Kristin & Nick | Engagement

Kristin and Nick’s engagement session happened back at the beginning of this month. We contemplated a few different locations before deciding to go with Glacial Park in McHenry. I must applaud Kristin for making a good choice for the location of the session especially since I’m not overly familiar with the McHenry area. This session up to this point definitely goes down as the one with the windiest weather that I’ve ever photographed in. In spite of the conditions, I got a lot of great photos of this couple as well as a few with their son too. This session was a lot of fun including the moment near the end of the session when I suggested the prom pose and Kristin got into the pose quicker than I’ve ever seen at any of my past sessions.

February 2020

Usually writing my monthly blog post late into the month doesn’t seem all that strange. However, with everything that has occurred with the coronavirus pandemic, it feels a little strange this time around. February really does feel like a time when life much simpler and everything seemed to be moving in the right direction overall. If you were to take the month at the surface, it didn’t look over impressive, but I was certainly feeling hopeful about what would be coming the rest of the year.

This month didn’t bring with it much in the way of photography gigs, but it certainly felt like things were moving in the right direction. I once again participated in the bridal tasting and preferred event at Illinois Beach Resort in Zion, IL. Compared to when they held their event in January, the event in February was better attended and there was just a much better energy in the room overall. It was nice getting to participate in an event like that early in the month. The rest of the month I got a few different inquiries from brides about being their wedding photographer. It was beginning to look like I would be having a busy summer with a calendar full of weddings.

The month of February also saw me begin to get into the business of reselling to make some money on the side. I started off my business with a combination of unwanted items from both my apartment and my parents’ home. I have a strange assortment of items from clothing all the way to figurines left behind by my Nana available for purchase. I was really excited when I thought I had sold my first item pretty quickly after listing them. However, I would soon find out that the only reason this person was interested was because they knew I was new to selling and were trying to run a scam on me.

I also had a decent social life during the month of February with some interesting variety to it. To start the month I went to CLC for a Friday evening showing of the Chinese film, “A Long Day’s Journey into Night”. The next weekend, my mum and I did our usual and checked out the February edition of ArtWauk. Then following weekend was one with a couple performance with a Friday night trip down to Three Brothers Theater for a visiting comedy group called Deep Space Comedy. The next night I went over to Waukegan High School to catch their performance of “Midsummer’s Night Dream. So I’d say looking back at February now and especially in comparison, it was a pretty darn good month really.

Illinois Beach Resort

Growing up just down the road from Illinois Beach State Park lead me really to sort of just take it for granted. At the time I didn’t quite realize how lucky I was to have such a beautiful location so very close by. I think it was the fact that for most my life I would go there a few times a year whether that was for the occasional class field trips or adventures with family and friends. In recent years as I’ve gone on a few solo adventures around Illinois Beach, I feel like I’ve gained a better appreciation of the beautiful state park just down the road from

My love of this state park is the very reason why I didn’t hesitate to respond when a Facebook friend of mine was accepting applications to be preferred vendors at the resort over there. And then I was ecstatic when I received word that I would be one of the preferred vendors over there. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to photograph a couple events as well as a few portrait sessions. I have yet to photograph a wedding at the resort, but I’m certainly looking forward to the opportunity once it does happen. I mean based off of my past experience, this park makes for a great backdrop for portraits and events.

I feel like Illinois Beach Resort is a hidden gem as far as wedding venues are concerned. I feel like this is partially due to it’s location in on the outskirts of the Chicagoland. Of course those that do discover this lovely state park find it hard to be anything but impressed with it. There really aren’t many other venues that can compare with it as you can get married with Lake Michigan as your backdrop. Then utilize the amazing landscape of the dunes and beach for portraits. And finally, you can celebrate nearby on the property with a delicious catered dinner and a fun filled reception. This is definitely a place that I would recommend checking out if you’re looking for a venue for your wedding.

January 2020

2020 has gotten off to a bit of an uneven start, but I’m happy to say that I feel like I’m making progress. My energies have mostly been related to my photography. The first Saturday of the month I spent my afternoon at Illinois Beach Resort for their bridal tasting and vendor event since I am a preferred vendor over there. Then the following Thursday, I had my first photography gig of the new year. I did photography for an event to celebrate the fact that Feroze Hanif was donating the money that he won as one H&R Block’s Franchisee of the Year to the Ray Bradbury Experience Museum. The Thursday after that I was yet again doing event photography with this time it being for the Lake County Community Foundation’s Engage Lake County that took place out at the University Center in Grayslake. The final victory I had in my business during the month of January was getting booked for three more weddings this coming year.

I like many people have tried to make changes to go with changing of the calendar to a new year. One of my goals for the new year has been keeping up with my routine of running semi regularly. At the end of 2019, I was doing pretty good on keeping up with my running. Unfortunately in the first month of the new year it has been really hit and miss for me. Part of my problem is that I’m resisting getting a gym membership even during the cold winter months and as a result have to coordinate my run with the Field House’s times where Waukegan residents can use the indoor track for free. The first available time for city residents to run is at 9am ends up cutting into the work day. Meanwhile for the later time starting at 7:30pm, I struggle to motivate to change into my running clothes and hit the track after the work day.

There are also a couple new ventures of mine that have started in 2020. For one, I’ve been spending about an hour each day doing a little housework at my parents’ house. This is meant to help supplement my income during these slow winter months. The second new endeavor for me is I’ve entered into the area of stock photography. Starting in the middle of January I started to upload some of my past photos to Adobe Stock. Here I am more than a month later and I still haven’t quite caught up with my back catalog of photos. You can bet that once I am caught up, I’m going to start getting back out there to take some new photos.

Overall, I’d say it has been a decent beginning to the new year. My social life has been fairly quiet the last month, but I won’t complain too much about that. A lot of time my weekend nights have been spent being a homebody cuddled up on the couch with my cats enjoying a few drinks and finally watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix. Otherwise those evenings were spent hanging a bit with my parents and even occasionally my sister, Josie, before she headed to the Czech Republic for her semester abroad.

Frances & Raul | Engagement Session

Everything worked out just about right for this engagement session with Frances and Raul. They both are normally very busy since they are teachers at McCall Elementary School and also going through grad school at the same time. So we were lucky to find a time that worked out for all of us during their winter break. Of course we also lucked out in having great weather especially considering that this session took place the day after Christmas. And then to top it all off, we had a great location in the Botanic Gardens during golden hour. I feel like it really doesn’t get much better than this session!

December 2019

Here we are in the back half of the month of January and I’m just now writing a blog post about the month of December. I figure that even though this might not quite be the ideal time for my post about last month, I’ll do it anyway since I’m finally mostly caught up on work. I would say that the month of December ended up being a decent blend in regards to my business and personal life.

On the business side of things I started the month off with a few familiar faces as I had an outdoor session with the Deininger family. Also early in December, I worked for the Association of Music Partners at Waukegan High School in order to provide posed photos for the high school students at their concerts. Then later in the month, I had another photo shoot with my nephew, Gabriel. My final bit of work for the month of January was an engagement session with my buddy, Raul, and his fiancé, Frances. I’ll most likely be posting about that session tomorrow so be on the look out for that.

Meanwhile on the personal side of things, the month of December provided a good mixture of friends and family. Yet again I got together for breakfast with my buddy from middle school, Tomasz. Also, I had a lot of fun going to a party for my friend’s birthday. My friend, Dee, rented out a very cool loft space and then had some of her D.J. friends perform. It was a ton of fun between the music and getting to hang out with friends that I hadn’t hung out with in awhile. My final bit of social closed out the year as I went to the Chop Shop on New Year’s Eve to see Russ Liquid, Marvel Years, and Artifakts. I went alone because it was a solid lineup and then ended up being surprised when I ran into some friends of mine at the show.

Of course the month of December isn’t quite complete without spending some time with family. This is especially the case in my family since in addition to the holidays, we have quite a few birthdays. My dad, mum and myself all have birthdays near the end of the month of December. For Christmas, most of our family comes together on Christmas Eve. In recent years, my mum has invited most of siblings along with their children to come over in the afternoon on Christmas Eve to decorate gingerbread cookies. Then in the evening we have chili for dinner and then do our family gift exchange. Then on the actual Christmas day, Christmas is pretty calm at my parents’ place with it being just my parents, my 2 siblings that were in town, and myself. The last few years, we’ve even shifted from an elaborate, traditional Christmas meal to lasagna instead.

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.

Deininger Family | Winter 2019

This was my second time photographing the Deininger family and both times it has been around the same time of year in early December. Originally we had planned on having this session in late November, but the weather was not looking particularly good for the date we initially planned. It ended up being a case where once again the beginning of December was the time that worked best for everyone. The last time I had a family session with them, I remember it being unseasonably warm for that time of year and I’m sure we were all hoping to be as lucky once again. While we weren’t quite that fortunate, we go weather that was good enough to be comfortable outside and get some great 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.