photographers, Jed and Vicki Taufer adopted beautiful Purnima in Nepal last August. Because of recent changes to American law, they were unable to obtain a visa to bring their daughter home for 6 months.  During her 6 month stay in Nepal with her daughter, Vicki was able to learn about many ways we can help the plight of orphans in Nepal - firsthand. To read more of their beautiful story, go to www.nimajade.com. 

 

Congratulations to Mrs. Kansas!

I just heard that Susana Kingsley just won the title of Mrs. Kansas. Congratulations, Susana!

 

Susana is an amazing wife, mom, community leader and so beautiful is well. I'm very excited to see that she also won Most Photogenic. Since we took her pictures, we get to share in the win a little bit as well.

Good luck in the Mrs. America pageant in March. All of us at antisdel.s will be rooting for you!

Here are some great articles about Susana. I know she's going to use her win to make a big difference.

http://www.mrskansas.net/meet%20mrs%20kansas.htm

http://mrsmiamicounty.blogspot.com/

Fresh Ideas at antisdel.s Holiday Mart Booth

We had a great time hosting our booth at this year's Junior League Holiday Mart. This is the view as you entered the show floor. We had a great space right at one of the doors.

 

This is the view from the other direction. I was so worried about fitting all of our framed images into the space. Dad had the super idea of hanging the groupings of our new custom painted frames at the top of the tent. 

The pink and green framed images of Adali in the above image won't be on display in the studio. They were a birthday gift to her mama, Jamie, my sister-in-law. So you will want to enjoy them here in this image. They are from an on-location session, Sana, her grandma, photographed last summer at their home.

We teased that the whole booth was pictures of the grandchildren. This image of Adali playing dressup was in the position of honor at the back of the booth. We've gone old school and printed it on archival paper and mounted it on some beautiful kraft tissue. Mom did the artistic presentation with this image.

I'm so glad to get these frames up for display. They've been languishing in the back waiting for me to do a photo session of Beale with clothing to match the red, teal and light blue colors. What was I thinking? Who needs clothing when skin matches everything.

 

I know we are missing one of the children in this gallery display. When we get this up in the studio, all 3 children will have a canvas alone, but I am very excited to be able to show this new way of displaying your portraits. This grouping is 2 inches deep which makes a really nice presentation.

These brightly colored ornate frames are still a favorite with me and I think they will be for quite some time. Don't you love this baby with the Christmas beads in the red frame? Those eyes!

And below is an example of a new mirrored frame line and another of the custom painted line with a wedding picture. Yes, that's a wedding picture from Kelly and Brad's wedding last month.

This image of my 4 kiddos will be floated and framed in a distressed white frame and hung in my living room. I love the corrugated cardboard my mom, Sana, mounted it on. Very clever.

Feel free to come into the studio to browse some of our updated sample albums. This is a shot of that area with our chocolate candy. That was a favorite spot.

This year's client gift were these really darling handmade rings. I loved the whimsy of the big diamonds in the rings. 

Mom and I posing in the booth. I think you can actually tell us apart here although we are both dressed very brightly. Can you tell we love color?

This image of my kids as angels got a lot of fun comments for Chilton's tough guy part of the image. I've finally created a gallery wrap canvas to go over my fireplace that I said I was going to do on this blog last spring. It's going to look super and the boys will be glad to see they are part of the family (our previous family portrait hanging over the fireplace is just with the girls - but my hair looked really good and I haven't wanted to change it)

The other image below is a vintage tin frame in my favorite color, turquoise. We do not have those frames in stock, but they can be specially ordered.

Here is a crowd around the booth. I think it's always fun to see the space in action. Natalie is working it in this image. I didn't get to photograph Michelle or Dad in when they hosted the booth.

but I did make sure that I was photographed working the space. Got to have proof that I'm super hard working. Know what I mean?

A Handful or a Heart Full?

Children are a handful sometimes, A heart full all the time...
-- Author Unknown

 

 

Don't ask me why Sephine decided to do this pose. Most of the time, I really enjoy the process of directing a photo session - the poses, the concepts, the clothing.... But when I photograph Sephine, my second daughter, all that goes out the window. She brings something quite unexpected, cartwheels certainly, and her own brilliant brand of humor, playfulness, poutiness and in this image - surprise.

This was photographed during a test session for something exciting and new that's coming soon. We've combined everything that we love about kids and photographing them into a, you guessed it, a surprise. More coming soon.

The Meaning of Fashion Air: Part 1 of Luke's Senior Pictures

Last summer on our family vacation to Big Cedar (click here to see a great post about our Big Cedar trip by my sister-in-law), Luke's family invited us to boat with them. Mom suggested that we photograph Luke wake boarding the next summer for Luke's senior pictures. So, this year we did just that.

Somehow, I ended up with the camera while mom was videoing (video to come - that's why this is just part 1). I like to call myself a portrait artist because I'm not that great of a photographer/photojournalist in the broad sense of the term. In high school, I would go around and set up shots of people - by their lockers, welding in the shop room, posing by their art when I was on the yearbook staff. My basketball shots were always of the guy coming down from shooting the layup - not attractive. So, I was pretty worried about how I was going to catch "the moment" while Luke was in the air.

I caught a break when Luke's friend who was along for the ride, Canaan, asked if I was going to shoot any sequences. You know, Luke getting ready for takeoff, flying in the air and landing. Ah yes, I could do that. So, that's how I shot the whole event. Once Luke took off toward his jump, I held down the button on continuous and followed him through the air. Both, quite exhilarating for the photographer and a much better chance of actually getting an image of Luke at the height of his jump instead of on the way down or worse, landing or not landing:)

This is one of my favorite images with Luke jumping. He also did some flips and turns, but those are better in video.

 

And if you were wondering about the reference to Fashion Air. Here it is. Doing a fashion pose in the air wearing a tux t-shirt no less.

 

And I couldn't resist my view toward the front of the boat. My dad is holding snoozy baby Beale while Luke's dad is doing the boat driving.

I Wish I Were a Scrap Booker

I wish I were a scrap booker. One year, I even took a Wednesday night class at church that you were supposed to spend the time scrap booking. I did get most of my snapshots organized and a few printed from around the time 5 year old Chilton was born. But no scrapbooks created.

So, you can see why I was excited to discover a really talented artist who wanted to scrapbook for us at antisdel.s. These are our first few projects and I can't wait to try out more on other sessions with my kids. If you are interested in purchasing one of these handmade albums of your portraits, email me or call the studio.

This first album is from our Bohemian Valentine's session. Betsy had just turned 2 and was a bundle of energy. That's really incredible to think about actually. Here is a link to her newborn portraits and her 1 year portraits.

 

The delicate angel wings of this book make it my favorite so far. I love the whimsical use of the feathers and the pearl details as well.

There is a flap on the page opposite Beale that I will write about how my children are such angels:).