Larsen Family 2017

The Larsen family was one of my first ever photography clients. Over the last 3 years, I have photographed their family 4 times. It's very interesting having the opportunity to get a glimpse into seeing a family change as the years go by. When I first met the Larsen family, they were a family of 3 and their daughter, Kitty, had recently celebrated her second birthday. Today, the Larsen family has grown to 4 family members with the arrival of Rocky and Kitty has had to adjust to no longer being the only child. As always, it was great getting to work with the Larsen family and are these children ever adorable these days. 

August 2017

Many times the months feel like they move by a pretty quick pace and August was not the exception to this rule. In fact, August feels like it flew by at ultra sonic speed and I feel like I'm struggling to figure out the events of this month. Well, I had a couple paid portrait gigs during this month. I'll give more details on one of my shoots at a later date. The other photo session was with the Larsen family. This is the third year that I've photographed their family and is it ever cool to see them grow year after year.

This was a decent month as far as my social life was concerned. One of the highlights of the month was going to Chicago to catch Pretty Lights performing at Northerly Island. Also had plenty of time to celebrate the changes that occurring in the lives of those that are around myself. Seemed like I got to experience quite a range celebrations from a baby shower to a send-off party to a 91st birthday party. Don't worry though, all that partying did not wear me out.

This month I also continued to volunteer for Clean Power Lake County. I was actually part of the planning committee for the beach cleanup and rally that we held. The major event of the day was the Lake County Climate Action Pledge that was introduce by Lake County Board Chairman Aaron Lawlor at the rally. The other accomplishment that we can pat ourselves on the back about is having a great turn to participate with this event.

July 2017

Wow, I'm pretty far behind on making a post about July since we're already half way through the month of August. My photography business has not exactly kept me busy, but then again I have not made an effort to pursue new work. The only photo job of note was making a trip to Premier Build + Design's office in Itasca to do some a few headshots. The real work that kept me busy during the month of July was the ongoing work on my parents' house. July was really the month that I finally got back into the swing of things.

The most notable event that occurred during this month was the torrential rain and flooding that resulted from it. As far as Lake County communities, my city, Waukegan, did not get hit hard. However, many of the surrounding communities were not as fortunate and dealt with some pretty significant flooding. I feel like my problem of having a little longer commute around obviously pales in comparison to the people who had damage to their homes and were displaced by the flooding.

For Clean Power Lake County, we are constantly working to reach our goal. We started off the month of July by marching in Waukegan's American Independence Parade. As always that was a good opportunity to make our cause more visible to our local community. Also in July, Waukegan's city council approved signing onto the Paris Climate Agreement. This a move that the volunteers with CPLC have working towards making happen. I have also been helping plan CPLC's next event which is our beach clean-up and rally.

Finally, July was a good month in regards to the social part of my life. If I were to choose a major highlight of the month, I'd have to say it was the block party. The block party is always a good time so I'm always happy when I can make it. This year, I decided to invite some of my friends that I know through CPLC to join in on the fun. Everyone ended up having a blast and enjoying themselves. The part of it that I thought was pretty cool was how it helped to connect from different parts of my life. In fact, since the block party me and my friends have been getting together for game nights most Sunday evenings.

June 2017

I'm a little behind on making a post about the month of June. My two accomplishments of note for this month was photographing a wedding and hosting a photo exhibition for ArtWauk. Since I've already posted about the wedding, I'll skip on rehashing about that and instead go straight to my photo exhibit. Since I've done so much photography so far this year, I am trying to participate in ArtWauk and show off some of my latest work. As I continue to participate, I'm making progress and improving things. This time around, we had a few more people stop by and I got my name in the program for ArtWauk. Now that I'm mostly caught up in life, I have to get back out shooting so I have photos for a show in September. 

Also, I am continuing my work as a volunteer for Clean Power Lake County. In fact, I can proudly now say that Dylan Blake Photography is now a coalition member with CPLC. I even had a small table set up at my show with petitions and literature from CPLC. The major event held by this organization this month was the Future Energy Jobs Act Town Hall. There were over 100 people in attendance including some local political officials. The legislation for FEJA went into effect at the beginning of June and could be very beneficial if utilized by the Waukegan community. 

Additionally, the month of June lead me to venture up to Michigan to attend weekend 1 of Electric Forest. Despite the rain that happened the first day of the festival, it was great time once again. Plus, for the first time I got to see one of my favorite artists, ODESZA. They put on such breathtakingly beautiful show that will really stick with me. After getting back from Forest, I've gotten back to working on my parents' place. I've started off so far by doing some yard work and taking down a couple buckthorn trees. Later, I'll be get back to painting the house and hopefully finish that up this year.   

Taylor & Brian | Wedding

Being a photographer at times means that you have to be willing to be flexible. Last week truly put me to the test when it comes to flexibility. Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of photographing Taylor and Brian's wedding at the Loft & Chapel at Cedar Ridge in Waukesha, WI. It was a pretty nice day with relatively little in the way of hiccups. Having said that, I'm sure you're a little curious how as to how I got my flexibility tested. 

The real test was the days leading up to the day of this wedding. At one point, I thought I would be able pull off having a booth at Dandelion Wine Fine Arts Festival and photographing this wedding. This idea seemed so very foreign about this time last week. I was questioning whether I was going to participate in Dandelion Wine since there was rain in the forecast and didn't think I'd be photographing the wedding since it had been awhile since I had received a response. Since Saturday's weather forecast was improving, I was considering working late and trying to pull together a booth for the festival. Of course, that plan changed once I finally got confirmation on the wedding Friday evening. 

Brandi | Maternity

I can't believe that this maternity session happened 3 weeks ago now. I remember being persistent about keeping an eye on the weather in hopes of having a beautiful sunset photo session on the beach. While the weather itself was a little on the cool side, we were blessed with some gorgeous late in the day light for this session.

May 2017

May was a month where I'm tried to take steps to help me to achieve my goals. One such step was creating a routine for weekdays. My ideal weekday begins with a run to the harbor and back as the sun is rising. Then, I spend my time wandering and exploring to get a photo for the day. The remaining time is spent getting ready for starting my workday at 9 a.m. This could really be anything from catching up on the late night shows to eating breakfast to showering to going through the photos from this morning. After a long weekend away for Summer Camp Music Festival, I'm trying to get back into this routine once again. 

I got a few photo gigs during May but I haven't gotten around to posting about them yet. One of the gigs was a maternity shoot at Waukegan beach. Also, I travelled down to Chicago and took some pictures for the an organization called Spread the Hug. Then this week, I got my studio back into shape and opened it up for cap and gown photo sessions. The only person I got to take photos of was my sister, but it was still nice to finally clean up my studio. Also, maybe I'll manage to get some high school seniors yet or even manage to draw in some 8th graders from down their promotion at the Genesee Theatre on Wednesday.

Now what can you expect from me this month? Well, this Saturday I'm signed up for a booth at the Dandelion Wine Fine Arts Festival. Unfortunately, with it looking like the weather calling for rain and thunderstorms , I'm leaning towards to participating. Later in the month, I am seriously considering participating in ArtWauk once again. Hopefully, this time we can actually get listed on the map and draw people down a little further north on Genesee. Finally, later in the month I'm looking forward to going to the first weekend of Electric Forest. 

Deidre & Benjamin

This will be the last of my long overdue posts and hopefully the last time that I delay posting photos for so long after a session on here. As I had said in a previous post, there was a time when my schedule was very busy with non-photography work and as a result I never got around to posting these on here. These days, my schedule is less busy and I'm trying to catch up on past work as well as trying to get new business.

Similarly to now, my schedule was pretty open when this photo session. Obviously, one of the few perks of having an open schedule is being able to take last minute bookings. That was the case with this session as I was contacted only a couple days ahead of time. It was really great getting to photograph Deidre, Benjamin, and their daughter. You really see the love of this family in their photos. 

Alex Morgan for Alderman

Back in February during campaign season, I was hired by my friend, Alex Morgan, to do some photography for his campaign for 3rd ward alderman in Evanston. I first met Alex when he was the community organizer for Clean Power Lake County, which is a local environmental. While he may have moved on from that job, he still stops in sometimes to help Clean Power. When he first contacted me about this photo gig, I had some nerves seeing as it had been awhile since the last time I had done portrait photography. He helped to calm those doubts when he told me that he just wanted my creative eye. 

Unfortunately, his campaign was not a victorious one in the end. It was always going to be a tough race to win since he was going against an incumbent that has held the position for the past 20 years. Knowing Alex well, I'm sure experiencing this loss will just be a slight hiccup. Instead this will only push him to work harder for what he believes in. 

April 2017

Happy May Day everyone! Well, the month of April began with a flurry of work. Key Lime Cove was busy because it was spring break for many areas. Then, in addition to that I was helping out at the Lisa May for Mayor campaign. It was amazing seeing so many local people from different backgrounds coming together for a common cause. Unfortunately, despite all the hard work and effort everyone put into the campaign, we ended up losing by a couple hundred votes. While we may not have experienced the victory we wanted, I am optimistic that people in Waukegan will continue to push our politicians for the change we need here.

In the time after this campaign season, I worked at Key Lime Cove until its final days. In the days leading up to the closing for Great Wolf Lodge to begin remodeling, the mood at the resort was very somber. I am going to miss all the great people that I met during my time at the resort. When I took this job, I was thinking it was going to be a summer job and instead I stuck around for almost four years. It's sad to see it go, but I'm also looking forward to having an opportunity to spend more time on my photography now.

Over the last month, I have not done nearly as much photography as I would like to have done. I had a couple gigs as I photographed a child's birthday party and a wedding at the courthouse. I have fallen off my pace for my 365 photo project and my self portrait. Today is a new month and a fresh start so I'm planning on getting back to my photo project. Also, looking forward to pursuing new photography jobs and spending to learning my craft better.