{"id":6279,"date":"2026-03-11T09:19:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T14:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marmaladephotography.com\/blog\/?p=6279"},"modified":"2026-04-15T18:30:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T23:30:34","slug":"chicagoland-family-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marmaladephotography.com\/blog\/chicagoland-family-photographer\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Chapter for Marmalade Photography\u2122 – Chicagoland Family Photographer Since 2005"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Some things are worth holding on to. Family being one of them. Photography of your family is another.<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Image of my girls in November 2006<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

More than twenty years ago I picked up a camera as a professional Chicagoland family photographer for the first time. From moment one I started with a couple of simple and profound convictions:

\u2022 Photography should be filled with life, moments of contemplation, of movement, of joy, of pouting and of every moment in between\u2026

\u2022 Photographs of families and children are not merely <\/em>home decor. No. Photographs are meant to be documents. Evidence of existence, evidence of togetherness, evidence of love and evidence of belonging to something larger than ourselves.

In the years leading up to June 2005, when Marmalade Photography\u2122 was birthed, I felt a quiet sort of anxiety fueled by the idea that family photography should not just be a “have-to-do” experience, one that felt like a chore at certain points in my children’s childhood. Oh it was fun<\/em> in a way and not really a “chore” as I described it but it wasn’t full of life and movement. It was about corralling the girls, dressing them up, styling them – with no guidance, taking them to the local mall studio (Picture People or JCPenney!) and having them pose while all they wanted to do was run, play, explore\u2026well frankly it wasn’t a representation of who they were <\/em>at that time.

I found myself frequently taking my point and shoot camera out and capturing moments of life. My brother, Matt, was the inspiration for my capturing life in this way. Over the years with his then young family, I admired his many albums of his family in various moments. From the beautiful moments of his capture of his wife Ewa holding their newborn to funny photos of their growing baby son through the years, often with family.

I knew family photography didn’t have to be stuffy and serious. I didn’t want that to be a reflection of my own family.

I’ve always been a photographer<\/a> and I’ve always been drawn to people’s stories.

It was natural that I became part of a pioneering movement that has helped shape photography as we know it today. The on location photographer that has sparked many a career. When I was embarking on my professional photography path the movement was just getting underway and I am so proud to have been a part of what shaped what it has become. A beautiful way for family life to be expressed in what we now call lifestyle photography<\/em>. We didn’t have a solid name for it then but we do now. I am proud to have been part of that movement and continue to be.

My photography career naturally unfolded. When I worked in the ICU\/CVICU at Naperville’s Edward Hospital I’d care for my patients and their families and in the wee hours, while everyone was asleep on those rare quiet nights I would gaze at the photos lining the walls and available spaces in the room of the critically ill. Hand drawn art from grandchildren, beautiful cards to those fighting for their lives. And the family photos.

Oh! The photos on display. In my mind’s eye I remember what it was like to be standing a room filled with IVs, ventilators, rapid blood transfusers, balloon pumps and being surrounded by real life. The images that mark time in that patient’s life before the presence of medication, IV fluid and assisted breathing.<\/p>\n\n\n

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My favorite use of AI images is for storytelling purposes and for illustrating memories that do not have photo association with them. This image by duck.ai is powered by human imagination.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Images of the patient not in the patient role but in the LIFE role. As the head of their households, as the grandparent, as a human, filled with life! The complete contrast to this person in bed (sometimes their death bed) who was fighting to breathe or for their heart to continue pumping or perhaps unconscious from a stroke or car accident or any other number of life threatening conditions that landed them in my unit of the hospital\u2026

And it occurred to me that I<\/em><\/strong> was no longer ok bearing witness to illness and death, despite having a large role in fighting it off. No. My own near death experience after the birth of my second child made it so I was no longer okay with just bearing witness to illness and dying. That rush of adrenaline in helping save lives that fueled my nursing career in the first decade of my medical career was long gone. I was in survival mode trying to make sense of what happened to ME. I gazed upon the walls of my patients who had a life<\/em> before they were nearly dead, lying here as my patient.

I was trying to make sense of my own life and nearly dying in the context of caring for the nearly dead.

And truth be told. My photographing my family healed me in ways that nursing never<\/em> could. I appreciated the chance at being alive to be here with my daughters and watch them grow but the continued exposure to the critically ill was wearing on parts of my soul that were resilient and armored prior to nearly dying myself.

Working in the ICU was quietly killing me in ways my near death experience never did. I found myself more frequently quietly questioning the interventions I was obligated to take – whose good are we doing THESE interventions for? <\/em>Often the answer was clear but often enough the answer was muddied in a variety of factors that are far too psychologically complicated to delve into in this mere photographer’s blog post of the story of pivoting in life and finding meaning in healing.

But those photos of those patients? Their memories lining their walls surrounding their sick beds? My own thoughts on personal photography and my evolving sense of who I was after nearly dying? Well photography gave me the answers I so desperately sought.

Photography saved me. Personally. Professionally and maybe even spiritually. It helped fulfill that part of myself that sat in nursing school that very first week (learning about gallbladders via a faux patient name Marsha) that questioned myself: “WHAT am I doing here? This isn’t even creative!!?!<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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