American Girl by a Nebraska Boy

It unfolded something like this. As a newly married man, I hear the best thing I can say is "Yes Dear" and in that frame of reference I arrived at this assignment. The idea of shooting dolls all day long wasn't overwhelming at first and really didn't change until I arrived... just being honest.

Our church Glenview Community Church was sponsoring a fundraiser that involved the American Girl Fashion shows. that would help three charities that specialize in helping children in need. Common Threads, Youth Services and By the Hand Club. So check out those links and feel free to help out!!!

Whether it's youth hockey, model rockets, boy scouts or American Girl, every kid has his/her thing and that's what this comes down to. To see the excitement on some of these kids faces being in this environment was a great moment for them. So really it was the proverbial "Win-Win" as the kids there were happy and on the back side the Church was able to raise some good funds to help the kids who are involved with the charities or groups above.

In short it was a two-day, four-show fashion show, lots of volunteers and wonderful youth models. Most of my pics came from the runway. I shot more than 2400 pictures in the two days and edited that down to more than 650 so parents could order prints (I'm giving back to the fundraiser too). So here are a few pics from the event. Thanks for stopping by!

Shaun

Of government, football, motorcycles and kids sports

The few weeks have been flying by, with lots of shoots both hired and special projects and a few favors for friends.

The other big news is that I added a Canon EOS 5D MK II to my fleet of cameras, well, I don't have a fleet, but it sounded fun. The "5D" is a great camera, while not the best for shooting sports as it doesn't shoot at the 11 frames per second that it's big brother does, it does posses excellent image quality and also will allow me to shoot HD video. Editing it is a whole other ballgame.

One of my first assignments was to cover the Israel Idonije Foundation's Kick-Off event on the Southside. I'd never met Mr. Idonije, but have met plenty of other athletes through my years in newspapers. I'll say the first thing you'll notice if you have the pleasure of meeting "Izzy" is that he is a genuine guy. He cares about these kids that are the focus of his foundation.

Two days later, I met James Brown, a football player for Evanston Township High School. James had recently lost his father to cancer and since had put together some spectacular games, he was being profiled for the Tribune's prep sports preview. What a mature young man. One of the things I love about newspapers is meeting people, this was harder as the root of the story was him losing his dad, but this young man seems to have perspective. I wish him the very best in the future, which seems very bright.

Fast forward a week and it was onto Irish Gov't and photographing the Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland, Mary Couglan, for the group Education Ireland. If you or one of your kids/relatives is thinking of studying abroad, you want to consider this!

The day before my dip into Irish culture, I was fully back in Italy when I spend the late afternoon photographing one of my friends motorcycles, a 1975 Moto Guzzi T-3 that looks nothing like it did when it left the factory in Mandello Del Larrio. This will be used for promotional use in the near future.

Lastly, while practicing to be a father, I took picture of our friends kids last weekend partaking and learning the lessons of team sports. While both of their teams lost their games. Little Ella scored a hat trick in soccer and Mitch broke a nice 30 yard run... maybe he'll be the next Taylor Martinez!

Ravinia Brouhaha

When I got the call mid-morning on Saturday to cover an event at Ravinia Festival, I wasn't think much about controversy. After all, it was the celebration for an esteemed lyricist/composer, not some edgy alternative band that was pushing the bounds of morals in our society. Frankly I was more concerned about parking and access.

I arrived about an hour before the assignment started according to request, but for events of such a large nature, I always like to get in and assimilate to the mood and happenings so I can better photograph the event.

Upon arrival and seeing all the black tie's, I immediately flashed back to my time in Naples, FL when I would go to the Ritz Carlton every Saturday night and shoot a society ball... I had to giggle a bit. I ended up finding my PR contact who was great at getting me what I needed to shoot some of the "who's who" of the night. As the concert to celebrate Stephen Sondheim, was about to begin we moved to the band shell area and I got the grounds rules for shooting. @ 15 minutes or three songs and then I would be done and go to shooting the lawn crowd for additional images.

The light was really beginning to fade when I got to my lawn crowd, but after a quick survey of what was happening, I started to shoot an overview before moving into some details. I finally found a couple who was situated in a way that they popped from the crowd and seemed to be into the music. However, they didn't want to give their names, so I cast about to find a new situation. The hard part at Ravinia, is that many in the lawn seats are daydreaming, reading the paper, sleeping, eating, I wanted a nice moment and nice light would hurt either, I finally found this nice couple and their 4 month old daughter... perfect.

Well, almost perfect... suddenly the concert was over, many folks were getting up and leaving and most were confused, my mind set was more like, dang, I'm going to get stuck in all this traffic! You could hear whispers of discontent, at the point I was stopped at the train tracks, I turned around and made a few grab shots, while talking to a nice dentist from South Bend, IN, turns out that was the picture of the night for the Tribune.

Photo Gallery

Story Link

Story Link2

Anyway, it was a beautiful night cut short for some, but looks like Ravinia is making amends to those folks.

Enjoy, Shaun

Trip to Nebraska

Took a trip home to Nebraska this last week. Needed to get home to see my grandma who wasn't able to make our wedding in LaJolla, CA.

Used the time to also meet up with some old friends and shoot some portraits of their kids and families, here's a little sampling of the nice kids who patiently smiled for me and their folks!

More soon. Shaun