Gabriel

If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you might recognize my nephew, Gabriel, from my “Family and Friends Friday” project that I work on sporadically. Back in September last year, I had a portrait session with him. I guess I must have done an alright job because he contacted me about doing a shoot over his winter break. Originally we thought about trying for an indoor location for this shoot. However, the weather on this particular day was so nice that I felt like we’d be foolish to pass it up. Plus, I had some locations in downtown Waukegan that I thought would make for a good backdrop in his photos.

Adylie & Avery | Holiday Mini Session 2019

When I decided to try out the whole holiday mini session craze, I reached out to my siblings to see if their kids could be my models. I was happy that my sister, Abby, and I found a time that worked I got to photograph my darling nieces, Adylie and Avery, and put my holiday setups to work. Originally I was thinking we’d spend most our time using the fireplace set. However, we spent the majority of the time on the wintery setup and even hand the opportunity to have a indoor snowball fight with Avery.

Larsen Family | 2019

The annual family portrait session with the Larsens happened the last weekend of September. Just a few days before we were unsure if we would have to reschedule since there was rain in the forecast for that day. Luckily for us the weather held off and we managed to have their session as scheduled. It so cool getting to photograph the Larsen family year after year and seeing first hand how much the kids, Kitty and Rocky, have changed. Also, I was happy that we had this session at Roosevelt Park since I wanted to have one there for quite awhile.

Ashley & Isaiah | Wedding

After traveling to Wisconsin and Indiana for weddings the previous two weekends, it was a welcomed relief to photograph a local wedding once again. Ashley and Isaiah’s wedding day helped to remind me how unique every wedding day really can be. Going into this wedding day, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect since I had photographed a wedding at Bowen Park a few weeks prior. However, I soon found out my thinking was a little off in that regard.

A couple differences that I noticed early on was the seating layout and energy from the guest from the previous wedding I photographed at Bowen. Granted what sets this wedding a part from others in my mind was the fact that ceremony started much later than planned. I’m used to weddings occasionally being behind schedule and the ceremony starting a little, however, this one ended up beginning almost 50 minutes late. The reason for this drastic of a delay was the officiant was running late and then got caught in a bit of a fender bender. I did my best in dealing with this delay and I’m only a little disappointed that my time photographing the bride and groom together was limited.

Concha | Pet

When I got a call back in June inquiring if I did pet photography, I immediately said yes since I assumed the subject would be a dog. So I was a little taken back when I found this pet session was going to be for a turtle. Honestly for most this conversation, I thought this might be some kind of strange practical joke so I just went about discussing plans for the session like a normal inquiry and thought eventually person on the other end of the line would reveal that they were messing with me. So when the conversation came to an end with the plan to have this session on the turtle’s birthday I as certainly a little surprised. And that folks is the story of how my last photo session of the month of July ended up being with Concha the turtle at Bevier Park.

Addison | 6 Months

If you follow me much, you know that I don’t normally use props during sessions. However, when a client owns props that they would like to incorporate into their session, I’m more than happy to work with them to make that happen. So when Addison’s mother told me while we were planning the shoot that she had some props that she was interested in bringing, I was interested to see what she brought along. Clearly, she made good decision on props that gave us a variety of looks for this milestone session.

This session happened in early July and Addison was actually closer to 7 months old by the time this session happened rather than 6 months old. Then again you’d be none the wiser if I had not mentioned it. Originally this session was planned for mid June, but ended up getting reschedule since the weather on that day was looking to be on the cooler side with a chance of rain as well. Then, with both our schedules we didn’t have a time that worked for everyone until a few weeks later since there was a period where we traded off time out of town.

Dennis and Dareth | Wedding

Taking a step back a little ways today as I post photos from Dennis and Dareth’s wedding back in March. This was my the first wedding I shot this year and definitely up there in terms of the most fun I’ve had photographing a wedding. It was very rewarding looking back at these images to make this post. Before I choose the photos, I was expecting that I’d post 30 images, but I eventually found out that wasn’t going to be possible. Definitely was glad that I got to capture the beauty and fun of Dennis and Dareth’s special day.

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.