Merry Christmas to all!

1972, love the pants man.

1967, always well dressed! :^)

Merry Christmas to all our friends of the studio! Christmas is a special time of year that often gets lost in the hustle and bustle of the season. First and foremost, we must remember that we are celebrating Jesus' birth. Without our Lord and Savior, where would we be?

I always get nostalgic at this time of year. I love history and nostalgia anyway but Christmas is very cool in that respect. That is one of many reasons I am happy to be on Main Street in Sheridan. Being in the studio for just a little bit with my son today, Christmas Eve, and seeing people on Main St with all the old buildings and the Christmas decorations reminded me of a time past. Luckily we still have vestiges of that in our town and our great country.

This is a special time for the children and I am reminded of that with the boundless enthusiasm and anticipation from my own children. I can remember back to my childhood and the memories of Christmas Eve and Christmas day with my parents. It's a shame I don't have either of my parents around anymore but to know they are celebrating in Heaven makes it right. What better place to be for Christmas than with Jesus! We lost my father 2 years ago just before Christmas and had his service just after Christmas. But I still have warm feelings for that year, even though it was tough, because I knew where he was. Sitting in church on Christmas Eve and listening to Steve Quinn belt out O' Holy Night and I know both the Lord and my father were there. Wow. Tough time but a great memory.

What I am getting at is that Christmas is a time of memories. Maybe the times might be tough but God won't give us anything we can't handle. Every year we will make memories. And we need to make them with our kids too. No matter how old they are. I've added a few old photos to the blog here from my childhood for your amusement. I was a sharp dresser! 1967 and 1972. I can remember these days still. The excitement, the happiness, the comfort of family. Now go forth, make memories, enjoy what God has given you, give back, and work towards and happy and prosperous 2009. May God Bless you all.

An honor...

As of yesterday I have been chosen as one of the Expert members of CreativeHub, a Madison Avenue, New York City based creative services agency. I have been affiliated with them for most of the year and now will work directly with the agency and clients on projects. Thanks guys!

Thanks to our Corporate Clients....

Yes, we shoot a lot more than portraiture here at our studio on Main Street in Sheridan. Sauter Photography actually has a worldwide reach from our humble little town in the Midwest.

I haven't mentioned any corporate clients in the blog since we started this so I will list some we have worked with over the past couple months.

It's been a busy couple months with corporate sales and I'd like to thank some of the companies that have done business with us recently. We have had quite a cross-section of clients ranging from insurance companies, marketing companies, retail products manufacturers to a couple Christian book publishers (which I love to see my work used in.)

Thanks to The Christian Institute in the United Kingdom for purchasing a photo of my son (he's a great model and has appeared in several publications and advertisements) for the cover of an information book on child protection laws! The Bob Jones University Press has purchased a photo of a coal train that will possibly be a book cover also. Broken Voices, a christian outreach group that is traveling across the country working on a film titled "Anthem" also purchased art from us.

Some overseas companies include; Eurl TRAIT d'UNIONS , a French telecommunications company that we have sold work to. Also Wunderman which is a worldwide marketing company. Advance Materials in the UK; Mandalina, a marketing company in Turkey; Offentliche Verischerungen Oldenburg, a German insurance company; MediaPool, a London video production company; Reed Elsevier, a worldwide information and workflow solutions company and publisher with London, Amsterdam and NYC offices; ProDirect Marketing in France and Alquima Ediciones, S.A. de C.V. in Mexico.

US recent additions include FCI Marketing, Inc for their Black Jack Tire Repair brand; Printing Partners, LLC; and SAVE Technologies... all becoming customers in the past 2 months.

Also since October we have added TDCI, Inc in Columbus Ohio; Bon-Aire Industries in Boise, Idaho; Myer-Ziemke Insurance Agency in Ohio, Creativo Productions in California, Zap Mold in Minnesota and Rusty Brick Service, a marketing firm in New York.

I'd like to thank the companies that saw value in our work over the past two months. We look forward to a productive 2009 providing imaging to our corporate clients.

Gradys on a calendar!

It's almost time for the release of the Sheridan Basketball calendar by Tradition Calendars! John Spear is the man behind the calendars and he does a great job. (John also writes the Football stories for SheridanNews.net. I'm not sure if he's doing the same for basketball but I hope so!) John wanted to put a player on the calendar like we did with the football calendar when we put Nick Zachery on. I thought of Sheridan's center Grady Roaten right away. We got some great shots for his Senior Photos in the gym so I showed them to John and we got an ad put together. Grady is a great young man and I'm glad to have him on our ad for the calendar and to represent Sheridan on the calendar. The calendars should be out by next Friday and you will start seeing them around town.

Congrats to Brent....

The other day I had a friend and business associate in the studio and we were chatting. He asked if I shot Brent Humes senior photos and I said I did. He then said "you know he won the Phil N Eskew Mental Attitude Award don't you?" At that point I realized I hadn't mentioned it on my blog! Yep, I knew. I heard it announced down at Lucas Oil Stadium after the game. I have to say I'm not surprised! This is really quite an honor to get this award out of all the young men playing football in 1A in our state. And Brent deserved it.

Brent played on both sides in the games as running back and linebacker in addition to lettering in wrestling and track. He is a four-year Vice President of his class, four year member of the student council, three year member of the National Honor Society and Spanish Club president. He also is a peer for the Sheridan school system working with third grade kids. He is the eight Sheridan player to win the award over the years.

Congratulations to Brent. The Sheridan community can be very proud!

Congratulations to the Blackhawks!

I wanted to say congrats to the Sheridan Blackhawks for a hard fought battle against Ritter in the State Championship finals. For you out-of-towners that don't know, the Hawks lost in the last 40 seconds when Ritter scored a touchdown. We had very little time to try and make something happen to get down the field in the last seconds of the game and it just wasn't meant to be. But you know what? Those boys have to hold their heads high. Very high. They have been the 1A State Champs the last three years in a row and are the runner-ups this year. That is pretty impressive if you ask me! A rare feat in fact. Not many high school players can make a claim like that. This football program is obviously one of the best in the state and has quality people from the top on down.

While I have been living in Sheridan for "only" 13 years we have become big fans of the Hawks. Most of this town has followed the Hawks and Coach Bud Wright all their lives. It has been a pleasure to get to know some the team over the past few months and take the senior pictures of some of the best high school players I've ever seen. They have been fun, polite and respectful in every way and I fully expect to see great things out of all of them, both on and/or off the field, in the future! And I'm sure we will.

Sheridan UMC Petite Academy....

Many thanks to Kim at Sheridan United Methodist Church for inviting me to shoot the preschool kids at the Petite Academy! What a fun bunch of kids. They were so gentle with me. Nobody even cried! I could see a couple little ones that really didn't want to participate at first but we got them smiling and laughing and got great portraits of all the little tykes. We shot a class picture and every one of the little ones (even the two big girls...Kim and Lauren) cooperated without making a scene! Ha! Really though, all the kids were so great and did a good job. I had Pinkie the Rabbit with me and they all gave her a big hug and were so cute.

2008 Sheridan Library Bazaar...

Hats off to Steve Martin and his crew at the Sheridan Public Library for putting on a wonderful Holiday Bazaar last Saturday. There was a great variety of booths with all kinds of neat items for sale. We were there with a booth for the day and really enjoyed meeting new people and seeing a lot of past clients. There were great Christmas trees up for silent auction all around the library and it was a beautiful atmosphere. We look forward to going back for next years bazaar!

The Shockeys...

There is a whole lotta love exuding from this little girl of Jason and Elisabeth's. Eloise was a whole bunch of fun and you could tell she REALLY loves Mom and Dad! She was also telling me what to do (in a very polite way)! I made her a job offer to be my assistant but she didn't want to take time away from Mom and Dad. My loss. I tell ya, she's a smart kid for only 4 years old! We had a nice studio session after business hours with some really cute shots!

Harper and Cameron Sneak Peek...

Harper and Cameron came in for some quick and fun shots yesterday. We got quite a few cute ones in a short session! Harper was just a little lady the whole time and Cameron wanted to take over the shoot for me! They were a lot of fun and were so nice to this old guy with the camera and talked to me the whole time. And it was a great day to be in the nice warm studio since it was miserable outside!

Blackhawk Pride....

Just a little plug for Nick today. Anybody in Sheridan knows who Nick is. Along with just about anybody else on our multi-year State Champ football team. Nick's mom called me asking if The Noblesville Times could use one of Nick's senior photos from our senior photo session for an article and I happily obliged. This is part of a series that The Times has where they ask a few questions of people in the community. You can see the online version here. I have had the pleasure of shooting quite a few of the varsity players senior photos and have enjoyed every one of them. They are a great group of young men with talent on the field and personalities, respect and enthusiasm off the field. We wish Coach Wright and the whole Blackhawk team good luck in their quest for a 4th State Championship in a row!

Ashley Sneak Peek....

I had fun with Ashley! She is a great girl that happens to have a huge German Shepard! He was a good boy for the photo shoot and we had fun in Biddle Park on the last nice day of fall (or so it seems right now). We got together after school and shot till dark so we didn't have a whole lot of time but it worked great and we got a lot of nice shots. Here's a sneak peak!

Holidays are coming!

Anita and Steve came in for a short session and got a little goofy for the camera! They brought Smoky the dog for photos with the family and he was a really good boy. Even with my Beagle in attendance for the shoot! The dogs didn't have one growl, snarl or bark for each other. But, of course, Tucson (the beagle) had to get in one of the photos. Yes, it's time to start thinking about Christmas again. Can you believe it?

Melody and Andrew Sneak Peek...

Melody and Andrew met up with me at a birthday party for her nephew that my family was also invited to. They are getting married next year and wanted to get some photos done before it got too cold. God had a perfect day in store for us and the happy couple drove down from Purdue for the party and after the presents were opened for little Benjamin and the guests went home we got to work. We were at Herons Hideaway for the party and decided to stay there for the photos since it was so beautiful. (I'd check them out for your next gathering!) It's been a busy week here for me and I'm behind on work but I wanted to get some shots up of them before I have even had time to go thru them in earnest. It seems like every photo I randomly picked they looked great!! Congratulations to them both!

It's Fall....

Si and Kim brought their kids over to the park and we took advantage of some halfway decent November weather to get a few shots before the cold settles in for the year. Little Silas is a total trip! He is always doing something and is never lacking a smile or funny face! It's hard for the camera to keep up with him!

Bet you can't guess what University they cheer for!

Grady's Senior Photos....

Grady and I shot his basketball photos on his home court. We got on the court after the last of the days practices were over and spent a couple hours shooting. We had a good time with the whole gym just to ourselves. I brought in a couple studio strobes and softboxes and did some fun stuff with the lighting.

Halloween....

Halloween festivities are almost over in Sheridan! We had a great turnout on Oct. 25th with tons of kids coming to the studio during Halloween on Main Street! We went through a TON of candy! My son and daughter helped with the handing out the candy and I'm sure just a "few" pieces ended up in there own mouth. Last night was the traditional trick-or-treat around town with more kids running around pumped up on sugar. Even though tonight is Halloween there is a Sheridan football game in Lafayette for the state sectional semi-finals so the town will be empty (hence, trick-or-treating last night!). We wish the Blackhawks good luck!