Cruz Family

This portrait session with the Cruz family closed out my very busy month of September. Lacy told me that she was inspired to schedule this photo shoot after she found their outfits during a trip to Gap. The day of this session I was a little worried there would be rain and luckily the weather held up making for a pretty good session. I tried my darndest during this shoot to get the little girl to smile for these photos, but she just was not having it. I’m pretty sure in the ones where she’s smiling a bit, I’m receiving assistance behind the scenes from her parents.

Tim & Korona | Wedding

I’ve been slacking once again on posting photos from the last couple of months so you can expect some new posts over the next week or so. I can’t believe that it has been almost two months since Tim and Korona’s wedding. I think part of it is the contrast in weather between that day in mid-September and today. I remember Tim and groomsman after the formal portraits at South End Park being happy to finally be able to shed their suit coats so they could cool down a bit. Meanwhile this morning after a brief trip out to my car grab something, I decided it was finally time to figure out where I had put my gloves and hat after last winter.

Well, enough about the current frigid temperatures we’re experiencing here and on to Tim and Korona’s wedding day. Their wedding was by far one of my favorite weddings that I have photographed. I always like when people I’ve known for awhile contact me about my photography service and I think that’s what helped make this wedding so enjoyable for me. Tim and a couple of his groomsmen were all connected by the fact that we went to Waukegan High School. It was truly a day where my job did not feel all that much like work.

September 2018

September was positive month for me with both my business and social life. My biggest victory of this month was the fact that I made my monthly financial goal. With the exception of one week, I had photo work of one kind or another every week of the month. I began September with Mariana’s Quinceañera, which brought me out to Des Plaines for the ceremony and then back to Waukegan for the reception. Then a couple weeks later, I had two very different photography gigs in one week. The first one was a 1st birthday portrait session in my studio on a weekday. Then on the weekend, I went out to Dundee to do photography for the wedding of a former high school classmate of mine. The next Saturday, I worked as photographer for Faith in Place’s Green Team Summit at the Field Museum in Chicago. Finally, the last weekend of September saw me having a family portrait session at Bowen Park.

September was a much more active month for my social life than I originally expected. Going into last month, I was planning on staying in and only going out to catch Modest Mouse at the Genesee Theatre. Instead I ended up getting a little caught off guard by people inviting me to different get togethers and events. One of the bigger events that came out of nowhere was a buddy from high school inviting me out to catch the Cubs playing the Reds for a rare Friday night game at Wrigley. Then another Friday night, I went out to Palatine to catch a couple jam bands performing at Durty Nellies. In addition to these bigger events, I went out to a few local establishments and hung out with a few different groups of people.

Despite being nearly a week into the month of October, I’m not entirely sure what to expect of this month. At the moment, I do not have much scheduled for photography work. In fact, the only day of photography work I have could possibly be in the form of two weddings on a single day with a courthouse wedding in the morning and then a different, formal wedding in the afternoon. On the side, I’m back to helping my brother-in-law with some of his contract work on an as-needed basis. Meanwhile, I don’t have a ton planned for the next couple weeks for the social realm. Although, I am looking forward to going to a music festival later in this month.

Promise | 1st Birthday

Last Thursday was my first time having a photo session specifically for a 1 year old when I had Promise in the studio. It was also the first time where I had a session that included a cake smash. The main challenge in sessions like this is usually finding a way to get some cooperation and attention from the child. Promise was no different as she was intrigued by all the space in my studio and wanted explore the area in the room beyond the backdrop. Another challenge was getting her to look in the proper direction and seemed to be pretty interested in ceiling even though it wasn’t running at the time. Finally, going into the session I was hoping that she would one of those babies that would really get into the smashing the cake. However, as you can see in these pictures, she wasn’t very eager to make and mess and play around with her cupcake.

Mariana's Quinceañera

I began the month of September by photographing Mariana’s quinceañera. It has been a couple years since I had last photographed, but I did a good job picking it back up pretty easily. The ceremony part of quinceañera took place at Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines. I was unsure of what to expect since was unfamiliar with this church. Part of me was a little worried since I was not completely sure if the ceremony portion would be indoors and the weather forecast was looking a little troubling. In the end, the ceremony was held outside on a sizable veranda and the weather actually turned out very nice as well. The reception then was held at the Arches Banquet Hall in Waukegan. While it wasn’t my first time being at the Arches, it was my first time having a photography job take me there.