Blog

City Light

A few city views from a freelance gig I had a few weeks ago.... more to come on that later.




Another addition to the photographers project...

Sportraits

Spring sports have come to an end so here goes another round of high school rock stars.

Both of these kids hit around .500 on the season which baffles my mind. Tarah is a catcher so we had some good times swapping war stories and battle scars. She is headed to Oklahoma State with an almost guaranteed starting varsity spot.

See those records on the wall behind Jordan? Ya, he broke nearly all of them. I borrowed a ring light for this one and it was my first time ever playing with one.
The setup is two speed lights on each side of him with the ring light front and center. Thoughts?


Congrats to both of you guys and best of luck!

Dance Floor Romp

Well, I have gotten through the first few weddings this year relatively unscathed- thankfully. Most have been a blast to shoot and have been a nice little change of pace from the newspaper world. Last weekend though, I found myself out on the dance floor shooting what seemed to be the same shot over and over again. Big, bright, nicely lit images of drunken people dancing... fun? Yes, but gets old quick... very quick.

After some brainstorming, I step up a tripod, cranked the shutter to 30 seconds at f22 and popped away with a flash on the dance floor.

After a few gos, I reviewed and was rather disappointed with the results. They seemed far away and disconnected from the party.
"Well let's get in on the party," I thought. So away I went the pod with flash in one hand and camera in the other into the belly of the beast.
Here are my two favorite results:


Morning View

I was up with the sun this morning for an early assignment and came across this little guy while headed for the elevator in a parking garage downtown.

I used to dread these early morning assignments, but today's felt good for some reason. Maybe it was the blue skies and the empty roads, feeling like your the only one out in the world. Maybe it was seeing the sun rise and the colors breathing life into the sky....
Or maybe I was just delirious because my eyes were half open.

Either way, It felt good.

O'Hare

Waiting for a subject at way to early in the morning inside Chicago's O'hare Airport.

Stormy nights

We've had some pretty crazy weather here this past week and yesterday was no exception. Here's a few from my travels around town.

Court date

I spent most of last week at the Kendall County Courthouse covering various trials and such. Nothing like waiting for two hours to get a shot of someone walking out of court. At least it was nice weather outside.

With so much time on my hands I had a little fun with the pillars they have at the entrance to the courthouse.

Toe to Toe

"I needed to get in shape for basketball." Megan Rembold said as to why she started boxing. Now it has taken over her life.


With less than 5 fights under her belt, Megan already has a Golden Gloves title to her name and a wicked right hand jab. "Missiles Megan" her coach calls her. Check out the full story HERE.

Portrait woes

For some reason portraits have been giving me a lot of trouble recently. They have never been on top of my list of favorite things to shoot, but I've gotten by. The past week or so has brought on a rash of portrait assignments and they've been kicking my butt.


Late Friday, I got this assignment to photograph Mary at her home in Aurora. The story was about a few recent incidences where people killed themselves after getting into accidents and DUI's. Mary's brother was one of them.

When I met her we talked a bit first about who her brother was and the the close relationship they had. After looking around for some good light inside, I took a look in her backyard which turned out to be a forest Preserve. "Perfect," I thought.


We spent some time out there, talked some more, took some pictures, and had some smiles even with the grave nature of the situation. Mary was amazing which helped me relax and just shoot, rather spending time racking my brain coming up with some crazy, contrived portrait.

Check out the story HERE.