Photography businesses offer immersive experiences for holiday portraits and beyond

It all started with trying to make snow fall inside.

Photographer Christopher Reistroffer of Reistroffer Design has volunteered at LifeScape since he was 14 – he’s now nearly 40 – “and a lot of the children I engage with when I volunteer have sensory issues, and it was difficult to bring them outside in the winter,” he said. “So I decided to make it snow inside.”

It was about nine years ago, and seeing the kids light up at that magical experience inspired Reistroffer to do more.

“Christmas is my absolute favorite season,” he said. “So when I found that it worked for these kids, well, other kids don’t like to be cold, so I did it for other kids. Then I said let’s add some lamps and that was really cool. And then I got the idea of adding Santa.”

Last holiday season was the first time he put the entire experience together, calling it the The Arctic Express.

“I tell families our goal from the moment you enter our studio is to transport you to the North Pole,” Reistroffer said. “I want … even dad to say. ‘Oh my gosh.’”

He plans to change the pop-up studio location annually – this year is on the east side – and the experience is growing in big ways already.

“We have a big Christmas display as kids go in,” he said. “We’re going to take five days and decorate it wall-to-wall with as many Christmas lights as we can. We’re putting up a Christmas maze for when kids come in, so our big elf will greet them at the door with golden tickets or letters from Santa.”

Local business partnerships have played a key role too, with furniture from Montgomery’s, event design from Accents Event Design & Decor Rental and an indoor “forest” from Baumgartner Family Christmas Trees adding to the ambiance.

“It’s truly magical, from the train coming in to the reindeer on the roof and jingle bells in the background,” Reistroffer said. “We have antique lamps, sleds, skis … and beautifully wrapped presents to hold during the shoots.”

While the experience is geared toward kids, it’s a fit for the whole family, he added.

“We’re all ages,” he said, adding that “for me, this is a Christmas-only thing. I love doing senior portraits, weddings and family photos and those experiences, but this is something I only do for a handful of days once a year.”

After the family’s immersive experience, parents review photos while kids watch a holiday movie and get a visit from the treat train.

The photos are more like “individual pieces of artwork,” Reistroffer added.

They can be turned into Christmas albums, digital artwork, canvases and holiday cards.

The Arctic Express has sessions available Nov. 18-20 and Nov. 26-27.

“People are actively booking now – everything is by registration,” Reistroffer said. “I would say three of 15 that we booked are brand-new. Otherwise, they’re families that have been with me year after year, and for me, that is exciting.”

Startup goes all in on photo-experience model

In downtown Sioux Falls, an older office building also now is home to another interactive photography business that has made the experience of the photo shoot the central part of its business model.

“We are not like a photography studio. We are very focused on immersive adventures,” said Russell Mendenhall, who co-owns littleroyals with his partner, Rachel Mangyao.

“We just happen to have a camera.”

Mendenhall’s background includes more than a decade as a professional photographer and videographer – much of it involving weddings. With littleroyals, though, “we were looking for something that had a little something special about it,” he said. “At those ages, it’s all magic. Hope is real. There’s possibility, everything like that. They’re just going on an adventure. Our mission is a magical moment in every childhood.”

He and Mangyao started the business at 300 N. Dakota Ave. at the beginning of this year after he went through the Startup Sioux Falls CO.STARTERS program.

They began with a fairy and fisherman-themed set – “a whole set with plants, animals, things like that, where it’s immersive,” he said.

“That’s why all the expressions you see are genuine amazement and genuine fun because the children are going on an adventure with our team members.”

He estimates they’ve been holding about 60 of those sessions monthly, with the average client driving more than two hours for the experience.

“We have clients come from Sioux Falls, but surprisingly from Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa; we even have a couple people who came from Rapid City,” Mendenhall said.

The holiday season is shaping up to be even busier. In October, littleroyals began offering a rustic log cabin set with a Santa experience.

Kids bring out milk and cookies for Santa and pretend to take a nap by a custom fireplace, surrounded by antique furniture, before they’re “awakened” by jingling as Santa walks in.

“He goes through a whole adventure,” Mendenhall said. “He makes sure they’re on the nice list … and after that, they can paint toys, read stories, find the North Pole and even more adventures like that.”

While the experience primarily is for those age 4 to 10, it can adjust to include older kids. The conversations are personalized to talk about the children’s interests, friends and milestone moments from the past year.

“We’re already, in the first half of November, pretty much booked solid,” Mendenhall said. “We get inquires 25 to 30 times a day.”

Littleroyals offers customers everything from wall portraits and storyboards to custom-written, leather-bound storybooks featuring the family’s children.

“It allows them to transport back in time to these special areas,” said Mendenhall, whose mother is a children’s librarian. “Here, the children are the heroes. It’s about them. It’s a performance for the child, and they’re just experiencing magic the whole time.”

He predicts the business is just getting started. After Christmas, the plan is to expand the fairy and fisherman experience while creating others.

“Obviously, we’d love a castle,” he laughed. “But we do have a lot more planned and in store based on the response we’ve had.”