I had a portrait session with the Waszkowski family last September at Grant Woods. Good thing for this session I showed up early because I was able to figure out that there were two parking lots for this forest preserve and the one that my directions had taken me to, wasn’t exactly the location I had in mind. Luckily I had more than enough time to figure out where the other parking lot was and scope out the scenery a bit before my clients ended up arriving.
Originally Onya and Michael's wedding was set for 2020 but ended up having to cancel due to covid restrictions at that time. So the following year once they set a new date for their wedding, they contacted me to see if I was available for their new wedding date. Since I had their new date available, I was able to photograph their wedding day after all.
Back in August last year as a birthday gift for my niece, Jamiah, we had a photo session over at Greenbelt Forest Preserve. The bugs were a little troublesome on this particular day but, I think I did a decent job working around that and got some good shots. In addition during this session, I ended up getting some group shots with my nieces and nephew.
This was my third time working with Janeth and Sean since I previously did their engagement photos in the fall of 2019 and then in the fall of 2020 they did a family portrait session. Their wedding took place in early June 2021. We did their first look on the pier for the lighthouse in Kenosha. Then we had a lovely day for their outdoor ceremony over at Wolfenbuttel Park. And finally to cap things off, the reception was over at Bonnie Brook Golf Course in Waukegan.
Back in July I was contacted by one of my high school classmates, Benito, about a portrait session for his daughter's quinceañera. Briana had heart set on having the session at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe so we started the session over there. After being a little unsure if we had quite gotten all the shots we wanted, we decided to try out a second location as we headed on over to Central Park in Des Plaines. Very happy that we tried out a second location as the park made for a great backdrop for the photo session.
For Sade and Alphonso’s wedding back in May 2021, I was the second photographer as I finally had the opportunity to work with my friend, Sandy. It’s always an interesting challenge to be a second shooter as while you feel a little less pressure to get some of the shots, there is also the need to add a little bit of a different perspective sometimes. This wedding was quite a drive for both of us being as we are both in the Chicagoland area and the wedding venue was all the way down in Farmington. So Sandy and I ended up carpooling for this wedding and had some time to catch up as well during the long drive.
My approach to New Year’s resolutions has usually been that I don’t make one because they generally are destined for failure most the time. Or I do something like last year where I make ones that are too big and as a result of that very difficult to keep. With last year’s resolution the primary goal was to try post daily on TikTok. Unfortunately for me I ended up having trouble with that goal from the very first day as I failed to post a video on the first day of 2021. With each passing day that I didn’t post, I lost confidence that there was any chance at all that was going to suddenly change and start accomplishing. The lesson that I’m taking from last year has lead me to change my approach for my resolutions in 2022.
I’m sure there are some people out there that can go from 0-60 on goal with little problem, but I have realized that’s just not who I am. This has lead me to formulate a different approach for accomplishing my resolutions this year. My method is that I am progressively building my way to improvement beginning with small goals and working my way up as the year goes. So far I have found this system is very encouraging since right now I am easily accomplishing most of my goals and know it serves as a good base for when the difficulty increases as the months go on during the beginning of the year.
So I’m guessing you might be curious on what exactly my goals are this year. One of the my major goals is building my web presence. And for the month of January, my way of accomplishing that is posting at least once a week on a variety of different platforms including this here very blog. Then from there in February, it will be moved up to posting twice a week on different platforms. Beyond the first couple months of this year, I haven’t quite figured out where to set my expectations but I’m sure I’ll have a better idea when it comes around.
One of my resolutions for this year is posting more consistently on social media. So I figured I should pick up from where I left off last year and post photos from France and Raul's wedding in November 2020.
Christine and Sean was the first wedding I photographed during a very busy month of October last year.
It's always cool when I get the opportunity to reconnect with people from my past during a photo session. For this maternity and family session I got to catch up a bit with one of my high school classmates John Bon and his family back in early July last year.
