Uncaged Photography

Talia and Brandon got married on July 7th, just a month ago. They had a short and simple ceremony at the Chicago Cultural Center with an intimate group of 20 friends and family. After the ceremony, we took group shots and portraits in the Cultural Center and then while their friends and family headed off to a restaurant for cocktail hour, we walked across the street to Millennium Park for more portraits.

Talia and Brandon married at the Chicago Cultural Center on July 7th, and while I'm still working on finishing up the photos, here's a small taste of what's to come to hold you over.

About 2 months ago I set off to the nature park near my house armed with my camera, tripod, stroller, and daughter; to take some self portraits. The real reason was because I had found this lace maxi dress at the Unique thrift store near my house and wanted to show my sister. But the photos turned into very nice portraits of myself and my daughter so I thought I'd show them off.

She always makes these crazy faces at the perfect times for photos.

Okay, I will say that I took these photos a little under a year ago. Last October to be exact, but I have nothing new to upload so this is what I have. I didn't have this blog when I did these photos so that is why they don't already exist on the blog.

This is my cousin April and her boyfriend Tim. She just wanted some portraits of the two of them and ended up using one as a Christmas card photo. At first they were both a little shy about showing affection in public, but being the sneaky person I am, I caught a few good shots of them.

I prefer getting more candid, natural looking shots but I also took a couple more "posed" photos.





It was turning to evening as we were finishing up the photos and so I got several shots in the high grass with some lovely evening light.




And of course since we're in Chicago, and this park has a lovely hilltop, skyline view, we had to get a few of those shots in. And as luck would have it, the photos also got to feature Chicago's trademark wind.

Melissa is the niece of a family friend. I first met her ten years ago when my family was still in Cambodia and she came over as an intern. I haven't seen her since then. Long time. And now it turns out she lives only a couple blocks away from me. How crazy is that?

She just needed some portraits done for work and resumes or for whenever she needs a nice photo of herself.

Mother's Day is coming up. My second Mother's Day since Aria was born. Sadly I can't be with my mother on  Mom's Day but I will see my mother-in-law. My mom will be visiting this summer. I'm so excited. My family currently lives over in Cambodia - where I lived for 7 years as well - and someone donated money so my mom could fly over to the States and visit us. Yay. It will still be a few months before she gets here, but it doesn't hurt to be excited.