I received an inquiry from Rachael about doing pictures in Chicago. She was going to be visiting some schools, but she was a fan of Chicago and the cubs and wanted to incorporate a little bit of the cubs and a lot of Chicago character into her pictures. Ultimately, she wanted pictures that were going to be totally different than her friends. I know exactly what she meant, as that’s what I hope to do with our pictures, it’s a big reason we travel to so many sessions. I packed up and began my journey to the city. Chicago is only about 3.5-4 hours away for us, so while it’s a long time on the road, it’s well worth it for the pictures we are able to get. Many photographers charge around $1/mile after 15, 20, 30 miles or so. I love staying local, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice having a five minute drive back home, but no way would I want to someone to rule me out of photographing them in the city. The city has so much to offer and so much character, it’s a completely different world. For Rachael’s session our start time was at 2:30 in the afternoon. Usually I’m watching the weather channel in hopes that it’s clear out, but for this session I was hoping for clouds. Well, we got exactly that; thick, low clouds. So low, the tops of the buildings were hidden. While this kind of put a damper on the skyline portion of the day, I’ll cut off the tops of buildings with clouds any day before having high noon sunlight. The lighting was just perfect!
We started our session off at Wrigley Field. It’s been a few years since I have been there, but the construction taking place in the area was out of this world. So much was happening. Fortunately it wasn’t too much to get the pictures we wanted. Rachael was SO fantastic to work with. As I took the pictures after about 1 or 2 shutter clicks she’d slightly change her pose and change her facial expression allowing for almost every pictures to look totally different from the previous one. I complimented her on this because it seriously made it a lot of fun for the way I shoot to keep things going. I’m not the type to set up a pose, click the shutter and move onto the next one. I like getting some candid moments in there, so I have the camera planted in front of my face nearly the entire shoot. After a little time at Wrigley and an outfit change, we walked the block pretty much. This is what I really love about city sessions. Simply walking the block will provide so many photo opportunities, and in this case, so much so, that we ate into the time we blocked off to go to Lincoln Park, however the pictures we got downtown were well worth not going. Our final stop was at North Avenue Beach. This section of the city has a great view of the skyline and it’s a different view from what I usually get as I usually shoot with the other side of the city in the background. Overall, it was a great session. It was such a fun time working with Rachael and I can’t wait to show even more pictures from this day!
