Showroom No. 6 Performance This Friday!!!

Some of you may remember an interesting photoshoot I did in April of my friend Jessica Hannah's graduate thesis performance/installation for Columbia College. Well, Jessica and her fellow robotic housewives will be performing once again this Friday, June 13th (an auspicious date, eh?) to open Ladylike: A Proper Take on Feminist Art group exhibit at Koscielak Gallery in Wicker Park.

I'm especially excited as Jessica has informed me that the curator will make prints of my photos available for purchase if anyone is interested. I don't know who would want to buy photos of robotic companions, but it's just exciting to think that someone POSSIBLY might. Plus, the gallery is using a couple of my photos to promote the show, one on their website and one on the invite for the opening reception:

Two of the artists also exhibiting are Korean-American women, so I want to check that out too. If you have the chance to see this on Friday night, I highly recommend it. The performance piece of Jessica's installation will only be for this Friday night. There's some video and other visual stuff that will be part of the exhibit through July 3oth.

So here's the info:

LADYLIKE: A proper take on feminist art
Krista Babbitt (Chicago), Andrea Dezso (New York), Jessica Hannah (Chicago), Sally Ko (Chicago), Ke-Sook Lee (Kansas City),Emma McCagg (New York), Lorraine Peltz (Chicago), Abigail Pope (New York), Susan Sensemann (Chicago),Stacia Yeapanis (Chicago).

The exhibition LADYLIKE is curated by Joanne Hinkel.
Opening reception
Friday, June 13, 2008
6 - 9 pm
Koscielak Gallery
1646 N. Bosworth Ave
Exhibition runs through July 31st.

Weekend In Review II

Ok, I'm feeling a bit more up to posting photos from the weekend after taking a half-day vacation yesterday. Just a few of my favorites. You can see ALL my favorites in the pictobrowser in yesterday's post. As you can see from this shot above, we were kinda high up above the beach. So the wedding ended up being on the lawn overlooking the beach, and not actually on the beach, because somebody probably would've hurt themselves trying to walk down to the beach (most likely me).

I took this one of the groom Dave and two of his siblings through the screen door. I like the soft glow the screen door filter created, kind of like the time I took a photo of Cadence through a pair of pink tights.

I thought this was a cute one of my friend Alana the bride peeking out while waiting to walk down the "aisle." I loved all the songs that were played as part of the prelude, including Big Star's "I'm In Love With a Girl", which kind of threw me for a loop as this is the first song on Cadence's Sleepy Songs CD which we play for every nap and at bedtime. I almost started looking for Cadence so I could put her to bed. They also played Wedding Day, which our friend Ian Moore often sings (it's an Alejandro Escovedo song) and which I also played as part of the prelude for my wedding. The wedding party walked down to "New Day," one of my favorite Ian Moore songs (Ian is how Alana and I know each other).

And this is the maid of honor, Alana's oldest daughter Autumn. This is probably my favorite people shot from the evening. She just looks so elegant and beautiful.

I thought it was funny that there was no champagne at the wedding, but there WAS Miller High Life, the Champagne of Beers. Heehee. I love how casual and laid back the whole wedding was, and this photo captures it pretty well.

This photo makes me so happy. Click on the photo to see a larger version, and you'll see that the dad's umbrella matches the daughter's outfit and vice versa. It was during the dancing portion of the reception. Yeah, it rained.

It rained ALOT. But that didn't stop the bride from dancing with her guests, even if an umbrella was required.

And here are the newlyweds smooching it up again. She actually pulled him in by his necktie to get this kiss.

Here's a non-wedding photo from the weekend. I wish I could say I actually took the time to look around, but I was anxious to get home, so I only made one little stop by a field of dandelions for a couple shots.

So that's it in a nutshell. The entire wedding photo set (of all 302 photos) is on my other Flickr if anyone's interested.

Thanks for all your well-wishes and votes of confidence. It was a really good learning experience for me.

Weekend In Review

As you can see from this photo, my friend Alana did indeed tie the knot this weekend. Here she is kissing her husband Dave for the very first time as his wife.

Okay, so the title of this post is misleading, as I'm too tired to do an actual review. I'll let the PictoBrowser* do that for me with some of my favorite photos from the special day. Suffice it to say that there were tornado warnings and a lightning storm that lasted, oh, from around 9:30 until at least the time I got back to my hotel after midnight. I learned a lot from this experience, and I'm so thankful to Alana and Dave for entrusting me with the honor of documenting their special day.

*FYI, if you're reading this on my Facebook FlogBlog, the PictoBrowser won't be visible unless you click on the link to the actual blog post on my domain.

Friday Confession

I have the distinct honor and pleasure of photographing my friend Alana's wedding tomorrow. She is a talented designer, photographer, musician, and hot rock 'n' roll mama. I'm so happy for her and her almost-hubby-Dave. It's going to be a beach sunset wedding in Michigan, so no stuffy boring wedding here.

So why the need for a confession? Well, two things. First of all, this will be my first wedding as THE photographer. That scares the bejeebus out of me. I've had butterflies in my stomach for over a week now. I know I should just get over myself, but I still get that, "What if I totally f*ck up?" knot in my brain every time I do a semi-important photoshoot. Wanna know why I'm not shooting photos for a living? This is why. The stress would kill me, I think. And still, I know I'm just second guessing. So like I said, I should just get over myself.

Second, Ted couldn't get off of work for the wedding. Since bringing Cadence to the wedding without someone to watch her would spell potentially disastrous results for my shutterbug duties, I reluctantly decided to leave her at home. What's the big deal? Well, this is an overnight trip, and I've never spent a night away from Cadence since she emerged from my womb. Ok, there was that one Wilco/Detholz! concert in Urbana that I photographed when she was five months old and I didn't get home until the middle of the night, but I was only gone a total of 12 hours then. I skipped Wilco's encore AND pumped breastmilk in the car while Ted drove to keep our time away to a minimum.

I know a bunch of you are laughing at me that I'm actually not jumping up and down with glee that I get a night all to myself in a waterfront hotel in lovely Saugatuck, MI. I know I'm being silly, but I can't help it. I know Cadence will be just fine. I should just embrace this opportunity to be alone to do whatever the heck I want (within reason, of course). Still...I'm gonna feel mighty out of place without my family in tow.

Oh, and this is totally off topic, but some old high school friends and I got together last week while our friend Steve Elliott was in town. Steve has been making quite a name for himself as an author, and was even awarded the Stegner Fellowship @ Stanford University a few years ago, which is a far cry from his teenage days as a ward of the state or homeless in Rogers Park. Anyhoo, it was fun to hang out and catch up.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Best Shot(s) Monday--Back to the Cadence Channel

I feel like I've lately neglected my duty to post an adequate amount of photos of Cadence, so it's a good thing I took a whole bunch of photos of her this weekend. Here she is sporting her new Woody Guthrie dress that I made on the train last week. It just so happens that Woody has been a long-time dead celebrity crush for me, along with the likes of Nick Drake (hopeless, I know) and Dostoevsky.

Okay, I realize this isn't a photo of Cadence, but just take my word for it that Cadence was only a couple feet away from where this shot was taken. Besides, I just couldn't resist posting a photo of Baby Jack double-fisting shakey eggs. Just look at that stance, that grasp, those curly locks!

And this may SEEM like a photo of Rudden, but if you look carefully, you will notice Cadence right behind him, like a little crown upon his head. I just couldn't resist the synchronicity of this shot. It's like the kids are performing an intricately choreographed dance of BLUR.

OK, back to the Cadence Channel. We decided after church yesterday that it would be a good idea to let Cadence run around some more in Giddings Plaza. Since Cafe Selmarie is right there, we lunched on their delectable oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (just two--one for me and one for Cadence; Ted's on a really party-pooping liver cleanse this week) and fresh squeezed OJ. Talk about a sugar high. At least I got this sweet shot of Cadence. I usually hate photographing in bright sun (and yesterday's light quality can only be described as blindingly bright sunshine), but I caught this moment when some light was inexplicably shining onto her face, and she actually WAITED for me to press the shutter! She must've known she looked good or something.

While walking back to our car, Cadence happened to spy this sad looking dandelion growing in a sparsely green dirt patch, and I just love how she bent down to smell it, as if it were the most fragrant blossom to ever grace her path. Then she picked it and showed it to me.

Then she tried to blow the wishes away, but alas, they were all gone already. Oh well. I just love how good Woody looks in this photo...

And now I reveal to you my most embarrassing photo technique, just discovered yesterday, and that is the Laptop Reflector. I realized that the glow of the laptop on Cadence's face as she numbed her mind on some Nick Jr. was quite suitable for photographing her in our dimly lit dining room.

Can you just SEE the brain cells taking a flying leap into oblivion? Eh, I still happen to really like the effect.

Her face looks much better lit up like this, believe me. And the glow is so subtle, it's...perfect.

We did get outside before the sun went down, since it was a beautiful day and all. Cadence even got to find some more "flowers" that actually had wishes left on them.

Since dandelions breed like bunnies in our neighborhood, Cadence was able to gather up armfuls of them.

I just love how some of our neighbors let their weeds grow wild. Well-kempt lawns are so over-rated. If it weren't for those cars in the background, you'd think this photo had been taken in the country, or forest preserves, at least. And I bet if I hadn't said anything about those cars, you wouldn't have even noticed.

Back indoors, Cadence had some nekkid time. FYI, I don't post totally nekkid photos of my kid for the whole universe to see because, believe it or not, I have SOME boundaries. Well, actually, it's to save folks out there with REAL boundaries the trouble of wasting their time judging me. I see it as an act of charity and not self-censorship.

So you'll just have to take my word for it that the sight of a totally nekkid Cadence banging on her toy piano while doing Max's Wild Rumpus dance was quite the visual extravaganza. And I know she's doing the Wild Rumpus dance because while she's jumping up and down and hopping from foot to foot while her hands do the same on the piano, she's yelling, "AND now, let the WILD RUMPUS START!"

Gotta love this kid.

You can see more folk's Best Shots on Tracey' Mother May I.

P.S. I have a post up on Shutter Sisters. Check it out to find your chance to win a totally awesome photo book.