Lately we've almost solely been working with brides and grooms on their wedding and engagement photos or contracting taking photos for corporations, so this week was a change of pace for us. We love working with families & traveling, so what better than kill 2 birds with 1 stone?!
Speaking of stone, one of the great perks of this week was that we were able to both visit and photograph the Stone family & their business: Merit House Nursing Home of Toledo, Ohio. Our friends from Ohio (who we were also able to visit with out on the West Coast when they also lived there for some years) had their housewarming party over the weekend. Not only were we able to enjoy their wonderful new home and hang out with them & their pets again, but we were also able to work for their family's business during the trip. The family runs a nursing home in Ohio 2 hours from us and they have a long-standing reputation of over 3 decades of nursing home care. Plus, they're a kind, funny, humble family who is wonderful to work for and hang out with! We had a great time meeting everyone and photographing them in both a studio we set up with a ton of lights and backdrop as well as outside in nature with natural light. On the trip we also squeezed in a trip to the Toledo Zoo which is apparently consistently ranked in the top 3 zoos in the nation! It's surprising that 2 of the top 3 are in Ohio and that we've been to both!
This week has really highlighted what we love about photography: The vast range of people that we get to work with. The day after we worked at a nursing room talking with some of the elderly residents we immediately got to photograph a 10-day old newborn baby! Jenny's friend Jackie from the past 24 years had her baby Lily recently and we were so thrilled to shoot her Infant Session in St. Joe, Michigan! The drive was a little less than an hour and it was so cool for Jenny to have been a part of so many of Jackie's life events! From ages 6 to nearly 30 they've known each other, went to school together for 12 years, and Jenny luckily even got to attend Jackie & Shane's wedding 6 years ago! Lily was adorable and only mildly freaked out at the 2 strangers setting her on (humanely salvaged) fur, pillows, blankets, and wagon while putting weird, large cameras near her (which made odd noises). We got some great shots of the new family addition, photos of their furry son and Lily, as well as some cute family photos. We had a great time and giggled a lot during the process.
For the rest of the week we have Engagements Sessions as well as a bride & groom to meet with to discuss their wedding. Then ending the week this Sunday the 24th we have the Chicago Toasted! Wedding Event ( http://www.toastedweddingevent.com/ ) to set up at and talk to couples at! We're so excited for (what we swear!!) is our last wedding expo of the year. We're so damn excited for this awesomely artistic & curated event at a great Chicago gallery that we've almost forgotten that this is the 4th Wedding Expo in 4 months and the 16th time we'll have to move our furniture in, out, in, & out again. (After moving our booth so many times, we're pretty sure that we have a side career as professional movers.) The event should be extremely unique & hopefully very productive and we're so excited to meet with all of our current and future client couples this week!
The best thing about our career is getting to learn about and interact with so many different people no matter who they are or what they do. There is no pretense to our work and we're happy we've chosen to create authentic images of real people. Photos aren't pigeon-holed to one certain type of human, nor should they be. Models aren't the only ones who "deserve" great photos. We get to photograph business owners, the homeless, newly weds, high school seniors, children, the elderly, babies, marketers, corporations, pets, wild animals, landscapes, the endless fine art we come up with, bands, real estate agents, families, partiers at events, retirees, and everything and everyone in-between. It's such a wonderful feeling to take beautiful images of people (and even the funny, imperfect ones, too!). We genuinely love helping people, feeling valued, and conveying the beauty we see in others. We hope you enjoy these and our other photos as much as we enjoyed taking them!
