Tag Archives: city life

Lovebirds spotted at Hollywood Beach

Right before leaving for Alaska, on a lovely and breezy Sunday evening, I had the privilege of taking Jamie and Taylor’s engagement pictures.

I had only met them once before, in a very noisy bar and in costume–at this Milano concert last Halloween. But I kind of felt like I knew them since Jamie grew up with my friend and bandmate Carrie. Carrie happened to tell Jamie that I kinda like taking pictures, Jamie emailed me, I enthusiastically accepted. And that’s the story of how we connected.

Jamie and Taylor hiked up to the Northside of Chicago where I live, and we took the pictures at Hollywood Beach, just minutes from my apartment. It was such fun to get to know my neighborhood from a behind-the-camera perspective.

I climbed up on top of that very lifeguard stand to get some cool angles, but unfortunately a lifeguard across the beach spotted me and began to shout, vigorously blowing his whistle. Then he started running towards me, sand flying.

I was compelled to make a hasty retreat.

Hey, anything for a good picture, man.

The wind in Jamie’s hair created some wonderful drama . . .

. . . though my wild camera settings did cause me to completely blow up the above picture. Don’t tell my Mom, but I kind of like it anyway.

The set of pictures I’m sharing today were the first ones that caught my eye the night after the photo shoot. I couldn’t resist working with a few of the images to see what things were lookin’ like (and to stop myself from worrying about the results) . . .

. . . but I worked on the rest of the 1,000 pictures during the Alaska vacation. And I’ll be sharing some more of their beauty with y’all on Friday.

That’s right. 1,000 pictures. I blame it on the photogenonnity of these two.

So smiley. So positive.

Ah, me. I love a good engagement shoot.

Splashing in the city

Downtown Chicago in the summer is not just the place where Chicagoans in business attire ascend tall buildings to their office jobs, or the place where sweaty tourists oggle the skyscrapers and lug around large cameras. Or even the place where a sweaty Jenna oggles the skyscrapers and lugs around her large camera, though that’s been known to happen every few weeks.

It also hosts a summertime tidal wave of kids who come to this fountain to cool off. Set at the base of Millenium Park, it may be called ‘Crown Fountain’ . . . but I choose to call it Freako Fountain. Those tower-tall faces are just a little freako.

Every so often, the (blinking and breathing) larger-than-life faces purse their lips into a big ‘O’ and water spouts out from the wall. Stampedes of children run towards the waterfall with squeals and shouts, and chaos reigns until the face resumes its normal benign expression and the water is cut off.

Last year I snapped some pictures of a seriously cute cutie-pie right about this time.

Cutie-pies, you’ll be pleased to know, are in no shortage this year either. Like this little crawling one.

Or this gleeful little runner.

Oh my! There are two!

The matching shorts! The rounded bellies! The diapers peeking out! The springy halos of brown curls! These two just kill me.

There was a small blond one that made me feel those baby-snatching impulses . . . again. You’re going to get tired of hearing about that real soon. I’m just sayin.’

Happy summer, everyone! And please make a water angel if you get the chance!