Before photography, family memories were kept alive through annual reenactments of the year's best moments, despite Grandpa's continued miscasting as the mischievous puppy. Treasure your memories with today's Groupon: for $45, you get a portrait session (up to a $70 value) and $180 worth of prints at Petersen's Photography (up to a $250 total value) in Broken Arrow. Petersen's is open by appointment Tuesday–Saturday.
The Petersens bend light to their will and draw emotions from families, children, and graduates to capture memorable portraits. Subjects travel to the Petersens' campus for one- to two-hour portrait sessions held inside their indoor studio or outside in a two-acre garden replete with blossoming flowers, benches, and a pond stocked with tiny Loch Ness monsters. Indoor portraits are captured between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. and outdoor shots are taken at the beginning and end of the day, when the light is most compelling. Indoors or out, the photographers manipulate light and shadows to create mood and emotion. The Petersens also understand corneas to be much more than just the windshields of the brain, and focus on subjects' eyes to coax expression and spirit. Throughout the sessions, subjects strike an array of poses sitting on wrought-iron benches, standing in front of neutral backdrops, and engaging in polite conversation with tulips.
After portrait sessions, guests return to the studio to view photographic proofs in a slideshow set to music or the Gettysburg address as mumbled by your precocious four-year-old. Subjects discuss retouching and cropping while placing orders for photographs in sizes such as 5”x7” ($60) or 8”x10” ($80), or wallet prints ($45 for eight).