When you have been married for 20+ years, you might have the tendency to lose sight of a few…read morethings. And, after the same number of years of buying birthday presents, you might just start to run out of thoughtful and imaginative gift ideas. Both of those things were happening with me, and due to an offhand comment by a co-worker, a great resolution was found. I keep a lot of photos in my office at work, and have done so for so long that I have more or less stopped noticing them. Every now and then an office visitor will comment on a picture, which often causes me to take a fresh look at it. Right around the time of the year when I start wracking my brain to come up with a birthday gift that exhibits a little more thoughtfulness than a Red Lobster gift card (not that there's anything wrong with that), a co-worker commented on how much my child had grown since we had taken the family portrait she was looking at. It was then that I realized that we hadn't had a new family picture taken since the one we were looking at. Inspiration struck! What a perfect gift! Not only would I find and purchase a gift certificate for a family photo, I would make a personal pledge to not treat the entire process of getting dressed up, going to the studio, getting the pictures taken, and going through the meddlesome process of trying to figure which over-priced printing package to get like it was an ordeal comparable to the Bataan Death March. The pledge proved worthless, and perhaps not for the reason you might suspect. What happened was that I used Google to find a local photographer, and what I realized during the search was that family portraits have changed. I'm sure you can still go to Target and stand stiffly in front of a gray background, looking for all the world like Dad should be holding a pitchfork in the American Gothic style, but these days you can have the photographer come to you and take far more informal (and thus more realistic) pictures in the surroundings of your choice. This is how I ended up trading emails with Matt Kieffer. I wanted to coordinate the timing of the gift certificate to keep it from showing up on the Visa account site that the Missus peruses every few days to make sure we don't get blind-sided by another identity theft - Matt was quite patient and helpful throughout the entire pre-purchase process. When it came time for the session, he arrived on time and well prepared to get the job done. He did not seem hurried at all - it was a nice, casual couple of hours of setting up various areas in the house using our normal family communal places. He was very conscious of potential distractions in the background that would show up in the final pictures, and was extremely patient as we corralled the pets from their various hiding places throughout the house and struggled to get them to settle down long enough for a few pictures. With the interior shots done, we all donned coats against the winter chill and headed outside for a few more shots. My pledge to treat the entire experience as enjoyable rather than burdensome was moot: it WAS enjoyable. We just received the proofs via a web service he uses to show us the collection of pictures and select those that we would like to have him do further editing on. They are fantastic! The lighting and the colors are great, and some of the preliminary edits he did to remove some clutter on the fireplace mantle are amazing. We are very happy with the results that he achieved. I highly recommend Matthew for any occasion worth remembering.

From the owner: Matthew specializes in portrait, wedding, and lifestyle photography. See the website for full…read moredetails.

There are absolutely no words that can express how much I love Cassie Clarkson and her incredible…read moretalent when it comes to photography. She is amazing at catching the perfect angles that make you feel incredible in every photo. She is also wonderful at making you feel comfortable and beautiful during the photo shoots. I will ALWAYS recommend Cassie and speak her up every chance I get!!!!

Cassie and Jon were absolutely outstanding to work with! I am so happy that I entrusted Cassie to…read moreshoot our wedding. She is so passionate about her work and it showed in our final results. The photos are amazing! I recommend Cassie Clarkson photography 100%!

I stalled for months, even though I needed a professional photo to use on my social media. Once I…read morespoke to Sarah, and explained my anticipated discomfort - she eased my mind immediately with her empathy and her positive attitude. The photo shoot was actually very enjoyable - I loved Sarah's suggestions and her feedback, and I trusted her professional opinion. I gave her the three things that I wanted the photos to show, and she delivered! I have gotten so many compliments on my photos! She made the process extremely comfortable, and I think Sarah's photos truly captured me!

We sort of stumbled on Sarah at Desired Focus. A wedding photographer is a hugely important part of…read morethe planning stages; their job is to capture all the moments on one of the most emotional days of your life. We wanted someone who could not only capture the moment but also our personalities. We were fairly intimidated when we started shopping around. My husband has been studying photography for awhile and had some very specific ideas about his wants and don't wants. We both agreed that we wanted a photographer who would get as much right in-camera and have a subtle touch with the post-processing work. Since we were going for a pretty non-traditional wedding, we also needed someone who would "get" it... or, at least, be game for it. We lucked out with Sarah across the board. Pretty much from the moment we met her at a consult, we were sold. Not only does she have extremely solid photographic and post-processing skills, she is exceptionally nice and out-going. We had a blast at an engagement shoot in Granville. She had great ideas and was open to suggests of location/pose/etc... A couple weeks after the shoot, Sarah came by and we went through the shoot to pick out shots to enhance. Then a couple weeks later (due to technical issues), we got the results and they were fantastic! At this point, we knew we'd chosen the right person to photograph our wedding. About a month before the ceremony, we went over a shot list (our requested photographs) and asked that Sarah take as many candids as she wanted. We also gave her a warning; the event location (16-Bit bar & arcade) is quite dark and that could be an issue. On our event day, Sarah arrived promptly and went to work right away. She took mostly candid shots with a few posed shots mixed in. She blended in with the crowd so that you didn't know that she was there most of the time.. but she also mingled freely and looked like she was having as much fun as the rest of us! This past weekend we were able to get a look at the pictures. And they are amazing! They are so good that we aren't having any of them enhanced. Typically, I hate the way I photograph but she got some shots of me where I look fantastic. We are thrilled with the photographs that Sarah took. I would highly recommend her for wedding, event or portrait photography. She also teaches some photography classes every so often. Her Facebook page is more frequently updated than her website so check for her there.

My family and I took advantage of an awesome photography deal that Anchor Images was offering a few…read moreweeks ago. It included a fifteen-minute photo shoot at a whimsical Christmas tree farm in the middle of nowhere Southeast, Ohio. My family and I arrived and were warmly greeted by Megan (the owner) and her lovely assistant. They had hot chocolate and cookies prepped to incentivize the kiddos to pay attention and they also had a festive holiday wreath as a prop. It went perfectly with the different backdrops we got to work with. I was in awe at how prepared they were, especially for the little ones. It was a very chilly day to not be wearing a coat and the kids were not having it. The hot chocolate saved the day! We had such a great time, even the dog tagged along and did super well. Before we knew it, we were ready to head home. It didn't take long for us to receive our pictures and I was blown away by the results. The mini session included the photo shoot and beautifully edited photos, which were made available online... all for roughly two hundred bucks. It was a total steal and definitely worth it. I would do it again in a heartbeat! Pro tip - follow them on social for special deals like the one my family got!

Megan is the absolute go to for any kind of pictures you're wanting to get done. From newborn to…read morewedding photography she's absolutely amazing. She did a couple shoots with me, one being my youngest sons 1st birthday pictures....needless to say he was not on the happy side but the pictures were still perfect and she was so patient. She's always coming up with new ideas and new props to put in pictures. She's always got some type of deal going on especially around holidays! Anchor images is the BESTTTT

I worked with Michelle again for my daughter's second bday and loved the experience. She met us at…read morethe location we wanted to use. She was patient with my daughter as she didn't want her pictures taken! Can't wait to work with her again soon!

Thank you, Michelle! for you and Lee doing such great photos of Carissa!…read moreThe photos were so good that we had a difficult time picking which photos to order/print! Thank you for working with us, too, in our time frame! We definitely will remember when we need more professional photos!