April 2022

This is my first time posting one of my monthly update blogs in quite awhile. There’s no sense in trying to give an update on everything that has happened in the mean time. Plus if I’m being frank I feel like there might not even have been all that much that happened since then either. So instead I’m just narrow this post down to writing about last month and what’s coming in the month ahead.

The beginning of the month started off with a busy weekend as I kicked off the month with taking some portraits of family over at Bowen Park on April Fool’s Day. Then the next day I had my first wedding of the year as I photographed the wedding of Ana and Abraham at a community center in Gurnee. However after the rush of photography of those couple of days to begin the month, business slowed down significantly the rest of the way. The next time I had some photography work was Easter weekend when I photographed the courthouse wedding of Lluvia and Heberto.

The other thing that I have started this month is offering free mini portrait sessions on select weekends at some of my favorite Waukegan and other surrounding area locations. The availability of these sessions was limited this last month since I came up with this idea late in the month. Also, the weather plays a factor as well because these sessions are mostly going to be outdoors. My sole attempt to do this was April 23rd when I was out at Bowen Park wandering to do some of my nature photography and was ready to get photos of people with the Siberian squill if people were interested.

Currently for the month of May I potentially could be offering free mini portrait sessions a couple weekends in the middle of this month. So if you are interested in the opportunity to have a free mini portrait session, follow me on my social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram. On weeks that I plan on offering free mini portrait sessions, I’m going to try to post to my story on my social media accounts which day(s) I plan on having sessions on a weekend. Then the day(s) of I will post a story about what my location will be on that given day.

This coming weekend I am doing prom photos for my nephew, Gabriel, and his girlfriend so that’s why I’m opting against any additional portrait sessions this coming weekend. Then the last weekend of the I’m taking off since it’s Memorial Day weekend and also I’m planning on going to Summer Camp Music Festival on that Sunday. That’s pretty much the only set plans for this month so there could be some chances to meet up with me for a portrait session. 

The main thing I’m going to be working on this month is completely rebuilding my website. It has been a very long since I have made any sort of update to my website so it’s much overdue for some changes. Over the last week or so I’ve been doing a little research and come up with some ideas of how to improve my site and I’m looking forward to starting to institute them in the coming weeks. Hopefully when I post my next monthly update blog, my visitors will be greeted by a much different site.

March 2020

The beginning of March seems like such a distant memory at this moment. At that time, there was a slight fear of coronavirus at that time, but most people could not foresee how things would drastically change in a couple weeks. I remember at the beginning of the month going to a couple events that had a decent sized crowds, like the Lobby Day in Springfield and CharletheFirst show in Milwaukee, and not being too worried at that time. Then the next week, I remember things beginning to change vey quickly with events being cancelled and places beginning to close leading me to realize how serious we should be taking coronavirus. That is when worry started to creep into my world and I began to question whether I would have been better off skipping those events.

The seriousness of the current situation really began to sink in during the evening of March 11th. On that evening it was announced that the NBA season was being suspended, Tom Hanks and his wife had tested positive for coronavirus, and that there would be a ban on travel from Europe. As I went to bed that evening, I remember being stressed and hoping that when I woke up the next day that I would find out this was all a bad dream. Of course when I did wake up the next day, I found out that the world was not returning to normal and I was wondering what to expect next. At that time I had a couple photo jobs scheduled in the next couple days and I was unsure if those would still be occurring.

Those couple photos gigs did end up going along as planned and were the last bit of photography I did before social distancing and shelter-in-place went into effect. My daily has not been changed all that much during this pandemic versus prior to it. Most weekdays no matter what’s going on in the world, I spend most my working hours over in my office/studio space at my parents’ place. The main difference is having more people over at my parents’ home. My sister, Josie, came back early from studying abroad in Prague since her program was closed down early because of the pandemic. Meanwhile, my mum, who is an elementary school teacher, has been home as well since all the local schools were closed down around the middle of March.

So I’m sure you are curious to know how things have been for my business during the month of March and what I’ve been up to. Well, this month actually started off strong with a few photography gigs. Before things began to shut down, I had an engagement session, did headshots for most of the staff at Heart of the City, and a senior portrait session. Then during the second half of the month, I’ve had time to work on a couple things. The main task that has taken up a decent amount of my time was putting in work on reselling items on eBay. A lot of the items that I’ve listed most recently were from an early March rummage sale in Gurnee with a variety of other items that I found at both my home and my parents’ home. This time has also allowed me to finally update listing of prints I was selling on the Facebook page for my business. Part of the thought process was that I was hoping to contribute to the virtual ArtWauk. However, when I went to participate I didn’t see much of anyone posting their work. Well, that’s it for now, I hope everyone out there is staying safe during these trying times.

February 2020

Usually writing my monthly blog post late into the month doesn’t seem all that strange. However, with everything that has occurred with the coronavirus pandemic, it feels a little strange this time around. February really does feel like a time when life much simpler and everything seemed to be moving in the right direction overall. If you were to take the month at the surface, it didn’t look over impressive, but I was certainly feeling hopeful about what would be coming the rest of the year.

This month didn’t bring with it much in the way of photography gigs, but it certainly felt like things were moving in the right direction. I once again participated in the bridal tasting and preferred event at Illinois Beach Resort in Zion, IL. Compared to when they held their event in January, the event in February was better attended and there was just a much better energy in the room overall. It was nice getting to participate in an event like that early in the month. The rest of the month I got a few different inquiries from brides about being their wedding photographer. It was beginning to look like I would be having a busy summer with a calendar full of weddings.

The month of February also saw me begin to get into the business of reselling to make some money on the side. I started off my business with a combination of unwanted items from both my apartment and my parents’ home. I have a strange assortment of items from clothing all the way to figurines left behind by my Nana available for purchase. I was really excited when I thought I had sold my first item pretty quickly after listing them. However, I would soon find out that the only reason this person was interested was because they knew I was new to selling and were trying to run a scam on me.

I also had a decent social life during the month of February with some interesting variety to it. To start the month I went to CLC for a Friday evening showing of the Chinese film, “A Long Day’s Journey into Night”. The next weekend, my mum and I did our usual and checked out the February edition of ArtWauk. Then following weekend was one with a couple performance with a Friday night trip down to Three Brothers Theater for a visiting comedy group called Deep Space Comedy. The next night I went over to Waukegan High School to catch their performance of “Midsummer’s Night Dream. So I’d say looking back at February now and especially in comparison, it was a pretty darn good month really.

January 2020

2020 has gotten off to a bit of an uneven start, but I’m happy to say that I feel like I’m making progress. My energies have mostly been related to my photography. The first Saturday of the month I spent my afternoon at Illinois Beach Resort for their bridal tasting and vendor event since I am a preferred vendor over there. Then the following Thursday, I had my first photography gig of the new year. I did photography for an event to celebrate the fact that Feroze Hanif was donating the money that he won as one H&R Block’s Franchisee of the Year to the Ray Bradbury Experience Museum. The Thursday after that I was yet again doing event photography with this time it being for the Lake County Community Foundation’s Engage Lake County that took place out at the University Center in Grayslake. The final victory I had in my business during the month of January was getting booked for three more weddings this coming year.

I like many people have tried to make changes to go with changing of the calendar to a new year. One of my goals for the new year has been keeping up with my routine of running semi regularly. At the end of 2019, I was doing pretty good on keeping up with my running. Unfortunately in the first month of the new year it has been really hit and miss for me. Part of my problem is that I’m resisting getting a gym membership even during the cold winter months and as a result have to coordinate my run with the Field House’s times where Waukegan residents can use the indoor track for free. The first available time for city residents to run is at 9am ends up cutting into the work day. Meanwhile for the later time starting at 7:30pm, I struggle to motivate to change into my running clothes and hit the track after the work day.

There are also a couple new ventures of mine that have started in 2020. For one, I’ve been spending about an hour each day doing a little housework at my parents’ house. This is meant to help supplement my income during these slow winter months. The second new endeavor for me is I’ve entered into the area of stock photography. Starting in the middle of January I started to upload some of my past photos to Adobe Stock. Here I am more than a month later and I still haven’t quite caught up with my back catalog of photos. You can bet that once I am caught up, I’m going to start getting back out there to take some new photos.

Overall, I’d say it has been a decent beginning to the new year. My social life has been fairly quiet the last month, but I won’t complain too much about that. A lot of time my weekend nights have been spent being a homebody cuddled up on the couch with my cats enjoying a few drinks and finally watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix. Otherwise those evenings were spent hanging a bit with my parents and even occasionally my sister, Josie, before she headed to the Czech Republic for her semester abroad.

December 2019

Here we are in the back half of the month of January and I’m just now writing a blog post about the month of December. I figure that even though this might not quite be the ideal time for my post about last month, I’ll do it anyway since I’m finally mostly caught up on work. I would say that the month of December ended up being a decent blend in regards to my business and personal life.

On the business side of things I started the month off with a few familiar faces as I had an outdoor session with the Deininger family. Also early in December, I worked for the Association of Music Partners at Waukegan High School in order to provide posed photos for the high school students at their concerts. Then later in the month, I had another photo shoot with my nephew, Gabriel. My final bit of work for the month of January was an engagement session with my buddy, Raul, and his fiancé, Frances. I’ll most likely be posting about that session tomorrow so be on the look out for that.

Meanwhile on the personal side of things, the month of December provided a good mixture of friends and family. Yet again I got together for breakfast with my buddy from middle school, Tomasz. Also, I had a lot of fun going to a party for my friend’s birthday. My friend, Dee, rented out a very cool loft space and then had some of her D.J. friends perform. It was a ton of fun between the music and getting to hang out with friends that I hadn’t hung out with in awhile. My final bit of social closed out the year as I went to the Chop Shop on New Year’s Eve to see Russ Liquid, Marvel Years, and Artifakts. I went alone because it was a solid lineup and then ended up being surprised when I ran into some friends of mine at the show.

Of course the month of December isn’t quite complete without spending some time with family. This is especially the case in my family since in addition to the holidays, we have quite a few birthdays. My dad, mum and myself all have birthdays near the end of the month of December. For Christmas, most of our family comes together on Christmas Eve. In recent years, my mum has invited most of siblings along with their children to come over in the afternoon on Christmas Eve to decorate gingerbread cookies. Then in the evening we have chili for dinner and then do our family gift exchange. Then on the actual Christmas day, Christmas is pretty calm at my parents’ place with it being just my parents, my 2 siblings that were in town, and myself. The last few years, we’ve even shifted from an elaborate, traditional Christmas meal to lasagna instead.

October 2019

The work to life balance continues to be a little out of whack since I’m more focused on my business at the moment. For work I had interesting assortment of jobs in the month of October and took me to some new and interesting places for the first time. The first few weeks of the month, I had a gig of one kind or another. My first photo gig of the month was local as I did an engagement session for a former classmate of mine and her fiancé at Van Patten Woods. The first new location that I visited this month was Holy Hill in Hubertus, WI. Since the family session was later in the day, I decided to head up on the early side and do a little bit of wandering of my own. Then the following week, I ran a photo booth for my niece’s birthday party.

The end of the month turned out to be a little hectic as I had 3 different gigs over the weekend and the 1 final gig to close out the month. The final Saturday of October started out with me doing my first gender reveal session. Then in the afternoon on Saturday, I did some before photos of a house that a friend of mine recently bought and will be having remodeled. For Sunday, I made my first trip to Morton Arboretum for an awesome engagement session. To closeout the month of October, I had a friend of mine stop by for a headshot session.

Now as I previously stated, my social life was fairly calm this past month. After the family portrait session at Holy Hill, I came back home spent some time hanging with my buddy and former coworker, Carl, at his place. The following weekend, Carl and I managed to finally find a time when another former coworker, Chris Mallon, could join us. We ended up going out to Salutos for pizza and some well overdue catching up. Although, I did run a little late that evening because I decided to stop by ZombieWauk beforehand. Then on Halloween night, I decided to dress as Shaggy from Scooby-Doo and go on the Waukegan Main Street’s Boos and Brews Bar Crawl. I ended up catching up with the people on that bar crawl at Win Win and followed it up from there with 17 North and Green Town Tavern later.

The month of November is likely to be more of the same with mostly business with a little bit of fun mixed in. So far I have shoots tentatively planned for the next two weekends with a family session next weekend and an engagement session the following weekend. I’m also working to on getting together a Christmas mini session perhaps for Small Business Saturday if all goes well. My studio presents a unique challenge for me, but I’m going to work hard to figure out how to best utilize it. Currently, I don’t have much in the way of social planned, but I am looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with my family. Well, that’s all for now until next time.

September 2019

I have a mixture of emotions about the past month. On one hand the positive is that I had a decent amount of work and had a decent amount of social events during this month. In fact, the second weekend of September definitely goes down as one of the more hectic ones that I’ve had during my time as a photographer. On Friday the 13th, I photographed the wedding of Billy and Ryan at Brighton Acres in Oshkosh, WI. The next day on Saturday, I did photography for Faith in Place’s Green Team Summit and VIP Reception at the Field Museum in Chicago. Once that was over I hurried back to Waukegan so I could do an hour of photography at birthday party as well.

It was a bit of a blessing that after that weekend, I had a couple weeks free to get caught up on editing photos from that weekend. Me and my folks decided to celebrate getting caught up on editing by going out to Quonset for some pizza and beer. It was also nice be able to get caught up on my editing in time for my final portrait session of the month as I photographed the Larsen family over at Roosevelt Park here in Waukegan.

I had a little bit more of a social life during September than I’ve had in some months recently. The first Saturday in September ended up being a busy, fun filled day where I caught up with quite a few people that I hadn’t seen in awhile. The first event of the day was attending the party in my backyard for my neighbor’s daughter 2nd birthday. Once the party was winding down, I went to hang out with my buddy, Carl, who I hadn’t seen in a few months. Then the final stop of the night was hanging out with another buddy, Raul, at his cousin’s birthday party.

Then, the Thursday before my busy weekend was a fun day as well. I won tickets compliments of the City of Waukegan Chamber of Commerce to see the screening of Napoleon Dynamite followed by a question and answer session with Jon Heder (Napoleon), Jon Gries (Uncle Rico), and Efren Ramirez (Pedro) at the Genesee Theatre. I ended up inviting my friends Celeste, Julio, and José to come along with the tickets I won. Also joining us were our friends, Rmneet and Taylor, who had bought tickets for this screening when it was initially announced months ago. We all even got to sit together since Julio used his connections from when he worked at the Genesee to get it so we got some good seats altogether.

Now the reason why I mention that September brought a mixture of emotions is because I lost a friend , Jennifer Schneider, to suicide. She was one of the kindest and sweetest people I’ve ever met so the news of her passing caught me off guard. It was just a few months earlier when I was surprised to find out that she was back in the area when I ran into her at a local environmental rally. Then a couple weeks after that we met up for coffee and discussed a wide range of topics. She seemed optimistic about the future and talked about having the opportunity to have a fresh start. I never would have thought that would be the last time I’d ever see her.

October 2018

I’m a little late on posting about the month of October, but the optimist in me figures it’s fine since the month of November isn’t quite half way over right now. Overall I would say October was a decent month even if there was not a ton going on in my world in regards to business and social life. I had a couple different photo sessions and one major social event during the month.

My first photo session was late in the month and brought me to the new tower of the Lake County courthouse for wedding photography. I was a little unsure of what to expect when I decided that we should take the formal photos indoors since the weather was not looking particularly good on that Saturday. I was happy that security there helped me out and pointed me in the direction of the best spot for photographs in the building.

The other photo session was with the Vasher family and took place on Halloween at Independence Grove. I was surprised at how nice the weather was for this shoot as it was comfortable to be outside even without a jacket. This is actually the third time I’ve photographed them over the last year-and-a-half. It’s always interesting getting to see the growth over time and being able to capture it.

The big social event for the month of October was going to Florida for Suwannee Hulaween with some friends of mine. Normally when I’ve attended festivals, me and a few people opt for driving to the festival grounds and camp in a tent. This time around we decided to switch it up a bit and fly out and rent a R.V. This was my second year going to Hulaween and enjoyed it as much this time if not more since we had the luxury of our camper to help escape the elements. Some of my favorite acts from the weekend were Manic Focus, Break Science, Minnesota, Gramatik, and Tipper.

Currently, I do not have a ton of plans for the month of November with my business. The only upcoming photography gig this month is capturing pictures for Faith in Place’s Annual Fundraiser. Also, I will once again be participating in Small Business Saturday and selling prints and gift certificates for photo sessions. I will be sharing space with a few other talented artists in downtown Waukegan at the Parlor. I also have some of my artistic work currently on display at Family Piano Co, Urban Edge, and the Jack Benny Center in Bowen Park.

My calendar is looking rather sparse for the rest of the month. This weekend was actually decent as far as events to attend was concerned. On Friday, I paid a brief visit to Booner’s Place for a networking event that drew a pretty sparse crowd. Then on Saturday, I had a good time going to my friend Julio’s new place for an apartment warming party. It was a ton of fun getting to hang out with a group of friends that I had not hung out with in quite awhile. Also, I’m counting this evening as an extension of the weekend since I’m planning on going to Sketchbook Brewing Co. for their 4th anniversary celebration. The rest of the month, I do not have much planned, but then again that can change pretty quickly sometimes. Well, I hope everyone has a good month of November and great Thanksgiving!

August 2018

Photography work was minimal for the the month of August. One of the bookings that I thought I might have at the beginning of the month for a Racine couple's 10th anniversary fell through unfortunately. Meanwhile as I posted about in my last blog entry, I did the Larsen family portrait yet again this year. Also noteworthy for my photography is that I will have a few pieces on display at the Family Piano Company. Currently the photos on display are from summer since my plan is to have pieces that coordinate with seasons of the year. It's definitely a very cool opportunity that Family Piano Company has allowed me in using their space.

My big adventure for the month of August was going out to Colorado to see Pretty Light Live perform at Red Rocks Amphitheater. I'm very happy that I ended up finally making a trip out to Colorado after talking about it the last couple years. It was a great weekend with great music and friends in a beautiful environment. The only complaint I can possibly think of is that we did not do more exploring. Granted I'm hopeful that I'll make it back out that way some time to explore Colorado further. 

The month of September will definitely be an interesting one. On the first day of this month, I had my first big gig of the month as I photographed a quinceañera. Right now, I'm less than 2 weeks away from photographing the wedding of one a classmate from high school. Meanwhile as far as fun activities, we are now in the midst of one of the most exciting months on the sports calendar. College football started this weekend with my favorite teams, Notre Dame and the Ohio State University, winning their opening games. Then this weekend, the N.F.L. kicks off and the Bears face off against the Packers. And there's also my Cubs making a strong case once again to participate in playoff baseball again.

March 2018

It didn't phase me until over a week into the month of April that I had yet to post about the month of March. During the month of March, I had some work, but it is definitely not anywhere near as much as I would like to have. While I'm not looking to make excuses, I did spend the first week of March out of town so I lost a week as a result of that. Once I got back into town, I had a Sunday engagement session with a couple and their dog at Fox River Park in Burlington, WI. Later in that same week, I helped out the Waukegan Association of Music Partners and did some photos for them. I was a little disappointed that I didn't take man photos for A.M.P., but I'm hopeful that myself and A.M.P. learned something and know how to do it better the next time. Finally, I did headshots at my studio for the new board members of the City of Waukegan Chamber of Commerce.   

I'm disappointed to say that I do not have much on the books for upcoming work this month. Right now, I'm going to try to keep from partaking in much in the way of fun and social activities until I'm getting more in the way of consistent work. This past Saturday, I did some photography as a volunteer for Faith in Place's farmers' market at the Annunciation of Our Lady Episcopal Church in Gurnee. Earlier today, I got a call from someone who I schedule a model session with for this coming Saturday. The final weekend of the month, could be busy as I will be photographing a christening one day and possibly a wedding on another day.  

The month of March was fairly busy in regards to fun and social activities. The first week of the month was spent going to, attending, and coming back from Okeechobee Music Festival in Florida. It ended up being an alright festival, but in all likelihood I will not go back to it because it is not worth the drive that I need to make to get to it. The second Saturday of the month, I went to Waukegan Main Street's Mardi Gras Casino as one of the guests of Lisa May. I was excited and very pleased with getting to see John Mulaney latest stand-up, Kid Gorgeous, over at the Genesee Theatre. The final weekend of the month, I went down to Rosement to catch Bassnectar's event, Spring Gathering. Overall, I'd say that it was a pretty fun weekend even if I'm really not that big of Bassnectar fan. Of the two night, I enjoyed the first night more with Rezz doing an awesome job and Bassnectar being pretty good as well that evening.