Wanderlust

A while back, I was lucky enough to spend some time with Marcia, a resident at Housing Options in Evanston, a nonprofit that offers affordable housing for adults suffering from mental illness. Marcia suffers from bipolar disorder and was in emergency housing before she found a place at Housing Options seven years ago. “It’s a miracle that I’m here,” explains Marcia. “It’s a home again and it’s like what I used to have. I never get lonely.”

It was so amazing to get to spend some time with her and hear about everything she has been through. And it also gave me a good dose of perspective.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of heading down to Champaign to photograph an engagement session with Brooke and Jared, new clients of mine that went to school at the University of Illinois. I got there early to scout a few locations and decided on the U of I Arboretum for most of the shooting. It was a really windy day but luckily the sun came out and I was blessed with some great light and shadows. They were so wonderful to work with and I can’t wait to see them again for their wedding in July!

Spent the better part of yesterday in Champaign scouting and shooting an engagement session for a couple whose wedding I will be shooting in July. (I’ll post those photos once I’m done editing!) I had an hour or two to kill so I wandered around the University of Illinois campus with my friend Adam. We came across this amazing bell tower and I couldn’t help but make some portraits.

Looking for a feature the other day and I decided to stop at the Leaning Tower of Niles and make a few pictures. I love these quirky, American landmarks and I’m inspired to make a map of them and have a little road trip fun.

Back in August I had the pleasure of photographing a local pregnant mother for a feature the paper was doing called Oak Park: Our home, our lives, our stories. Each of us found a few people to interview and photograph and everything was put together as a separate paper full of the stories. I met Lisa and her son Jackson who were both really wonderful.

I just got back in touch with her to catch up and meet the new baby Sam. I spent an hour or two hanging out with Jackson and the rest of the family and made some portraits at their house. It was such a wonderful surprise to see one of the photographs I had taken earlier framed in their house. How great!

This was the first thing I encountered at my assignment today…

One of my assignments for the day was a sand sculpting contest along Lake Michigan. Even though it was a gorgeous day, there were only a few participants, mostly under the age of 12. It was still great fun and who can complain about getting paid to spend an afternoon at the beach? My favorite kids were the ones pictured in the first photo who explained, “We really don’t know what we’re going to make. We’ll just wing it and see what happens.” Fantastic.

First in color, then in black and white. Fancy.