On Wednesday I went to see The Hemmingbirds perform at Reggie’s Music Joint in the South Loop. Now, Sam and I spent the summer catching up on and discussing AMC’s seminal television drama, Mad Men, and we agreed that we needed to try out Don Draper’s favorite cocktail — an Old Fasioned. It. is. awesome. We gave some to Sue to try but she didn’t like it. I think the bartender didn’t mix the bourbon-licious drink well enough, but me and Sam still enjoyed feeling like 1960′s Ad Men in a music bar. Sam (who I have been urging to get into photography) took two of these shots, can you guess which ones?

Two weeks ago I shot the wedding of Melanie Palmer and Jason Berg at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Elmhurst, Illinois with Brad. The day started out at the Berg household, where I followed Jason and family through the ritual of getting dressed and preparing for the ceremony. Back at the Art Museum (which by the way was designed by the amazing architect Mies van der Rohe) I set up for posed and strobed photos using my new Alien Bee and Pocketwizard combo. The ceremony was held outside the museum, adjacent to a local park. This was nice change of pace from the morning indoor church weddings I’ve been accustomed to shooting.  Contrary to the weather forecasts for the day, it did not rain, but instead it was a very nice-looking, but SCORCHING HOT day outside. The reception included the usual wedding fanfare, but the museum setting, music, and celebration made everything super fun. Overall it was one of the most fun weddings I’ve had the pleasure to shoot thus far.

Photo notes: I feel like I’ve been out of practice for a while and missed some detail shots, wasn’t as quick to snap some moments, and spent a lot of time mucking around with my flash settings (I should have shot at a lower ISO, put my flash on manual, and just nuked the nice white ceilings since I had lots of extra batteries; I also should have used a 1/2 CTO gel — stupid tungsten house lights) but it was a great time and good re-learning experience nevertheless. I feel like Brad got better shots than I did but then again he had a very pretty bride to focus on at the beginning of the day. :P

Sam took some of our friends to his “secret spot” to watch the Niles West 4th of July fireworks. The spot was pretty good — a little far away — and I’ve seen better fireworks shows, but it was still a nice time anyway.

Happy Fourth of July fellow Americans! Next time I’m going to make a time-lapse video. :D

Because when my nieces are grown up we can all have a good laugh at their expense.