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!