Way back when, in early June 2011, I packed up my gear and headed up north to Lincoln Park to meet up with two more of my dear friends, Adam and Allison.  Adam and Allison had welcomed their baby girl, Rebekah, in late January of that year and were anxious to get some family photos taken.  It was a beautiful summer day in Chicago and we did our best to enjoy it. Rebekah was a champion and the results below prove it

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It’s hard to believe that it’s almost been almost a year since Baby Aubree was born.  Aubree’s parents, Aakash and Amanda, are two of my dear friends whom I’ve known for many years.  After many months of waiting we were absolutely thrilled to hear of Aubree’s arrival! She was only two weeks old when I visited them to meet Aubree for the first time; here are the results of her first photoshoot with me

Just about a month ago, my wife and I packed up a few things and headed out West to visit my brother/sister-in-law/nephews in Salt Lake City, Utah.  As I saw it, there were two main goals for this trip : (1) spend lots of quality time together and (2) visit  Moab and the beautiful national parks surrounding it. I had heard great things about this place and I was very interested to see if it lived up to the hype (it did–keep reading).

After about 4 hours in the car, we reached our first destination: Arches National Park.  Located just outside of Moab, Arches is approximately 120 square miles in size and is home to more than 2000 natural sandstone arches along with a variety of other breath-taking geological formations.  You can easily spend several days in this park and still not see everything that it has to offer (it’s really that big!).  Given our schedule for this trip, the plan was to squeeze as much in as possible in a matter of hours without having that “we did too much” feeling at the end.

Well, having experienced it first-hand, and then being able to relive it by viewing these images, I am happy to report that we were successful in executing this plan:

After recharging our batteries (and eating some really good Mexican food), we woke up the next morning and headed out to destination #2 of our trip: Canyonlands National Park. Canyonlands is approximately 530 square miles in size–that’s almost 4.5 times the size of Arches! The park itself is divided into four separate parts, the most popular of which is the Island In The Sky, and that’s exactly where we headed on this day.

The ride from the main entrance of Canyonlands to the Island In The Sky offers some of the most awe-inspiring scenery imaginable and gives you a good idea of what’s in store for you once you reach the end.  As you can see below, the view from the Island in The Sky is truly a sight to behold:

After an hour or so of taking in all that Canyonlands had to offer, we headed back to Salt Lake City and spent the rest of our trip putting the finishing touches on goal #1 of the trip. Unfortunately, this may be our last time in Utah for a while as my brother and his family are moving to Chicago in July.  However, after witnessing first-hand the beauty that this part of the State has to offer, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if we found ourselves back there in the not-too-distant future.

Special thanks goes to my brother and sister-in-law for planning such an amazing trip for my wife and I. Here’s a great picture of all of us taken at the end of our time at Canyonlands:

My photography business officially launched exactly one year ago today! It’s hard to believe that 365 days have already passed since I decided to start building the bridge that will one day (hopefully) help me transition from full-time lawyer to full-time photographer.  As much as things have changed over the past year (new job, baby on the way) they’ve kinda stayed the same…and that’s a good thing.  My desire to expand my knowledge of photography and improve my ability behind the lens has never been higher, and the goal is still to be able to achieve this while maintaining a steady balance between work-life and home-life.

I spent a few hours last night going over the additions to my photography portfolio over the past 12 months and almost all of the images immediately brought back fond memories.   And with these fond memories came the reminder of why I launched this business in the first place:  To have fun doing what I love most.

With this in mind, after much consideration, here are my top 12 pictures (one for every month, in no particular order) from the past year:

Chicago, Illinois. Baby Shane Cooking Time! Memorial Union Terrace. Madison, Wisconsin. Master Kiran Oreo Cupcakes. They taste better than they look. Snowmaggedon. February 2011. Little Miss Annabelle. Washington Square Park. Chicago, Illinois. 3rd Photographers-Models Meetup. Model: Nicole Brudd. Chase & Sam get married! Balanced Rock at Arches National Park. Moab, Utah.

Thank you AGAIN for your kind words of support and encouragement throughout this venture.

I look forward to hearing from all of you in the future.

I spent a few hours on Wednesday, February 2nd and Saturday, February 5th walking around with my camera in hopes of capturing the dramatic effect 20+ inches of snow had on the landscape of Chicago.  Location-wise, the images on the 2nd were taken around the River North/Streeterville neighborhoods, and the images on the 5th were taken in my favorite area of the Lincoln Park neighborhood. The following images are the best of the best from these two days; hope you enjoy viewing them!

February 2, 2011

February 5, 2011

All pictures seen in this post are available for purchase; please contact me directly for more information.

As the title of this post declares, this town is my home away from home. I spent four of the best years of my life wandering around the streets of Madison (mostly en route to and from my classes, but sometimes not for that reason at all) and, to this date, the mere thought of Madison brings a warm feeling to my heart and a smile to my face.

I could go on for pages and pages rehashing all of my favorite Madison-related memories, but that’s not what this post is about. What it is about, however, is my most recent journey to the city so aptly known as “Madtown.”

Back in October, my wife and I (along with some of our friends) made the trek up to Madison for the Ohio State/Wisconsin football game. It had been almost three years since the last time I was there so I was very excited to visit my old stomping grounds and reminisce about some good times with my friends.  The excitement I felt was at an even higher level as this trip to Madison would be the first time I had my camera (Leroi, named in honor of this man) in hand.

Photographer’s note: Those of you who follow me on Facebook may recall that I have been experimenting with HDR photography. The pictures displayed in this post have been shot utilizing HDR and “regular” (i.e., non-HDR) techniques.

Our first stop was the Memorial Union Terrace. For those of you who may not know about the Terrace, let me sum it up this way: it’s quite possibly the best place to be on a warm, sunny day (other than Wrigley Field).

It was early enough in the morning that there weren’t too many people around to get in the way of my picture-taking.  While my wife (patiently) sat on the benches facing Lake Mendota, I ran around the Terrace and its surrounding area with my camera/tripod in tow trying to snap as many pictures as possible given our fairly limited time constraints.

The following photographs are some of my favorites from this first hour of our day:

Next up on our list was Library Mall.  Unfortunately, parts of the Mall were under construction so I decided against taking pictures of large, yellow cranes and opted for a slightly prettier shot instead.

The second-to-last stop on our list was Bascom Hill.  The hike up the Hill was no easy task back in 1996-2000 when I was in school, and my attendance in class was sometimes predicated on whether a trip up the Hill was required. This time around, however, it seemed like it had gotten even steeper since the last time.

My wife had never hiked up the Hill before and the look on her face when I told her that we’d be walking to the top of it said it all: “We’re going to walk up that thing?!?”. A couple minutes later, after some gentle persuasion, we slowly made our way up to the top, stopping along to the way to take some pictures and catch our breath.

A stroll down State Street was last on our list of things to do before heading over to the stadium for the big game.  It was early in the afternoon by the time we got to State Street and everyone was already out and about on this beautiful Fall day.  Walking around and soaking up all of the goodness State Street had to offer was really the best way to the spend our pre-football game time!

All pictures seen in this post are available for purchase; please contact me directly for more information.

Oh, yeah; about that football game…under the lights of Camp Randall Stadium, Wisconsin won 31-18.

Annabelle’s parents, Jason and Katy, are two of my very good friends whom I definitely don’t see as often as I would like to, primarily because they don’t live in Chicago anymore. As such, my first photography session with their one-year-old daughter, Annabelle, could not take place until this past Thanksgiving holiday weekend…which ended up working out just fine as the time we spent together on that day was well worth the wait.

We all met up the day after Thanksgiving at Jason’s parents’ house in the northern suburbs of Chicago.  Even though it was quite early that morning (at least for me it was!), all three family members were wide awake and ready for their time in front of the camera!

Annabelle was a joy to photograph and one of the happiest babies I have ever met. I look forward to watching her grow up over the next few years, both as a photographer (look at that smile!) and a friend of the family.

Enjoy!

On a slightly gloomy/photographer-friendly Saturday morning in November, my wife/photo assistant and I met up with two dear friends of ours, Umang and Susan, and their nineteen-month-old son, Kiran. Umang and Susan were looking to get pictures of Kiran taken as well as a few family pictures for use in their holiday card for 2010.

I had always wanted to have a photography session in my favorite area of Lincoln Park, and I felt that Umang and Susan’s needs were a perfect match for this location. Yet again, the leaves were perfectly scattered and colored just yellow enough to give that Fall-like feeling that the Patel Family (no relation) was exactly looking for.

Kiran, a member of the future Indian boy band tentatively named “AKA” (along with his buddies, Ashym and Aryan), was wide awake on this morning and ready to explore all that this area of Lincoln Park had to offer. As you’ll see below, the rain stayed away just long enough on this day to get some great shots of Kiran and his parents.

Enjoy!

Shane’s wonderful mother, Kelly, is a friend (and former co-worker) of mine whom I’ve known since 2005. I had not seen Kelly for a while prior to our photography session in late October, so I was very excited to see her and to meet both her husband (Patrick) and six-month-old baby boy for the first time. I had done a little research (via Facebook) prior to our session and, based on his smile alone, I could tell that he was going to be a lot of fun to have in front of the camera.

My wife/photo assistant and I headed out to the Western suburbs early to catch the little man in action. Mother Nature cooperated with us on this day as it was one of those picturesque Fall days  in the Midwest: bright yellow leaves were in the trees and scattered across the landscape and the weather was just right for part of the shoot to take place outside.

Despite the pending arrival of another tooth, Shane more than lived up to my expectations on this day. It truly was a pleasure photographing Shane for the first time and I look forward to seeing his smiley face (and his parents!) again in the future.

Enjoy!

A Little Man and His Bottle.

I grabbed my computer, took a look at the recipe and was amazed with how fairly simple/easy it is to make them.  As you’ll see below, most of the ingredients are probably already in your kitchen and the process itself should only take you about an hour from start to finish.

Disclaimer: This post is going to be a fairly short one.  My wife conducted a test of this recipe, and the final products of this test are displayed in the image below (taken with my IPhone).  While I do plan on creating a more in-depth post demonstrating the cooking process, I thought this would be a great last-minute suggestion for those of you looking for something different for this year’s Thanksgiving feast.

Original recipe courtesy of BLT Steak (via epicurious.com)

Yields: 12 extremely delicious popovers.

Ingredients

4 cups milk (skim, 2% or whole)            1 tablespoon salt

8 eggs                                             2.5 cups Gruyère cheese

4 cups flour                                      Popover pan

Directions

1. Place the popover pan in the oven.  Heat the oven and pan to 350 degrees.

2. Gently warm the milk over low heat and set aside.  Whisk the eggs until frothy and slowly whisk in the milk (so as not to cook the eggs).  Set the mixture aside.

3. Sift the flour with the salt. Slowly add this dry mixture to the egg mixture and gently combine until mostly smooth.

4. Once combined, remove the popover pan from the oven and spray with non-stick vegetable spray.  While the batter is still slightly warm or room temperature (definitely not cool), fill each popover cup 1/2 full.

5. Top each popover with approximately 2 tablespoons of the grated Gruyère.

6. Bake at 350˚ for 50 minutes, rotating pan half a turn after 15 minutes of baking, until golden brown.

7. Remove from the oven, remove from the pan, serve immediately and enjoy!!!

I hope each and every one of you has a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

Cheers.