When I was warm...

I just returned to snowy, icy Chicago after a few beautiful days in northern Florida. It was nice and relaxing; I spent a lot of time reading and wandering around photographing stuff like bark, pine needles, and water reflections. Very exciting, I know. Now that I'm back home I've realized that while winter has its attributes, it's always nice to be, well, warm. Chicago is notorious for its brutal winters and I'm proud to say I've survived many of them, not to mention approximately 20 winters in Cleveland (which is worse, despite what Chicagoans say). I'm heading back down to the Sunshine state for New Years, but I'll have to live vicariously through my photos until I do. Feel free to do the same.

Linus loved this juniper bush.

 

Lunafest!

 While the Chicago International Film Festival was in town, I got an exciting opportunity to photograph Lunafest at the AMC River East 21. Lunafest, established in 2000 by LUNA, the makers of nutrition bars for women, is a series of short films by, for, and about women. Each year, the traveling fest promotes female filmmakers while simultaneously raising awareness and encouraging support for various women's nonprofits throughout North America and Canada. In between taking photos, I had a chance to watch a few of the short films and thought they were fantastic. The film show was followed by a wine reception at Lucky Strike. The crowd was inspired and the atmosphere joyous. My congrats to Ashley Koehn for organizing a fantastic event!

 The crowd quickly filled up the seats.

 Ashley addressing the audience. 

 

 The guests head to the reception at Lucky Strike.

Carrie and Matt

In October I had the pleasure of taking engagement photos of Carrie and Matt, an adorable couple who I met thanks to a referral from our mutual friend, Amy. We had a great time strolling around Chicago on a beautiful day. Below are some of my favorite images from the shoot. Much thanks to Carrie and Matt for being such great sports and congrats on your upcoming nuptials!

 

 

The 2010 JDRF Walk

On October 3rd, many of my family and friends participated in a 5K Walk for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) to honor those of our family members and friends who were diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes as children. This cause is very near and dear to my heart, as my partner, Susan, was diagnosed when she was 12. We are strong supporters of the JDRF - which is an incredible organization - and aside from participating in the walk annually, we also volunteer at the Chance of a Lifetime Gala every December. This year, Team SusAlly (named for Susan and our friend Meghan's sister, Ally) proudly raised over $4,400 for diabetes research, which is over double what we raised last year. Thank you so much to everyone who helped us reach our goal. Below are photos from the walk.

Susan and her brother, Martin.

A few members of Team SusAlly.

 More members of Team SusAlly.

It was a beautiful day in the Windy City.

Our team captain, Meghan, with Micah. (Meghan has a fantastic blog that you can check out by clicking here.)

Susan and me with our new puppy, Linus.

Susan and her mom, Lucy.

Bands to See Live: M.I.A.

Last week I had the opportunity to see a musician that I've wanted to see live for years: Maya Arulpragasam, who is better known by her stage name, M.I.A. Trust me when I say that the concert was well worth the wait. I expected a high energy show, but what I didn't expect was M.I.A. crowd surfing, crawling to the top of a stack of speakers that was easily a story high, passing around a bottle of Patrón to the crowd, and pulling people on stage for her encore (many of whom - in between freaking out, frantically dancing, and trying to hug M.I.A. - busted out all of the herbs that they smuggled into the Vic and began smoking them). All in all, the show was completely unreal and I'll be the first in line to grab tickets to see her the next time she swings back through Chicago. Luckily I had my pocket camera with me, so I snapped a few photos.