From the Haugen Heart

Schedule an Appointment The secret to  a relaxed experience with Santa is that we schedule appointments. There is no waiting in line and plenty of time to talk to Santa and calm frazzled nerves. He will be here all day on December 10 but the appointment times are filling fast so send us an email or call 503-838-5416 if you would like to schedule.  How Much Is It?   This event is really affordable. You can purchase a 4x5 print for just $12, or a package for $35-$65.  Come on and join the fun! 

Honestly, I am not a big shopper so I generally avoid the malls and big retail stores on Thanksgiving weekend. If I have to pay full retail for socks on a different day, I will. That got me thinking. Wouldn't it be great if you could Shop Local while still cozying up to the fire in your jammies on the day after Thanksgiving? You can do just that by purchasing gift certificates to Haugen's online! We are having our own Black Friday and Cyber Monday special. Just go to our online shopping cart and purchase gift certificates for all your friends and family for 25% off the face value. We can even mail the certificates to you. Wow, that's easy. Now that is MY idea of a great way to shop!

Time to party! I have a number of small business owners that will be coming to the studio and sharing the fun stuff that they do. You can do a little Christmas shopping, sip some wine, get a massage, and have some fun with friends. FAQ's There is NO CHARGE for this event. Seriously. We were just wanting to say thank you to our clients and meet some new people along the way. We would love it if you supported the vendors by doing a little Christmas shopping and buying a raffle ticket would be awesome (see the next paragraph) but if you want to come and just hang out, that would be great, too. We will be selling raffle tickets for a gift basket full of goodies. Funds received will go to support Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep . This is an organization that provides beautiful photographs to parents suffering from the loss of a baby. If you plan to come, give us an RSVP so we know how much food to buy!

40 years? You have got to be kidding! Neil's high school reunion was this summer and a good time was had by all. (He is the handsome devil in the white shirt standing on the right.) The Blues Brothers gave us a command performance and we danced and partied like it was 1971 (well, almost.) Big thanks to Danny Bisgarrd and the crew for putting this all together. I did not go to McNary (my reunion for West Albany is next year) but this group gets together every five years and have really made me feel welcome.

We have a family reunion every Labor Day weekend. My parents, siblings, and as many nieces, nephews and grand kids as we can manage converge on Sunriver to enjoy the warm sunshine and hiking in the beautiful Oregon Cascades. When my father turned 40 he started climbing mountains and he has scaled every significant peak in the northwest. There were many family backpacking trips during the summer as I was growing up and a love of the outdoors was instilled in each of us. Most of these trips were to the Cascades and it just might be the nostalgia that keeps pulling me back to the high mountains, clear lakes, Douglas fir and Ponderosa Pine. My father is 93 now and doesn't climb mountains anymore but he is still an avid hiker. The trails my sister chooses for him are shorter and gentler than he would have chosen 15 years ago. 15 years ago, my sister and I couldn't keep up with him. Now we get to spend time visiting with him as we stroll at a more leisurely pace. This year we hi...

Lars spent the summer learning how to bake cakes for 4H..... and we have the waist lines to show for it! In a six week period we consumed three chocolate birthday cakes, two angelfood cakes, one 7 layer torte and two Rootbeer cakes. That was a lot of cake. Lars can now separate egg whites like a pro, whip up a 7 layer torte that will melt in your mouth and learned how to bake a moist and yummy Root Beer Cake. Lars with his other 4H projects: Our dog, Aphrodite, and his Holland Lop, Cheez-it. When I announced that his Angel Food Cake and Root Beer Cake both won blue ribbons at the Polk County Fair, the requests for the Root Beer cake recipe started flooding in. I am not one to hold secret family recipes close to my chest so I thought I would share. Blue Ribbon Root Beer Cake                                  ...

The dress slipped quickly over Megan's head and the transformation from kicked back mama to wedding diva began. "Will I be flashing everybody when I bend over?... Will it work to have this rose in my hair?" In spite of the white gown and all the primping, Megan was determined to have a low stress day. The makeup was natural, the hairstyle: simple, the shoes: comfortable.... and Amy was there at her side to fix what needed to be fixed and to be the calm voice of experience. The two moms were flitting about outside, fixing this, helping with that like two hummingbirds lighting on this flower and then that. The two dads moved with  the calm assurance of those that have been through this before and the knowledge that no matter what else happened, Ryan and Megan would soon be officially starting their life together. Ryan wiped the perspiration from his brow. It took some convincing, but we finally assured him that there were other people that could finish getting three yea...

This was our second time photographing the Ehler's family on their property in King's Valley. You can find one from the last session on our website. What a perfect day it was! We were a little nervous with all the rain that we had in June but God smiled on us. We managed to do some senior portraits of Jake, while we were about it. Surprising enough, there was not a basketball in ANY of the portraits. Jake is already negotiating with colleges for the best scholarships and perks. I think we will have to take in a Corvallis High basketball game this year!

"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them" This is a quote from Walt Disney, a man with unfailing determination and vision. I used to look down my nose at the vast Disney empire with its amusement parks, cutesy fuzzy animals, and too formulaic movies. I was especially annoyed when he took my favorite children's stories of all time, A.A. Milne's, Winnie the Pooh and "Disneyfied" them. In the original, the characters have depth and the humor is sweet but sophisticated. Not so in Disney's version. As I have grown older and wiser, I have to admit that good, old Walt was quite a guy. There was a lot more to him than a keen sense of what would sell to the masses. He truly was a visionary and had the single mindedness and perseverance to bring his dreams to fruition.  He knew exactly what he was about.... what "Disney" was about, and knew how to lead others along with him without falling into the traps that most of u...

Sonia just joined the ranks of high school graduates. I have photographed her older sisters, her little niece, the family....what's next? I hope you are heading out into the world to do great things, Sonia! Can you tell that Sonia has a thing for Nike's?

I better start out by saying that I am no Martha Stewart. You won't find me creating perfect centerpieces and creative name cards for all my soirees. My cooking is basic, my home is hardly pristine and the decorating is less than picture perfect. I hardly dare to say that I like gardening. That might cause one to come to my home with visions of lush flower beds brimming with color and a neat and tidy vegetable garden laid in symetrical, neat, weed-free rows. The reality is that I am still trying to figure out how to keep the flowers from drying up in the heat of summer, how to keep the deer from eating the tulips and tomatoes, and how to keep THE WEED from taking over my garden. I have been doing battle with THE WEED when I can squeeze in time between photography and family time. I don't know what it is but it has been slowly taking over my garden for the last three years. Maybe someone will tell me what it is and I really hope they will tell me about some nasty chemical tha...

    I get to know the most interesting people! Yesterday it was Janie. Janie Martin is an entertainer. I first met her as a singer with the Salem Big Band a few years back but her singing goes far beyond the big band style. She can croon or belt a song and have a crowd eating out of her hand. When she contacted me about doing photographs for her new website, I knew that the images had to sell her dynamic personality and the way she comes to life in front of an audience. They had to show how her eyes dance and sparkle. They had to make you sit up and take notice and want to listen to her. Janie is also a hypnotist! How cool is that? If you need a good hypnotist, be sure to visit her website. If you want to hear her sing Big Band, you can give her a listen on YouTube. You can also hear some more recent vocals on her new singing website.

I remember doing senior portraits of Shelby's mother, Michelle. She loved taking pictures but hated being in front of the camera and let me know that she was doing this for her mom. I was confident that she would have fun with it once she got warmed up. We did all kinds of poses both inside and out. We even did photographs with her camera. I had a great time. When we were all done, I asked, "Was that so bad?" She replied, "Yes, yes it was."  I was crestfallen. Later, I got to know Michelle better and learned that she has a very dry sense of humor and was at least partly teasing me with that reply. Only partly, though. She really doesn't like having a camera pointed at her. Shelby is another story. She comes to life in front of the camera. With her big eyes and model body, the camera loves her.  She is going to school and working TWO part time jobs to pay for the love of her life: her BMW! I asked her about some of her favorite things and this is what she...

Fresh baked chocolate chip cookies........... There just isn't anything else that says home more than that smell when you walk into the house. Just like a cozy fire on a cold winter night. Makes you think of Grandma's house in a Norman Rockwell painting with the kids running in shouting, "Oh boy, is that cookies, I smell?" That doesn't mean that I am baking cookies at home every week. When Lars suggests that this would be a great night to bake cookies, I usually say, "Go for it!" That is when we find out just how badly he wants those cookies. I used to try to evoke that homey feeling by burning scented candles in the studio. Then I found out that Otis Spunkmeyer will provide the oven and baking sheets when you order their dough and I was in heaven. Forget the scented candles! How much better is it to come into the studio to the smell of freshly baked cookies......and you get to eat them, too! They are really, really good cookies and sooooooo easy...

  The first time I met Laryssa, she was three years old and we did a family portrait out by the family duck pond. It was a perfect October day and the sun was just going down so we had the perfect light: a warm glow skipping across the water giving sparkles to the eyes and wrapping the faces in beautiful, soft light. The spot that we had chosen for the portrait was a little hard to get to, however, and Laryssa's dad donned his boots and gave each of us a piggy back ride through the water to get to the spot. My camera at the time, was a Mamiya RB 67 and weighed a ton so another trip through the water was made to bring the gear. That dedication is a sure sign of a man who loves his family! A couple of years later, we did dress up portraits of Laryssa in the studio and then, much later (in 2006), another fall family portrait at Helmick Park. (No piggy back rides, this time.) The image on the right is from that session. Now Laryssa is graduating from West Salem High School and loo...