Chicago Family and Child Photographer

Photographing the Photographer: Tales from a Chicago Family Photographer

Photographing another photographer (and more importantly the children of said photographer). Sounds like an easy feat, doesn’t it? In theory the children of photographers are used to having their pictures taken. Used to seeing their mom or dad’s face transformed into a black box with a circular piece of glass. Right? Easy peasy…Ha. As I will prove to you right here.

Well, as many photogs reading this will attest, photographing your own child is an exercise in frustration. So, armed with my knowledge of this I approached yesterday’s session with a sense of challenge. You know what tho? I hadn’t needed to worry because I had these boys under my spell (even tho, after three frames the youngest turned to me and asked: "are we done yet?" LOL. Not even close, little grasshopper). We had fun, we played and we got some really amazing images.

Regardless of the level of ease for which it was to photograph I enjoyed working with Wisconsin’s Nanette Gerrits, her wonderful (and funny) husband and her two gorgeous boys. A big thank you to her for venturing out up to the Chicago area for an Urban Decay session. I loved meeting you guys, I had a blast (and more importantly I hope you guys did too) and I think you are going to be VERY happy with the images from your session. There is nothing like the spark of creativity I get when met with a new place and a family that *gets* the process. So thank you on that level. And also, thank you for entrusting me with your confidence in obtaining something truly special and remarkable for your family. It means the world to me that you allowed me to capture this time in your lives.

So, enough blabbering. Go. Enjoy the sneak peeks…

Sofa Antics

Love Mom Style

Blue Eyed

Thanks for stopping in.

Namaste.

Ooooh, P.S. as I almost forgot. Thanks to my wonderful husband who drove out to help us out with the sofa. Thanks D! Love you much.

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Paula - July 15, 2008 - 10:57 am

gorgeous, Mare. 😉
Susan Braswell - July 15, 2008 - 11:05 am

Beautiful family – love the location and aura.
Kimberly Hill - July 15, 2008 - 12:10 pm

So lucious! More! More! My favorite is the mom snuggle.
PamN - July 15, 2008 - 1:54 pm

WOW! She has to be so happy!
chantelle bliss - July 15, 2008 - 4:00 pm

these are so beautiful! you rock!
Kudzu Fire - July 16, 2008 - 4:47 am

nice feel to this collection of imagery
Angela - July 16, 2008 - 12:04 pm

She’s going to love these!!!!
Pammy - July 16, 2008 - 7:14 pm

If I was her, I would be thrilled. They look beautiful so far.
Sherri - July 16, 2008 - 7:58 pm

😀 Beautiful session! I love that Mother/Son image!
Danna Bowes - July 17, 2008 - 1:02 pm

ohhhhhhhh Marianne….these are so so so good!! when can you come photograph my family :-D..or maybe we need to make a trip to Chicago, never been there.
Michelle Miller - July 17, 2008 - 8:16 pm

Gorgeous work! The little boy has a gorgeous smile and it’s easy to see how wonderfully you interacted with this family 🙂
Anna-Karin - July 18, 2008 - 12:14 am

As a mom to boys , the one with the boy snuggled up with his mom is my favorite.You really captured them at that moment, where it shows that the boy still needs his mom’s love and reasurance. The same for the one with both boys on the sofa with their mom.
June - July 19, 2008 - 8:49 am

Gorgeous, gorgeous. Works of art. Fantastic relationship captures.
Jana Kunz - July 24, 2008 - 8:55 pm

I love that last shot, beautiful!
TaraMc - July 26, 2008 - 9:24 pm

What beautiful images. Your work is so artful and unique. I love your style.

New Website: Chicago and Suburban Children’s and Family Photographer

Those of my regular blog readers may remember my chaotic last few weeks with the website and all the good times (eyeroll) that I’ve been having. At one point even my blog was down completely (gasp in horror!). Needless to say a lot of things have taken the backburner while I got my site up & running again. Well…the flash web site is now *ALMOST* totally finished.

CLICK ME, YOU KNOW YOU WANNA

By almost I mean that I want to add a featured session onto the galleries and add a few more images to the galleries (but that’s a project for later i think). The bestest news is my new intro song! The song that I have just added to the site is by a group called Soma Sonic. I have to say this song is amazing. It haunted me for weeks until I heard back from them that it was indeed a go. As some of my photography friends know, finding the RIGHT song is a true ordeal. After countless hours of searching this song just feels right. So a big thank you to Soma Sonic, if you like the song you can find them on iTunes and Amazon.com. If you love lounge beats, go ahead and give them some love and check ’em out. They are deserving of a few million in album sales.

Speaking of tunage….DJ Bald Eagle (of BLD fame) was spinning The Rapture at Taste last Sunday and it reminded me how much I love them. So much so that when my husband bought me Echoes back in 2003-4 I drove EVERYONE nuts with it. I specifically recall holding the cordless phone up to the speakers of our Mac G4 tower so that my friend Julio (who was travelling for work assignments) could hear how awesome that album was (I know. What a dork I am).

I did some digging of some of my old The Rapture faves so that instead of holding the phone up to my speakers you can just click on the PLAY arrow and listen and watch via YouTube imbedding technology. I assure you that if you like(d) Johnny Rotten(Lydon, whatever he goes by these days)/PIL or Britt underground I think you’ll dig Echoes. If you dug Big Audio Dynamite (and who didn’t) this song will make you git up and dance (altho they say ‘people don dance no more..) from their more current Pieces of People We Love album:

Finally, a big thank you to Jessica and her little boy that drove out from Mokena for their session-only to get ~~torrentially downpoured upon, like buckets of water falling from the sky~~ rained upon…as well as a big thank you to weather.com’s hour by hour forecast that did not accurately give us the hours of rainfall/showers/torrential downpours yesterday. Jessica, I will see you later this week…

I don’t quite have many sneak peeks up but these were fun, just messing around images yet but I thought these were pretty appropriate to the situation at hand:

Thank you for stopping in.

Namaste (that’s for you Agnes, go ahead, click it!) 🙂

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corey civetta - July 9, 2008 - 6:02 am

Congratulations on the new site, Mare! It looks awesome!
Kendell Silveira - July 9, 2008 - 11:58 am

Mare-

Love the work that you have done on your site- perfectly you.

Signed,
another B.A.D. fan E=MC2 playin on my MP3 player now 😉
allie - July 9, 2008 - 10:47 pm

fabulous mare, congrats on all your hard work paying off beautifully!!
Dena - July 10, 2008 - 3:51 am

Lovely new site!! I adore the new music and am listening to it over and over again this morning. I will be purchasing it in oh…about 30 more seconds. This is not the first time I have spent money after visiting your blog!
elizabeth - July 13, 2008 - 8:39 pm

the new site looks awesome..

Up North, Above It All : Chicagoland Child Photographer Takes a Break

ha, it really should read "took a break"

First hit <play> to accompany the reading that follows if you want to sit a spell. Aaaah….Aqualung.

So I finally, just today, had the energy and time to undertake downloading some of my compactflash cards from my camera to my computer. I ended up editing a handful of images from our family trip up to the lake house near Hayward, Wisconsin.

My husband has been going up to this area for almost as far back as he can remember. He has a great deal of memories of going up north, fishing with his dad and family and really wants the girls to have a part of that magic. We had a blast relaxing and just doing pretty much whatever, whenever. What a great week away from home.

If you’ve never been to that part of the country I urge you to check it out especially if you’re a bit of the nature-y outdoorsy type. There are very few unspoiled spaces and this area is filled with them (well if you can ignore the million dollar lake homes surrounding the hundreds of lakes in the area).

Here’s just a bit of our trip. I used a zoom lens and was loving the wider end of the zoom range almost the entire trip.

Hanging out on the lake, dockside

Bayfield (a fave destination of mine in of itself, SO beautiful) to Madeline Island on the ferry

Sailboats on Lake Superior

Madeline on the Island

I swear the kid didn’t know what this was at first…you know you’re old when things like this common thing become obsolete to your kids. 🙂

Madeline’s first beach was this beach on Madeline Island. I have this amazing pic of her at age 15 months walking along this shore with my husband…a fave of mine.

BTW, the kids did NOT believe us when we told them Lake Superior is ICE COLD. BRRR…

I have no idea where she gets it from 🙂

Two of my favorite peoples at Karb’s

Hayward, WI on a Sunday afterhours (normally the streets are crazy full). Isn’t this town freaking adorable?

For my photog friends: "A facade only a photographer would love…"

Finally…

The Centers of My MarmaUniverse

Thanks for stopping in. Namaste.

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Annette M Simonich - July 7, 2008 - 9:20 pm

Oh my Mare’
What a beautiful family!! The blue skies are simply incredible!! I hope to see these at the studio. I know you all had a great time.
Take care,
Annette
allie - July 7, 2008 - 10:59 pm

Oh mare- these are all so incredible, so lovingly happily fun, and just outstanding. gorgeous images, gorgeous family. 🙂
Lisa Kelly - July 8, 2008 - 4:09 am

Mare, your family is just gorgeous, your images are just as fabulous. They definitely make me want to go visit. I think it is wonderful that your husband is so keen to share his childhood memories with his children, it really is life coming full circle. Love the photo of you and your daughter, hopefully she will grow up to be just as amazing as you.
Brandy - July 8, 2008 - 12:17 pm

These are awesome photos, I feel like I’m there with you guys!
Your eldest is totally your clone.
Siobhan Cowell - July 8, 2008 - 4:24 pm

Oh my looks like it was just perfect and what you needed – beautiful family !
PamN - July 8, 2008 - 7:33 pm

There is nothing like a family vacation at the lake. Nothing. Your children will remember the sights, sounds, smells of this forever!
Kimberly Hill - July 10, 2008 - 8:42 pm

I’m reading along, enjoying the story and the images, and then I got to the last one and literally GASPED. Where are you going to hang it?!?
Lisa - July 12, 2008 - 5:08 pm

I think your oldest needs to be nicknamed “Legs”! 😉
Stacy - July 13, 2008 - 11:12 am

as usual, absolutely freakin fantastic! I hate that I live here (in WI that is) and rarely remember to see the beauty around me. Thanks for the reminder 🙂
Sylvia Laughrin - July 15, 2008 - 8:55 pm

Get Out! We go to Hayward every year!! Actually Minong – a half hour away from there. Love the little town and the candy store… the kids favorite place. So nice to hear someone else know where Hayward is!

Baby Loves Disco, Taste of Chicago, Special Events: Chicago Photographer

As promised, I have a few BLD highlights here on the blog…since this was a special event I took a different course in displaying the images and am including them here on the site.

FIrst though, a big thank you to the City of Chicago’s Office of Mayoral Special Events that invited the BLD gang to come out and share the rhythm with Taste. We had a rainy late afternoon/evening but the attendees STILL had a blast (as witnessed by the dancing that went on in the midst of major downpour).

A big thank you to Tiffanie Spearling, once again, and everyone who made BLD Taste possible…I hope you ENJOY a Taste of Taste. 😉

I had planned on getting some vacation pix posted up but I haven’t gotten around to downloading my images off my cards even (it’s been an excruciatingly busy week in Marmaland especially for someone who is supposed to be "on vacation" this week…) , so I hope there will be some stuff to share next time!!

In Marmaland, DH has gotten around to finally putting up my fantabulous shelving in my laundry room. I feel all Martha Stewartish (sorta) again and am trying to fight the urge to reorganize everything. I’m a do it all or nothing kind of gal and it’s been a long time coming getting this house organized. There always seems to be *something*. LOL So maybe if I get motivated I’ll snap some pix and show off my uberorganized laundry room. Is it sick to have a laundry room make one happy? 😀

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Sneak Peek #3, Chicago Baby and Child Photographer

I had the pleasure of photographing Lisa’s baby girl the day I left for vacation. A little backstory on this session–Lisa brought accessories galore. I am telling you we had jewelery, shoes (OH MY GOSH THE SHOES!), vintage accessories, hats…man this mom was *prepared*.

A big thanks to them for travelling out from within Chicago out to my studio. I hope it was everything you were hoping for and MORE. I truly enjoyed meeting you guys and think you will be truly delighted with the images we captured during our session…

So on with the sneak peeks!

• • • • •

The next part of the blog suits this video a friend of mine linked to me on Facebook…incredible!

Let’s talk Baby Loves Disco… Sunday was on & off rainy but we still managed to get a whole lot of fun in….if you were an attendee this past Sunday at Grant Park @ the BLD does Taste of Chicago event please email me at marmaladephotography.@.gmail.com (take out the periods) and in a few days I’ll be ready to premier the slideshow and you can purchase images at that time if you’d like.

Here’s just a taste of the Taste. 🙂 Doing it photojournalistic style, shooting it like it happened. Don’t they say pictures are worth 1,000 words?

…hopefully more to come in the coming days. 🙂

Thanks for stopping in. Namaste.

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Leah Profancik - July 1, 2008 - 9:33 am

I love that little girls outfit-the pettiskirt and top are tooo cute! I love the photos of the festival too. Great work as usual!
chantelle bliss - July 1, 2008 - 3:55 pm

love these, the second one especially, she is just darling!
June - July 2, 2008 - 11:39 am

She is darling! Wonderful captures–I adore the feel of these.
Terrilyn - July 2, 2008 - 6:05 pm

Oh gosh, she is darling!! I totally love all the extras mom brought to the session, they were worth the effort! Great work Mare!
Desiree - July 5, 2008 - 9:23 pm

These are sooo great! I love love love that last one!
Nina Pomeroy - July 7, 2008 - 6:29 am

What a cute that little girl is in the petticoat! Images to cherish for sure.