2010/05/30

Night on the town

My friend Matt and I went and hug out in Downtown Wheaton the other night. Parking garages continue to be one of my favorite spot to shoot.


2010/05/27

Lauren + Bryan

Lauren and Bryan tied the knot last weekend with a small ceremony and a killer reception in Lockport. Here are a few from their day...

West High Graduation


West Aurora High School had their graduation last Monday night. Having never shot a graduation I had heard how long and boring they can be, but I got there to find a room full of beautiful colors and shapes. "Heaven!" I thought.




We were there covering both the graduation and as part of another project on one student. I figured I would shoot until he walked and then transmit some images for print and be back out for the jubilation at the end.


That was the plan at least. Long story short: the bowl at Northern Illinois University was a black hole for my cell phone and internet card. So after frantically running around with my laptop in one arm and cell phone in other I found a spot where I could get mediocre service.

In the meantime, the ceremony finished, hats were thrown, hugs were had and pissed off was I.

Oh well, such is the biz I guess.

2010/05/25

Mini Special Olympics

A local school held a mini event day in honor of the Special Olympics. It gave the young special needs kids there a chance to see what it is like to compete and tryout some of the events.



Good times.

2010/05/24

WildKatz

The Aurora Wildkatz are a semi-pro football team that give the kids who either didn't get drafted or had another commitment at the time, another chance to make it big.
They had a practice the other night in preparation from their home opener on Saturday.


I love shooting practice's. It's a chance to play and shooting things under less pressure since there is generally no imdiate deadline and the players are a lot more laid back.


Their practice field, a local high schools football field, had a completely red endzone. Amazing.
The coach and one of the players had their kids there and during a lull before the practice started the kids started playing from opposite sides of the fence.


A few frames later, they noticed the camera and attacked me.

2010/05/23

Days Gone By

A few frames from A few days ago...




2010/05/21

Abuelo's

Nanny.
Pop.

2010/05/19

Blue Beach



2010/05/18

Flea Land

Our trips seem to be planned around food. Before we even got into Bowling Green, I am pretty sure we had every meal planned out strategically so we would hit all our favorites. Our problem then becomes filling the gaps between chow time.
Sunday brought lots of rain which killed any plans of walking campus. After some head scratching, we settled on Flea Land- an indoor flea market billed as "Kentucky's Largest."
Now, having grandparents in Florida (Hi Grandma and Grandpa!) I have logged my fair share of miles in what may be the flea market capitol of the nation. If this is Kentucky's largest....... well that would just be sad.
It did make for some fun photos though!

One of our many must have food stops this trip was Chaney's Dairy Barn. After devouring a amazing double scoop Cookie Dough bowl topped with Reese's pieces I spotted two big slides in the back. I had to go......

And we will end on a self portrait in a mirror surrounded by what my editor would call, "schmutz."

2010/05/17

Waffle House Wedding

Sorry about the lack of posting these past few days, Jordan and I took a trip down to Western Kentucky to visit some friends before everyone scatters for the summer and beyond. It was great to see everyone again and watch a fantastic end of the year video. You guys did amazing.

On our way down to Bowling Green, we stopped off at one of the greatest places on earth, Waffle House. This particular Waffle House seemed rather busy for the time of night and location, but undeterred we walked in and grabbed two seats at the counter. I looked around to try and understand the busyness when my eyes landed upon two professional camera's at the other end of the counter.
Camera owners, I have found, are a lot like dog owners. When you run into another one you must go in and check out whats tagging along. We started talking and turns out they were photographing a wedding..... wait for it....... at the Waffle House.

"Excuse me?" I thought, "I thought I just heard you say there was a wedding party in this very Waffle House."

After clearing it with the photographers, Jason Allender and his wife, I introduced myself to the Bride and Groom- Brad and Priscilla Smith - who were super cool and joked that the photographers just kept multiplying.
I did my best to stay out of their way, but I couldn't resist. It was a wedding................ at Waffle House!

2010/05/13

Mock Prom Crash

With Prom weekend upon us, the Oswego Fire and Police department staged a mock accident in the parking lot of Oswego High School. The scene was set with a car and a van in a T-bone style accident. The car's driver and passenger were supposed to be intoxicated as they were either coming from or going to Prom. The van was the innocent bystander.

It was taken very seriously and acted out in real time by the police and firefighters..... the kids, well not so much. Smiles and jokes were coming from the crowd the whole time.
The actors were kids from the theater department and it seem to impact them the most. After watching one of her friends get zipped into a body bag and put into the Coroners van, one actress said she had to turn away because it was "just to real."


Will it actually have an effect? I don't know. I really hope it does, because I like getting the names of people from themselves rather than an incident report.

2010/05/12

2010/05/11

First go

Aurora had it's own May Day march on May first this year to coincide with the big one in Chicago.
I figured this would be as good a time as ever to dive into the world of video and see what would happen. I've looked at it too much and only see it's faults so I would love to get some feedback from you all that have done this much more and much, much better than I have.

Thoughts, comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

2010/05/10

Feature Hunt

A few from last week that fell short of the press.

The drive-by.

The morning commuter.
The rain cloud.
The evening shift.

The light test.


The End.