Olivia Pearl melted me yesterday...

I got to spend a few hours yesterday getting to know little Olivia Pearl. Her parents, Lisa and Davies were kind enough to allow me to photograph their new addition and try all sorts of new ideas I had! Thank you guys for being so trusting! I really had a good time and look forward to doing many more of these types of sessions. Here are a few of my favorites so far:



Check out how gorgeous Lisa looks after just giving birth 7 days ago!!






I love how wrinkly newborns are! Look at these folds...





Is that a little smile? I think she liked her makeshift hammock best.




Although, this was pretty comfy too!





I'm thinking she is saying, "Why am I in a bowl and what is this thing on my head?! Help!!!!" I love this shot though.



Hope you liked this crazy long sneak peek!! We love comments, let us know what you think!

Happy Anniversary Janet and Jeremy!

So, the big question is...exactly how far behind are the Sandersons on their blogging adventure? And the answer is...1 year exactly with a couple of exceptions thrown in. Maybe our dear readers will find it amusing to see weddings we shot one year ago in the craziness that was summer of 2008. We love showing our readers where we have been and what we have been up to, so instead of skipping some of our very favorite weddings, we are going to try to do anniversary blog posts from our weddings last year intermingled with weddings from this year.

Enter Janet and Jeremy.


We loved, loved, loved, this wedding. Not just because they are family, (but they are!) not just because they let us drag them all over Colorado, into crazy fields and old abandoned houses in their wedding attire (but they did!) not just because they made their wedding fun for all who attended (but they did!) but just because we loved the way they loved each other, loved everyone around them and had a blast doing it.

Since this was family, we had an extremely hard time narrowing the images. Here are a few of our favorites....

Getting Ready







The Ceremony



Love the way Jeremy is looking at Janet here...




This is always one of my FAVORITE moments in a wedding; the pure joy of coming down the aisle married to your love.


The Portraits





The Reception




Had to throw this one of our little Lillianna in here...she had soooo much fun!!







One last hug from Mom...


And off they go...


Luckily, we got to shoot them a little the next day! They were such good sports, I think Janet was freeeeeeezing.







We love to shoot late at night with long exposures. John painted these with a huge flashlight while Janet and Jeremy stood VERY still.




Hope you enjoyed these! We love feedback, let us know what you think!

Happy Father's Day, John!!

All images in this post courtesy of the fabulous Carl Zoch



We have a ton of things to blog...a ton. I can't wait to show you all of the beautiful things we've seen in the last few months. Seriously, I can't. Right now though, nothing is as important as this post. This is the post where instead of telling you about the love of other people, or showing you the celebration of a new love, or letting you peek into the love within someone else's happy family; I am going to tell you about My Love.



My Love is the tall, handsome guy who you will probably either find in his garden, behind a lens somewhere or behind his computer. He is creative with a passion. The kind of creative that often makes people say, "How does he think of this stuff?" He is persistent with his ideas...following them through to completion. He has wild, brave ideas...most of which I cautiously raise eyebrows to. He makes me braver. There is nothing that he cannot do when he sets his mind to it. I mean that with all sincerity. One day he will say, I think we should raise chickens. So for the couple of weeks he is totally submerged in researching chickens. One month later we had a chicken coop in our back yard hand built by John with 15 happy chickens peeping their way into our hearts. He'll say, let's take a leap with Sanderson Images. WE CAN DO THIS. He knew it before I did. He believed it before I did. He was right. He is almost ALWAYS right. In our near 10 years of marriage it has taken me that long to come to the realization that John is wise beyond his years and I should just be quiet, stop my worrying and try to keep up.



This is the most important part of my post. The part that makes me cry as I type. The part that I want to share with all of you because our clients, (as much as we love you!) don't get to see this part of John and yet it is my favorite part. My love is the kind of Daddy I always wanted for my babies. He is gentle with the kind of calmness you can feel as soon as he enters a room. He is patient with the kind of patience even a screaming 2 year old cannot shake. He is a teacher in a way that makes the boys stop and REALLY listen to what Daddy is saying. He is quiet and sure. He is silly and fun. He knows how to work hard and yet he knows when it is time to stop and enjoy family and love and life. I see things in each of my children that mirror John. Gabriel is sensitive and gentle and has BIG ideas. Noah is silly and full of life. Lillianna is a cuddlebug, creative and thoughtful. They are mirroring what he is teaching and for that I love him more than I ever thought possible.

Stephanie and Jordan, an Elegant New York City Wedding

Hello again to our loyal blog readers who have been asking us for another post! We are so sorry to keep you waiting for so long. If you are one of our clients and you are waiting to see your wedding here...please know we are doing our best and will try to catch up as this month goes on!

We thought that a good way to start off a month of no blogging was to jump right into was a beautiful event that we shot in New York City recently. Stephanie and Jordan, with the help of their friends and family had a storybook wedding. It was perfect down to the littlest detail. What an amazing way to start the next chapter of their lives!

Stephanie had a stunning Oscar de la Renta wedding dress. Stunning. This dress was just "gasp out loud" beautiful.








Jordan and the guys got ready at the Waldorf Astoria and decided to walk and take the subway to Gustavino's.




We managed to sneak in a few bridal portraits before the ceremony. How amazing does she look?!













First meeting of Jordan and Stephanie. I LOVED this meeting!! You could just feel the love and joy radiating between them and you could see the excitement for what was to come all tied up in these couple of moments.




The Bridal Party


The Ketubah Signing



The Ceremony





The Portraits















Dad gave pretty much the best speech/song ever. The story behind the song that Emily (Stephanie's beautiful sister) gave us was that Dad used to sing them to sleep when they were little girls and they adored those moments. He hadn't pulled out that guitar for many years. (thus the shock on Stephanie's face) Let me just tell you, the tears flowed freely...even by us. He sang Bob Dylan's "Forever Young". It was beautiful and poignant.







The Parent Dances




The Cake. Stephanie has some very talented family and friends. Her Aunt decorated this lovely cake for them.



What an amazing party!





Stephanie and Jordan, thank you for the honor of sharing your blessed day with us! We loved being a part of it!

The Slideshow.

Stephanie and Jordan's Photobooth

We're now featured in Style Me Pretty's Little Black Book!

This is pretty exciting for Kimberly and I! We got an invitation from the wonderful Abby Larson, Editor of Style Me Pretty, a wonderful style focused web site and blog for brides. Click here to check it out and submit to the ways of SMP. We are thrilled to be included in their directory since it is exclusive to only 3 vendors per region which is kind of a big deal if you know what I mean. Now we can walk around introducing ourselves as such.


Ron Burgundy... uhh I mean Sanderson Images: I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.
Random Unsuspecting Person: Really.
Sanderson Images: People know me.
Random Unsuspecting Person: Well, I'm very happy for you.
Sanderson Images: I'm very important. I'm featured in Style Me Pretty, I'm in their leather-bound Little black book and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.

Ok so if you have no idea what I am talking about you need to see the movie "Anchorman" the awkwardness would abound if we actually spoke like that. Thank goodness we are almost semi-normal people. So to end this post and quickly change the subject before I spend the rest of the day acting like Will Ferrell how about a couple new artistic photos of ours.

1st Place, TRA recipe contest!

Kim and I were psyched to learn that we won Doug Boutwell's "Totally Rad Action Recipe Contest". The objective here was to create a recipe using multiple Totally Rad Photoshop Actions created By Doug Boutwell. We purchased these actions awhile ago from the TRA Web site and can honestly say they have played a huge role in our post image processing style and artistic vision.



For you photographers reading this, here is the TRA recipe we submitted: You can see above what this action recipe can really do to, well exposed, nicely composed.. photos.

* TRA - Bitchin B&W (as is, no changes.) (If wanting image to be B&W)
* Special action I made called “Buttery” (see below) made up of exclusively TRA actions:
* Very Mild B&W texture added for grain.
* Serve warm straight from the oven.

“Buttery” Recipe.

1. Oh Snap (as is, no changes.)
2. SX-70 with layer set to 45% opacity.
3. Cinnamon toast with layer set to 47% opacity.
4. Boutwell Magic Glasses (as is, no changes.)

So get this, we won an awesome web site package from a cool web company that works with photographers called Into The Dark Room - [ITDR] We won their Dream package and are excited to see what we can do with it. So stay tuned.. changes are a coming.

Major congrats to the other ridiculously talented winners:
2nd Place - Teri Fode, Sacramento, CA
3rd Place - Christine Berry, Huntsville, AL

Of course the AWESOME photo above was taken by the AMAZING and adorable Kimberly Sanderson, chef de post process John Sanderson made the TRA recipe and a MAJOR thanks to the BEAUTIFUL clients featured in the photo Lola and Boladji.