Coming down after a fun trip!

Man is coming down is hard to do! Oh I do mean coming back to sea level. Helen, Sydney and I just returned from a week in Colorado. Helen had to go out to Denver for a conference so Sydney and I flew out with her a few days early. A couple of years ago Sydney became interested in going to the National Parks and getting a registration stamp at each visitor center to show that she had been to that park. She was very excited about the opportunity to get her passport book stamped at all the different National Parks we were planning on going to.

When we left Chattanooga (very early) it was warm and muggy. The flight into Denver went smoothly and we headed out towards Colorado Springs. It was nice and warm but no humidity, it was a great change. Helen had looked at the weather and it was supposed to be warm days and cool nights. When we arrived at Colorado Springs (6100ft) it was cooler but still very nice. We had beautiful weather visiting Garden of the Gods outside of town. Sydney thought it was cool seeing all the people climbing so she decided to try her hand a rock climbing and of course I was there to record the effort. She climbed all the way to the top, just kidding she is only a couple of feet above the ground. Her mother would have had a stroke if she really had tried rock climbing.

We were tired from getting to bed the night before at 1:00am (you know the routine all the last minute stuff) and then getting up at 4:30am to catch our flight. Driving back to our hotel we saw Mexican restaurant and stopped for a quick bite. Helen and Sydney could eat Mexican everyday so that was fine by them. The next morning we slept in which killed me because I want to be out watching and photographing sunrise. Oh well, I was tired and I would have had to get up at 4:30am again.

Just wanted to share couple of the images from the first day and the next morning with you. When I have a moment I will post images from the afternoon when the weather changed dramatically.

A Family for Friday Afternoon!

We had a wonderful ending to last week as the Mason family came in to do a casual family portrait. The Masons are a fun, casual family, so Mom was looking for something that was relaxed but classy. They were wanting something outside and natural and our yard is beautiful right now. It had been partly cloudy all day, but thankfully the weather cooperated that afternoon and with the soft diffused light we had were able to try several different looks.
Mom did a great job on choosing clothes that were classic and neutral and would go with any kind of background, so the focus of the images really remained on the three of them. Thank you Masons!

Keep checking back for regular blog updates as we begin June.

Brad Cansler

A Fun Formal with Beautiful Young Lady

It's Friday! We started off the weekend with a bang. The first thing this morning we had a beautiful young lady named Lauren whose mother brought her in for formal portraits. I wanted to do a number of different looks, including something a little more relaxed, since Lauren was so easy going and laid back. So, we played with a couple of ideas.






Lauren was a great sport and we had a lot of fun working with her. She had a natural ease in front of the camera and could instantly do anything that was asked of her. Lauren made us wish that all 8 year olds were so easy to work with.

Thanks to Lauren and her mother!
Brad Cansler

A new addition to one of our favorite families!

Hello! This is my first personal blog post and we are trying to get the blog going and keep it updated with things that are going on at the studio. Recently we were looking to do some new b&w's so we called one of our favorite families to asked if they would be our models. They recently added a new member to their family so they graciously agreed as it was nearly time to do a new session anyway. Over the years we have enjoyed spending time quite a bit of time with the Hills. Not only are they a beautiful family but the girls are a delight to photograph (Mom and Dad, you behave well too) and the new little boy was just as much of a joy as his older sisters were at his age.

I just wanted to share a couple of images from their session with everyone. Make sure to check out some of our other new images on http://www.canslerphotography.com/. We will be doing a completely new website for the studio over the next few monthes.

Brad Cansler

Keeping up with the craziness!

Well, it has been a crazy couple of months here at Cansler, and especially since our last blog post. And for that I apologize. We've had a couple of big events that we were working on, The HBAST Home Show, the Junior League's 3rd annual Tour du Jour and the Siskin StyleWorks Fashion Show and Market Place. We love being involved in community events, but sometimes there's not enough time in the day for everything.

We've been doing quite a few family and children sessions lately and we've already started our high school seniors for the class of 2009! We got our Senior Rep program going early this year, so feel free to check out the blogs of our Rep sessions on our Cansler Senior blog at http://www.canslersenior.blogspot.com/ or on our Facebook or Myspace pages. We have also redone our Cansler Senior website, http://www.canslersenior.com/, so make sure you visit it as well.

We are going to try to keep this blog updated while we work on our Cansler Photography website. There is a temporary page up for now with some new images on it, so keep your eyes open for the new page.

I'm also going to be trying out a couple of new promotions, through both email and regular mail, so keep your eyes and inboxes open! We look forward to seeing all of our friends and family soon!

-Dallas***

Playing with black and whites... and little boys!

Most of the time, when people talk about black and white photographs at Cansler, they are referring to our dramatic dark black and whites. We love this style of image and it is great to focus on faces, expression and relationships. But lately, we've been feeling pretty inspired and wanted to try out some new ideas with a little bit of a different look.

So we called one of our best clients and asked to borrow her wonderful boys for a session, just to let us play... and that we did!

Part of the reason, I feel, that we get such great images, is that we really try to make sure that everyone that comes into our studio has a great experience. So, when you have 4 boys, of course there's only 3 here, their experience has to be fun! And there's nothing else to do, but just get down into the floor with them and play. Although it's just a hilarious test shot, it really just makes me laugh!

But, that's not the best part....

We did quite a few things, but decided that this was our favorite. It's easy to see that these brothers love each other. And we love to spend time with them. Although with four, at this point, it does take all three of us at once to keep things running smoothly, but we wouldn't have it any other way!

Thank you Christy, for being so patient and willing to let us have a little fun!

--Dallas