located at Briarcliff Village
inside Shana Vaughn Designs
4153 N. Mulberry Drive
Kansas City, MO 64116
816.560.6412
Wedding season hours are by appointment, Monday through Friday. Sarah is available for evening consult times at the studio on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Evening portrait session times are available.
From December through March, Sarah is able to schedule weekend consults and portrait sessions as her wedding schedule allows.
Email Sarah for rates, availability or to find out more about my work!
Visit my portfolio here.
See my most recent work below!
My sister lives on the square in Liberty (in a loft); it’s funny that I’m there a fair bit but have never shot around the square. Well, I have now! Molly and I explored the historic area, then headed out to Stocksdale Park to finish the shoot. We had a great day (albeit a bit warm – I was shocked to get home and find out the high temp was 99 degrees, enough already!) and great light, and as are ALL my seniors, Molly is drop dead gorgeoussssss!
Kayla’s senior portrait session was rescheduled from the super hot weather we had a couple of weeks ago to a much more tolerable 82 degrees last Thursday on the Country Club Plaza. We walked all. OVER. the Plaza and I found a couple of cool new “nooks” I’d not seen before – as well as hitting some of the usual suspects (EVERYone loves those blue tile stairs 
). One thing’s for sure – Kayla is drop dead GORGEOUS in these shots!
HOT is the continued theme for this week’s blog posts – as every shoot was either in or nearly in triple digit temperatures. Zach’s senior session was no exception – I’d expect a senior guy to grumble and gripe about being drug out in the heat for senior portraits but not Zach. He was cool with all of it. (well, maybe not PHYSICALLY cool…) We shot a bit at Briarcliff by my studio, then headed to the River Market to finish up on the hot hot concrete.
Zach, you and your family were a pleasure to work with – hope you love the sneak peek!
We started off by doing a quick (and I mean quick, look how everyone’s dressed!) family portrait before starting Zach’s shoot.
Jessica and her mother were the second family this year to make the trek south from Nebraska to Kansas City for their senior portraits with me. (seriously, guys, I’m so flattered!) They actually made the trip into a mini vacation with shopping and seeing the sights around KC. Given the temperatures late last weekend (100) and the fact that Jessica has curly hair that is hard to straighten, we split the shoot into half and did a bit Sunday night, and a bit Monday morning. She was able to wear her hair both ways and we were able to avoid dying of heat stroke!
Here is but a very small sampling of the shots we got! It’s starting to be senior shoot season – and I’m lovin’ it! 
Zack was a lot of fun to shoot – he likes comedy and does improv and as you’ll see we worked that into his shoot – but it popped up in a lot of other places too. Especially when we were shooting around the West Bottoms warehouses and walked down an alley and came upon another photo shoot – not uncommon in the bottoms as it’s used for a LOT of shoots – but, ahem, let’s just say it was a couples shoot and the couple was half naked! We both turned and hightailed it for someplace else but after I got over the horror of corrupting a high school senior, we had some good laughs.
Here’s the rest of the story!
We found a great way to work a comedy theme into part of the shoot.
And Zack being the funny guy he is, I just HAD to post a couple of outtakes – because there were many!
Brittany and her family EASILY win the award for furthest distance traveled for a senior photo shoot with me: McCook, Nebraska. Which is SouthWESTERN Nebraska, I am told a mere 100 miles from the Colorado border. Color me absolutely flattered that they chose me to do Brittany’s senior photos! We shot on Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza early Monday morning – but it was still HOT. And we walked a LOT – Brittany’s mom’s pedometer was at a mile and a half about halfway through the shoot! One thing is for sure, I think Brittany will have something a bit different as far as a backdrop than her classmates will!
Brittany’s mom warned me that she loved to be barefoot!
Seriously gorgeous, Brittany!
Kendra has worked with me before, last spring before the Miss Missouri Teen pageant. Well….she won! Now she is off this month to Philadelphia for the National competition as Miss Missouri (which is awesome!) We did another shoot in prep for the national competition, and here are a few sneak previews for you all.
PS – this is obviously very similar to a senior shoot, which reminds me, 2011 seniors, get on the calendar now! I’m already booking quite a few shoots in August, and since I’m a crazy busy (emphasis on the CRAZY) wedding photographer, I can only take so many portrait sessions and handle the workload.
and PS again – Canon “L” lenses are rock solid. I dropped my 135L during this shoot three and a half feet directly onto asphalt and not only did it take a licking and keep on ticking, it didn’t even have much of a “beauty” mark on it! Good thing, because the 135L is my favorite lens, by far. LOVE it.
I digress. Here’s Kendra.
I’ve known Caitlin through photographing area dressage shows, so was flattered when she contacted me to do her senior session. We made her two horses, Galaxy and Stryker, the focus of the session. Caitlin is presently, as I type this, competing both horses at the Region 8 Arabian and Half-Arabian Sporthorse Championships in Estes Park, Colorado – so can I get a “good luck Caitlin!” from my faithful blog followers? I hope you are having a GREAT show!
Caitlin wins the prize for my first 2011 senior to photograph. Judging by the inquiries I’ve been getting the past two weeks, though, it’s going to be a very busy late summer and fall!
Hi everyone! Taking a break from feverish editing and blog preparation (coming later today: Cara and Ryan’s wedding and aviation-themed reception!) to give some updates from the portrait session side of my business. SDP has grown this year beyond my wildest expectations - and with that has come VERY tight scheduling. Right now, I’m getting several portrait session inquiries per day, and obviously I have to find places to schedule everyone in. However, it is also wedding season – not only wedding season but the BUSIEST PART of wedding season – and with 34 weddings this year, I am one insanely busy photographer right now!
As of now, I am scheduling about 3 weeks out on portrait sessions. My June schedule is completely full now – with one exception which I’ll explain shortly. I’m now already scheduling sessions in mid-July. So, if you are interested in booking an engagement session, a senior shoot, or a family session, it might be a good idea to go ahead and get on my schedule. I anticipate as we head towards late summer that scheduling will get even tougher – as senior shoots will start picking up at that time.
A “policy” change on scheduling, effective immediately – I am available for portrait session shooting Monday through Friday during wedding season (April through November), and seven days a week during off-season (provided I don’t have a rare winter wedding scheduled on a particular Saturday). I have quite a few Sunday weddings coming up on my schedule, as well as Saturday weddings that involve overnight travel. Sunday portrait sessions are going to be too difficult to schedule in until the season slows down.
And with the above comes a tip for those of you who REALLY want to get scheduled in – it goes without saying that evening shoots go first. I shoot nearly every evening right now. If you need an evening session, that is where the delay in scheduling is going to exist. If you want to get in QUICKLY, psssst, got a secret for you. Morning light is JUST as gorgeous as evening light and my mornings are largely free. I do realize with work schedules, it can be difficult to schedule at this time, but arranging for it can pay off big time as often I can get clients in nearly immediately if they are willing to schedule outside of an evening shoot.
So….to sum up – scheduling is running about 3 weeks (sometimes 4) for evening shoots, but if you can swing a morning shoot, you will find yourself on my schedule MUCH sooner! And note the availability for portrait sessions during wedding season in Monday-Friday (Fridays except where Friday weddings are scheduled).
I appreciate everyone’s patience! I promise you the wait to get your session is worth it. Of course, no blog post is complete without a photo, so here’s a quick preview of Stephanie and Cole’s engagement session that I did last night in Hays, KS (yes, I got home after midnight, but I LOVED shooting out there!)
Thanks to EVERYONE for your business. – Sarah
Rachel and I wandered all over gorgeous Kansas City – from the Brookside area to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art – to do her senior session. She wanted a more natural setting to her shoot and that, she got! I LOVE the greens and yellows in this shoot. Summer it is a coming! Congratulations on your coming graduation, Rachel!
