Kelly and Matt's wedding

What a wonderful way to finish off the season... Kelly and Matt had family and friends from all over the country coming to celebrate with them; they were so much fun! I had my friend Brenna helping me shoot this wedding – many thanks to her!

I entered Kelly's parents' home to find her gorgeous dress hanging in a fun yellow room,






Their adorable 13 year old dog, Abby, was wandering around the house while everyone was getting ready.






Loved the shoes!


Their reception location had a fabulous barn that I wanted to use for the whole wedding party.






Their cake smelled SO good every time I walked through the dance floor.




A fun first dance photo


Kelly and her dad were having a blast during their dance!


The same with Matt and his mom




SHOUT!

Halloween 2007

Angela and I had our annual Halloween party last weekend with lots of great costumes! Just a small sampling:

Nicholas Angel from "Hot Fuzz"


Alex from "A Clockwork Orange"


Cruella de Vil


Love those lashes


Flavor Flav


giant banana


This is what happens when party guests don't come in costume - we raid our box of Halloween Past and put something together.


My favorite makeup job - Dr. Bunsen Honeydew from "The Muppets"


Moments after Bunsen was photographed, Beaker arrived - but the pairing wasn't planned!


Bunsen fell asleep on our porch later in the night, so naturally some fun photos were taken. I love how his face matches the wall.

Kimber and Tony

Last weekend I had a great time shooting Kimber and Tony with my friend Deanna. They were married in the court house in September and wanted a photo to send out with their marriage announcement. We had fun creating unique portraits of the two of them and spending a beautiful afternoon outside.

I loved how they interacted with each other – such great expressions!








Deanna and I switched off holding lights and reflectors for each other, so when I had her climb above me to hold a light, I couldn't resist this shot.

BEARS VIII

For eight years now, a large group of my friends have organized an annual "camping" trip to get out of Chicago for the weekend. I believe it started out as camping (a few years before I met everyone), but now we rent out a great campground in Wisconsin where we sleep on bunk beds and have an industrial-sized kitchen to ourselves. It's not quite roughing it, so camping gets decorated with quotes. So what happens with you give 24 20 and 30-somethings the full run of a campground in the middle of nowhere?

Potato guns of course! A few folks built this and had been waiting all year to use it in the secluded area (with a few rounds fired off in Chicago alleys to make sure it worked beforehand of course...)


Success!


We also had glow sticks for the weekend, so they had to be combined! The little blue flame is a glow stick wedged into a potato flying about 90mph (I think that was the calculated speed) toward the woods.


A more somber moment being serenaded by Jonathan


Foggy nights make for excellent times to play with laser pointers. In case you're wondering, the green one showed up far better than the red.


Painting with light, laser style


Combining long exposure, off-camera flash, and the laser pointer


Matt had cool boots.


There were also goats on the property!




Goat through the eye of the lensbaby






Launching water rockets


Lift off!














Sunset in Tony's glasses




My pumpkin!




Bunny ears were brought and passed around.


My fun time with blinding everyone: while the shutter was open (10 - 15 seconds I believe) I ran around to the back of the camp fire and fired my flash. The problem was that people would watch me run, wondering what I was doing, and then be blinded as I fired the flash. Sorry everyone... but the photo turned out pretty!