Henry's 2nd Year Portraits






I have been photographing Henry since he was born. He probably thinks that my camera is a permanent fixture that drapes around my neck. We met his parents while attending a Bradley Method birthing class. They are both very cool, thus they have a very cool son. Both Henry and Jocelyn (my daughter) are the same age. In fact, Henry is exactly one day younger than Jocelyn. So it is really a joy to photograph this little one and it is great that I have seen him grow up right in front of my eyes (lens). What I also like about his shoots is that I know that afterwards we will hang out with his parents and have dinner and hang out. And just for the record: I love his red curly hair!


Prepping For The Shoot
I really wanted to bring out Henry's eye and hair color for this shoot. I also wanted to do an outdoor shoot since the previous portraits had been in the studio. So I used my trusty Alien Bee strobe with a medium softbox. I was able to power the strobe with a Vagabond portable battery pack, which allowed for quick recycling of the strobe. This is good thing since I knew I would need to fire a bunch of flashes in a row in order to capture any fleeting moments. The funny thing about plans is that they do not always go the way you want. Henry is a vivacious little dude that LOVES to run (he's 2!), so I had to be ready to capture him away from the strobes. The first couple of images are non-strobe images.

The Set-Up
- Nikon D700
- Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 lens
- Alien Bee 400 with a medium softbox
- Vagabond battery pack
- Pocket Wizards
- Lastolite grey card for white balancing
- LIghtroom for post-processing and exporting

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Morty The Bulldog







This amazing bulldog belongs to a co-worker of mine. She LOVES her Morty. About a second into meeting him for the first time I could see why. He has this amazing feel and warmth to him that you cannot help but be drawn to him. It's kind of like when you met your best friend for the first time. You just clicked. I wanted to get down and hug him and wrestle with him, but I figured that would not be the best 1st impression to make on a dog.

I had been wanting to photograph a dog for some time. I really love dogs, but I am allergic to most so owning one anytime soon does not seem to be in my future. I also wanted to give to my co-worker, and I thought that a handful of portraits of her amazing dog would be encouraging. She loved the photos and I had a great time working with Morty.

Prepping For The Shoot
So how do you approach photographing a dog such as Morty? I had a few to ideas:
- One idea was to use an off-camera flash with an umbrella. I would use my 80-200mm zoom and use a Pocket Wizard to blast my flash. This was my preferred method. I thought Morty might stand still long enough to blast off a few flashes. That DID NOT happen.
- My second idea was to go all natural, which is what I ended up doing. There was no way that he was going to stand still. He seemed pretty excited and full of energy that evening. I also really wanted to capture him in his environment and the strobes would have gotten in the way.

The Set-Up
This ended up being a pretty easy shoot in terms of gear. I used the following gear:
- Nikon D700
- Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens
- Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 lens
- Tokina 12-24mm f/4 (this lens rocks!)
- Post processing in Lightroom 2

McGuireWoods // Corporate Portraits

I was introduced to Kevin and Craig by Jill. She is the Marketing Director at McGuireWoods. Kevin and Craig are lawyers at the firm. I met Jill about a week ago at the the Pug Chug, which is an event held by the Northern Illinois Pug Rescue & Adoption. And I met Jill through Alpana Singh, who I follow on Twitter. Isn't it amazing how these connections are made? I love social media! This is how this shoot happened. Jill emailed me (we had previously emailed each other about the Pug Chug) and asked if I was available to photograph a few of their lawyers for an upcoming advertorial for Forbes Magazine. I said "yes." We went back and forth just a few times via email to get a an idea going.

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McGuireWoods_0036 Prepping For The Shoot

The offices of McGuireWoods are amazing. They have THE best view of the city I have probably ever seen. So finding a place to shoot was not an issue at all. The issue was TIME. I had about 30 minutes to photograph Kevin and Craig together and then single portraits. Not A Problem. So what do you do? Travel light! (Is this considered a pun?) This was not the shoot to take an Elinchrom Octa, though having one would have been sweet! I needed something that would break down easily and fast... emphasis on fast.

The Set-Up

  • Nikon D700
  • Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8
  • Nikon SB-800 flash (1)
  • Pocket Wizards (2)
  • 40" umbrella with a black removable slip (1)
  • Light stand (1).

I love meeting new people and learning about what they do. Photography allows me to do that all of the time. My many thanks to Jill, Kevin, and Craig for their time and kindness. You guys made this job a blast.

Baby Camden and Family



Babies are amazing little things. They move, cry, make noises, pee on you and fuss. They are also warm, affectionate, funny and beautiful and there is something absolutely magical when they smile. They also mean the world to their mom and dad. I love baby portraits for all of these reasons.

Babies and kids are awesome and I love being around them. Who else will allow you to tickle them, make weird faces and even weirder sounds, and yet still get a laugh? Try all of those things on an adult and see what happens! Wait... that might be a good thing to do.

So back to babies. Babies do not pretend to be something that they are not. They are exactly who they are supposed to be.

I have known Camden's mother for a few years now. We have worked together in the past, so I was totally excited when she told me that she was having a baby boy! News like that is always pretty darn amazing and cool.

So fast forward about a year and she emails me about taking some portraits of her little dude. I was excited to see Camden's parents again and VERY excited about meeting him. The session took about 25 minutes and we were done. In between shooting Camden made sure to drink a bottle, fuss just a little, and then pass gas on his dad. We were all so proud of him.

The Set-Up
For anyone interested in the techno-babble, here is my set-up:

  1. AlienBee 400 (1 strobe) on a medium-sized softbox as the main light to camera left
  2. Nikon SB-800 as fill light with plastic diffuser to camera right
  3. Black sheet material for the background
  4. Nikon D700 body with Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 and Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lenses
  5. Post processing in Lightroom 2

River North Shoot with MK

Last nights shoot with Mary Kate was pretty sweet right from the get-go. The lighting was perfect and Mary Kate was a blast to work with. All equipment was working flawlessly, something I was very aware of since I was testing out my new portable power pack: The Vagabond II Portable Power System!

All was good except for the April-like weather in June. The wind started howling about and the chilliness was a bit uncomfortable. So we had to keep moving just to stay warm. I guess these weather conditions are a lot better than what Chicago normally throws our way: humidity and stale air.

There are a few more photographs to see. You can check them out on my Facebook page right here.

The "Criminal" Photo Shoot

This shoot took place on the Amtrak rails. About an hour into the shoot we were stopped by the all might Amtrak Police! The photo shoot was cut short and we were all given an "insightful" lecture about the dangers of being around the tracks. Fun Times. Click here to see the rest of the shoot.

Kassie Senior Portraits







I had the privilege to photograph Kassie for her senior portraits. We decided to shoot at the beautiful Lake Katherine in Palos Heights, IL. I had been there before to photograph a family, but I did not spend a whole lot of time scouting out the entire area. This time I gave myself plenty of time to scout and I was able to find a few great spots. I was able to find plenty of spot actually. This is a great place to shoot.

Kassie was so much fun to work with. We talked about school and about the college she decided on attending. There were a lot of images of Kassie just cracking up that I did not post, but that just showed me that she is not afraid to laugh and enjoy life. Her lively spirit gave me a creative boost to try a few different ideas. I wish all of my portraits were this fun.

Photoshoot with Ginny






I had the privilege of working with the very talented Ginny Brazier a few weeks ago. The goal of the photo shoot was to provide Ginny with a few shots for her portfolio. The look of the shoot was to be natural and welcoming. So I decided to use available light for most of the shoot. The set up was pretty straight forward: use the sun as my main light and then fill with a reflector. We were both very excited with the results we were able to achieve.

After about an hour of shooting indoors we decided to head over to Humboldt Park, which I thought would provide a very different look. I probably should have thought about this move a bit more seeing that it was about 25 degrees that day! We went to the park anyway and took about 20 photos and then immediately packed up and took off. We were all too cold to keep on shooting. I was really looking forward to spending more time at the park, but I guess we will have to reschedule for another time, a much warmer time.

We had the very talented Jules from Makeup by Jules join us for the shoot. She provided the flawless makeup that you see in the photos. My many thanks to the both of you for your time and energy. I hope to work with you both again sometime in the future.