Kristin & Nick | Engagement

Kristin and Nick’s engagement session happened back at the beginning of this month. We contemplated a few different locations before deciding to go with Glacial Park in McHenry. I must applaud Kristin for making a good choice for the location of the session especially since I’m not overly familiar with the McHenry area. This session up to this point definitely goes down as the one with the windiest weather that I’ve ever photographed in. In spite of the conditions, I got a lot of great photos of this couple as well as a few with their son too. This session was a lot of fun including the moment near the end of the session when I suggested the prom pose and Kristin got into the pose quicker than I’ve ever seen at any of my past sessions.

Deininger Family | Winter 2019

This was my second time photographing the Deininger family and both times it has been around the same time of year in early December. Originally we had planned on having this session in late November, but the weather was not looking particularly good for the date we initially planned. It ended up being a case where once again the beginning of December was the time that worked best for everyone. The last time I had a family session with them, I remember it being unseasonably warm for that time of year and I’m sure we were all hoping to be as lucky once again. While we weren’t quite that fortunate, we go weather that was good enough to be comfortable outside and get some great photos.

Miller Family

Back in the day, I would go to Maria semi regularly to get my haircut. These days I go elsewhere, but I keep up to date on what she’s up to thanks to the fact she cuts my mum hair still and also through Facebook. Prior to this portrait session, I had only heard stories about Maria’s family from her and had never met them. She was inspired to get schedule a portrait session since her daughter and granddaughter, who live in Hawaii, were in town.

This portrait session took place at the beginning of July at the home of Maria and her family in Winthrop Harbor. A couple aspects of this session did not quite go as planned. First there was my plan was mainly to have this session outdoors. However, after being outside for a few minutes, we realized the mosquitoes were worse than expected. So after getting a few different groupings in the yard, we decided it would probably be better to scurry inside for a reprieve from the mosquitoes and take most the remaining photos indoors. Also for this session, we were short one member of the Miller family as their son was unable to make it home from work in time. All in all, I’m happy with how the photos turned out from this session and thankful that Maria wanted me to photograph her family.

Larsen Family

Last Sunday, I did what's starting to become a yearly tradition of the Larsen family portrait session. Before it, they had a couple locations in mind and they asked me if I had any preference of the locations they were interested in for the photo session. I said that I was most interested in Warren Township Park since it's been a very long time since I had been there and that I had never had a photo session there. Since it was a warm, humid day on Sunday, I was little worried that the park was going to be a little busy. Luckily, the weather helped out a little in that regard by giving us overcast skies that probably deterred people form going to the park. That helped make the photography a little easier and gave the Larsen kids, Kitty and Rocky, plenty of a chance to have fun time at the park. When it was all said and done, I felt like this was the most tired I've ever been from a photo session due to a combination of the weather and chasing the kids around during this session.

Nahf Family

This family portrait session occurred on the last Friday evening in July. Originally we had planned on having this photo session a week earlier, but it ultimately got pushed back because the weather forecast looked iffy for most that afternoon.  Seeing as the weather was much better the day of this portrait session, it turned out to be a great decision to re-schedule. Everything went well with the only real trouble was getting the dog, Percy, to not be distracted and look at the camera. 

Larsen Family

As I said in my previous post, I ended the month with a family photo session. I first got in touch with the Larsens by responding to their posting for a family portrait session on Thumbtack. I later ended up meeting them in person prior to the shoot as they visited my booth at Dandelion Wine Arts Festival. This was an exciting shoot because it was the first time photographing someone that was not friends or family. It was a pleasure to photograph the Larsen family. I want to build on this experience and do some more family portrait sessions.