Madison | portraits
By Paul | August 1, 2008
Photographing kids can be very challenging. They are not used to have a camera in front of their face, they’re not necessarily in the mood for a portrait session when you are and they’re just kids, so they want to play. I give a lot of credit to all children photographers out there who can approach little kids every single day to capture natural moments in their life.
Madison is our neighbors’ daughter and she plays with our son often. They’re “Buddies”. One day they played in our house and I noticed a very nice light coming through the window. I grabbed the camera and asked Ania to help me keep the kids occupied. Madison had such a nice, serious look on her face. It’s hard to see her like this when she’s in a playful mood.
I really like the way pictures turned out. Ania had an outdoor family session with Madison and her parents recently and she looked so different (in my opinion).
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Mother and Daughter
By Paul | July 18, 2008
We went out searching for blue flowers that Ania spotted somewhere along the road the other day. She wanted to have couple portraits there. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find them anywhere. We noticed a nice section of cornfields with white flowers though. Ania’s Mom was with us, so we decided to do a quick mother and daughter session. The sun was going down really fast so we had no time for any lighting setup. This is what we came up with.
Topics: personal and misc, portraits | No Comments »
Kuba and Adrian | birthday party
By Paul | July 15, 2008
My son just turned 2 years old his little friend Adrian 1 year old. Time flies, no question about it. We were hosting a small party to celebrate their birthdays. Kids had so much fun. As some of you may already know, my son is a big fan of trains, especially Thomas The Tank Engine. This year his birthday cake had a custom hand-made dressing with Thomas and James on top (courtesy of Kuba’s wonderful Grandma).
In addition he got some additional tracks, trains and expansion packs to his existing sets. How cool is that ;-). I had so much fun setting it up. Thank you everybody for coming and for all the gifts.
Topics: events, personal and misc | 1 Comment »
Shore Magazine party
By Paul | July 15, 2008
Last week I had a pleasure to work with great team of event planners from ABC Communications. Candice and her team had put together a nice party on the board of Tall Ship Windy to promote their new magazine called “SHORE The Art of Midwest Living”. The magazine focuses on philanthropy in the states surrounding Lake Michigan and helps promote these events so that people who believe that charity is an essential part of leaving well can contribute and support those venues. If you would like to be a part of this project, don’t hesitate and contact ABC-Communications.com.
The weather was bad enough that we couldn’t leave the harbor. Nevertheless everybody had a great time and I’m sure the event was a starting point to great relationships both personal and business.
Candice Kuhnen (left) - Publisher of SHORE Magazine and President of ABC Communications with her team.
Let’s meet some great vendors.
Malika Ameen - co-owner of AIGRE DOUX restaurant and her team. Great food! Check them out. They were in TOP 10 New Restaurants opened last year.
Paul Landeck of Tabor Hill Winery and Resturant in Southwestern Michigan. If you travel across the Michigan and you’re up for a romantic dinner in casual country setting, stop by one of their 4 locations.
Geno Bahena - Executive Chef of REAL TENOCHTITLAN RESTAURANTE and his staff. If you like Mexican Cuisine (I like it a lot), their food was DELICIOUS!!! I’ll definitely visit them at their Logan Square location. Can’t wait!
On top of great food that was served at the party we were able to taste some delicious desserts as well. Rosie O’Carroll of Rose’s Wheatfree Bakery and Cafe provided all kinds of cookies and muffins - all gluten free. I like the fact that Rose and her husband are committed to use organic, locally produced and sustainable ingredients in their products. Two thumbs up! To find out more about their bakery and cafe please check this link. They were featured on ABC7 Chicago.
Jim Heard represented Your Nature’s Home store which specializes in organic cleaning solutions, natural skin care products and eco-friendly gifts.
Julie Compton (on the left) and Trisa Lee (on the righ) are the ladies behind BODY MEDSPA in Oak Brook. Julie (Co-owner of the salon) is now involved in educating young students of the beauty industry by teaching in beauty schools in the area. Trisa (Director of Spa Operations) who used to supervise more than 300 employees for Mario Tricoci salons, joined the Body Medspa, because she believes in “perfect marriage of the medical and spa worlds”.
The Captain of Tall Ship WINDY and her cool tattoo.
More images from this event are available in this slideshow as well as on my proofing site.
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The train
By Paul | July 13, 2008
Do you remember playing with trains or watching trains when you were a kid? I do. I loved to stare at trains passing by, count the carts, and wave my hand hoping the engineer would see me and wave back. I had a pretty big electric train set at home that I played a lot with. I had friends coming over to play with it too. It was so cool.
Now I’m 33 and I still play a lot with trains. Why, you may ask? Well, somehow my 2 years old son inherited “the thing for trains” after me… I guess. I wonder if there are any DNA tests that could prove it ;-).
Anyway, the train motive is a big part of my son’s playground, book collection and DVD set. Forget about Teddy Bear, Winnie The Pooh, Baby Einstein, Sesame Street and others. In our house Thomas The Tank Engine is THE KING!!!
My son knows at least 20 unique names of the trains in the series. We had to learn them by heart as well to know what’s going on on the Island of Sodor (I’m sure some parents smiled reading this). In addition we figured out the train schedule that runs close to our subdivision so we could show Kuba the real train. I remember the first time we went to see the train, he was hypnotized. I don’t think he blinked his eyes once. He just stared at it with a wide open mouth.
We still go to see the train couple times a week and we’ve noticed that more and more people started coming with their kids as well. It’s so funny to see that. Last week I brought my camera with me to take couple pictures. I never thought that watching a train with my son would bring so many memories from my childhood.
I think that these pictures will be priceless years from now. They will help to preserve all the good times we had as a family and the moments in our life that just passed by and will never happen again. My advice: take a lot of pictures of your family, friends and everything that’s important in your life. It will pay back in the future. Trust me :-).
On the way back we saw some lightning bugs that I tried to photograph “in motion”. I know they’re hard to see.
Topics: personal and misc | No Comments »