I recently bought some studio lights and background gear to shoot more headshots and portraits. One of my new photographer friends, Jenny, came over to my place yesterday, and graciously agreed to sit for me in studio and in my garden. We shot a great deal with the studio lights, but, of course, I am always a sucker for natural light. Wanted to share a few from this session. She is so gorgeous that it was not much of a challenge! Also, normally for a client, I’d make all the processing look fairly similar, but since this was a “just for fun” sitting, I played around a bit more with the different processing options. Enjoy!

Simple studio one with lights.

I have the sneaking suspcion you might be seeing a lot of Sarah portraits on the blog, as there are just so many I love. I spent about 40 minutes playing around with just this file, trying out a few different things and playing with different colours and textures. Sometimes post-processing can be a daunting tasks (i.e., after a wedding, when faced with a handful of fully loaded CF cards), but having the luxury of being able to spend a few minutes exploring and working with an image feels so artistically fulfilling.

My friend Sarah, a talented dancer and writer, went to New York around New Year’s, and came back with a passion for the city and a desire to move. I find that people in Chicago often say they’re taking off and moving to one of the coasts, but few do it, at least with the speed that Sarah did. A mere two months later, we’re all anticipating her going away party, as she moves to Brooklyn to more fully pursue her dance goals.

Before she left, we wanted to take some photographs around town, and earlier today we were finally able to take a few. Unfortunately, the weather was not considerate of our timing, and the “warmer” (i.e., 35 degrees) weather we experienced yesterday was replaced with fierce winds, biting cold and light flurries. I’m sure of all the things Sarah may miss about Chicago, the weather will certainly not be one of them. At any rate, she was trouper, and we did a quick session around our neighborhood. Sarah is so ridiculously adorable (what I would give for a smile like that and those chunky curls) that I had a lot of favourites. I wanted to post up a few this evening, however, so here is a little sneak peek. Will probably be posting more later this week because I liked them so.

Bon voyage, my dear! Show NYC how it’s done.