Capturing Your Memories!
Hello! My name is Amber Christians and I’m a western South Dakota portrait photographer. My goal is to help you preserve you memories in gorgeous high quality wall art or albums that you love and cherish for many years. Horses, pets, senior portraits, and families are what I am most passionate about. I have always loved animals of all shapes and sizes as well as the beautiful scenery I am lucky enough to live in. I have also always loved photography, there is rarely a time when I’m not happier with a camera in my hand. I love capturing those special moments when our pets and/or kids are doing the wonderful things they do that make them so unique and helping to capture that moment and personality forever.
I am very fortunate to live in very beautiful and scenic western South Dakota, so we have lovely areas to photograph in and lovely landscape to photograph. My specialties include outdoor pet and livestock photography, studio pet, child, and family photography, owners with their pets both in studio and outdoors, senior portraits both outdoor and in studio, family and child photography, and landscape photography. I do have prints for sale, if you would like to check them out you can see the photographs available at my store. I am a western South Dakota Photographer serving all of the Black Hills and surround areas.
Border Paws Dog Rescue Calendar Fundraiser!!!
I am super excited to announce this fun fundraiser I am sponsoring to benefit this wonderful dog rescue! Border Paws brings dogs from the south where they are very overcrowded in high kill shelters to find homes in the Black Hills area.
For this calendar contest you can enter you pet by donating $5 to enter your pet for a chance to win a featured photo on a calendar month (with a mini photo session with me to get the images), the grand prize winner also gets the cover photo. You win by getting the most votes during the contest. Each vote is $1 and all proceeds go to Border Paws Dog Rescue.
We will also have fun mini weekly contests for those that get the most votes each week. The wonderful businesses donating the mini-contest gifts are listed below.
Everyone is also welcome to purchase a grid space in the calendar for $10, thereby guaranteeing a spot for your pet on a date and month of your choosing.
Any type of pet is welcome to enter, as long as they can make it to their mini-shoot this spring/summer. I do I have a pet safe studio for pets that can’t be outdoors for their photos.
Week 4 mini-contest
March 30 – April 5
Prairie Thunder Photography LLC
$50 gift card for a photo session
My Etsy Store
Prints, Canvases, & Metal Prints
I’m very excited to announce the launch of my new Etsy store! If you are in the market for wall art including prints, Canvases, and Metal Prints, check out my store by selecting the picture above!
The photos to the right are some examples of prints available.
Thank you so much for your support and consideration!
Photos from 2025 Horse Shows and Clinics
In the interest of getting them up as quickly as I could they are only very lightly edited. Any photos you purchase whether they be digital or prints will be fully edited before delivery. This includes color correcting, straightening and cropping as needed. You can purchase straight from the website or you can let me know what you want to order and I can take care of it for you. Either way works great.
- New Shows, Clinics, and events coming soon!
Fine Art Editing
Offering fine art editing! The photo to the right is an example of this. I can do this kind of edit on most of my photographs. If you want me to work on another photographer’s photo I would need written permission from that photographer or proof that you own the copyright or editing rights to that photo. Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.
Testimonials
“Amber is so creative and I love that she has so much experience with horses and animals. She is always supportive of trying new things, even my critters love her! She is quick to respond to messages and gets her photos edited and out to her clients really quickly. She really puts her heart and soul into her photos, I would highly recommend her and Prairie Thunder Photography”
“I was very happy with the quality prints of my horse events. I can’t believe how Amber gets some of those action shots what with dodging cattle etc. And my last order she hand delivered. She is so very easy to work with.”
“My son’s senior photo session was so fun! We wanted evening photos and Amber timed them just right. The session was very relaxed and easy. Amber did such a great job making my son’s session personal to him by including his car in the photos and she did a great job focusing on all the details. She also helped me pick out our favorites and order them, which was a huge relief with all the options she gave us! Thank you Amber, for capturing Zaiden’s personality in his pics!”
“Amber has taken beautiful photos of me riding! But she stole my heart when she did a photo shoot with us and our old dogs. It was beautiful, and I have timeless memories. It felt like she wasn’t even there and then the magic. Highly recommend!”
“Amber is the most accommodating, easy going, animal loving photographer I’ve ever worked with. She is super patient and very creative. Not to mention a trooper hiking in to get the best pictures. In addition, incredibly talented and artistic backdrops etc.”
“Amber’s unique perspective and uncanny ability to capture the moment are the reasons we call her for our equine and personal photo shoots.”
“Amber Christians of Prairie Thunder Photography is awesome to work with. She has the patience of a saint when it came to me making changes for our page in a magazine. Her photos are top of the line and she gets fantastic shots. Absolutely love her work. Thanks so much for everything.”
“Amber was such a pleasure to work with. The background changes she did were spectacular! The quality and attention to detail is amazing. They are something I will treasure for a lifetime!”
“I contracted with Prairie Thunder Photography to get professional, artistic photographs of my five horses. I wanted a number of color memorial pieces as well as black background portraits. Amber worked with my crazy schedule, found the perfect locations on my own ranch and worked thru a number of tack changes! Once I chose the ones I wanted and she had edited them fully, she even added some effects to make a couple of them truly spectacular! She can even add mane where your silly mare ripped it out a week before the shoot! I believe that as a horse owner herself, Amber has a beautiful eye and is remarkably talented. I also gave her a project photo where she completely replaced the messy, distracting (and kinda ugly) arena background with a rainstorm! It was remarkable. I highly highly recommend Amber and Prairie Thunder Photography! I have three more horses, so I will call on her again for sure.”
“I have really enjoyed working with Amber. I’ve purchased three different packages from her this year alone. I definitely plan on using her in the future and highly recommend.”
Prairie Thunder Photography made my senior picture experience amazing! Amber was patient with me, as I decided to include all six of my horses, and she made me feel great about myself!
