Wicker Park, Chicago, IL Family Photographer | Mike, Erica, & Scarlett

Wicker Park, Chicago, IL Family Photographer

This is the EIGHTH time in the past 3 years that Mike and Erica have graced my lens!! Five of those were at weddings (including their own!), one was for their engagement session, and now this is the second time I’ve done their family pictures. If there’s ever a year where I don’t photograph them at least once it’s going to be so weird!

I had fun hanging out with these guys last month. Scarlett was so curious and eager to explore her surroundings. Following her around took me back to the days when each of my kiddos were that small and I followed them around with my camera in the hopes of grabbing just one good picture of them on the move, their known world expanding by the minute. One of my favorite things to do at a shoot with children is to grab the in-between stuff…to just follow a child around as they explore and are allowed to be themselves. Don’t get me wrong, the posed stuff is great and I’ve got a handful of posed pictures of my own family on my walls and I absolutely take them at my shoots. There is definitely a time and place for posed images. But my personal family photo albums are filled with mostly candid photos; the ones I took on the sly while my children were doing their thing, when I didn’t interrupt them and ask them to smile. I love real moments and real interactions, and I strive to capture those for my clients. Moments are so fleeting, however long they feel when you’re in the middle of them!

Anyways, went off on a bit of a rant there, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m dang proud of these images and the blend of posed and candid moments we got. That’s all. :D

That’s the face of a girl who just escaped from her parents, haha!