My April and May were two distinctly different months in terms of work. April was tame with very little in terms of work related to my business. I started the month of April by participating in Wauk the Mall over at Belvidere Mall. This was an event that opened up vacant store space to local artists in a variety of different mediums, had a variety of bands performing in the space that used to the arcade, and even opened up the nonoperational movie theater so people could even check that out. A couple weeks after that, I was once again a part of ArtWauk as my exhibition, “Current Hesitations”, was still at Undercroft Gallery. The lone gig I had in the month of April was photography at Illinois Beach State Park for a 50th wedding anniversary celebration.
Meanwhile, the month of May provided me with a variety of interesting gigs. On the first Saturday of May, I had a couple gigs. I actually started off my day by setting up for Wauk the Mall and then leaving for a different photo gig I had at the American Legion in Fox Lake. I went out that way for a 90th birthday party to get a family portrait since it was one of those rare times where everyone in the family was in town. After that, I headed back to Wauk the Mall to work the photo booth that I had setup. I was actually pleasantly surprised with how I did with the photo booth, especially considering the fact that attendance overall was down compared to the previous month.
The following week took an interesting turn as I ended up picking up some gigs on short notice. Going into the first full week of May, the only thing on my schedule was going down to Springfield on Thursday to do photography for Faith in Place of Lobby Day and a prom portrait session for a couple on Saturday. Then, early on in the week I ended up picking up a couple gigs doing some local real estate photography. I also ended up being hired to do a group photo of the employees at the Social Security Administration as a going away gift for one of them. The final surprise of that week was getting contacted by someone interested in buying my photo of the lighthouse at Waukegan beach.
The week that followed was quiet in regards to photography, which was nice because it allowed me the opportunity to get caught up a bit. Then, once again I got some more pleasant surprises in the form of work to finish off the month of May. I got contacted to do a couple more real estate gigs. Also, I had the awesome opportunity to be the second photographer for John Welsh of Welsh Studios over Memorial Day weekend. The ceremony was at St. Peter Catholic Church in Antioch and the reception took place at DoubleTree by Hilton Libertyville - Mundelein. It was a very beautiful wedding day and hope to work with John again in the future.
Meanwhile on the social front, life has been fairly calm with me getting out on occasion to have fun. I feel like over the last couple months, I’ve hung out a bit with all my different groups of friends at one point or another. I got to hang out with my friends from high school back in April when I joined them in celebrating my friend Raul’s birthday with going out to eat at Lazy Dog and having some fun over at Dave & Buster’s. Also, I’ve gotten together with my game night friends for a few rounds of wildly contest games. And finally, over Memorial Day weekend I went to Summer Camp Music Festival with my friends who are into electronic music.