So I am going to do my best to get everyone’s photos edited by end of December. Next up – Julie & Mike Parrilla! Mike was a college class friend of mine so it was great to connect with him again. They met during a small group bible study and their relationship started to grow in a good foundation! We had a blast shooting through various locations in Chicago and were able to capture some cool moments. They were such a fun couple – especially Julie who wanted to make all these funny faces! It had me laughing the whole day.

Big thanks to Kenny Nakai again for his assistance at this wedding!

By the way, who said my job wasn’t dangerous? To get photo 14 below, I had to do this (courtesy of Kenny Nakai):

One more wedding & family shoot to go – then I’m done for the year! Woo hoo! 2007 has been an incredible year. Something tells me 2008 is going to be even better. Have a great weekend everyone!

Vanessa contacted me after attending a wedding I shot in late 2006. She is currently a senior at Minooka Community High School. When she contacted me to shoot her senior photo session, at first I was hesitant to do the shoot because of the hectic wedding schedule. But after numerous emails, phone-tags and rescheduling, we were finally able to find time. I give her big props for driving 2 1/2 hours with her mom to do this shoot!

But I was so glad to meet her. Vanessa is a beautiful person inside out. She loves the Lord and is not afraid to live out her faith. She plans to attend a Christian college this fall. Here are some photos from this session:

Good luck in college Vanessa – the world is waiting for a superstar like you to shine!

—————— QUICK UPDATE ——————
I’m stuck here at the Baltimore airport. It’s hard to get work done in this environment so I thought I’d update with some random pics from today. I got to visit Covenant Life Church in Gaitersburg, MD today. My 2nd shooter Peter attends this church and is a full-time worker here as well. This happens to be the church that Joshua Harris is the senior pastor for. So after service I got to chill with some of them.

Josh wants all of us to stop dating the Church. Nice.

Got to see my old college friend Joe – aka. VJ. He’s one of the assistant pastors here now.

This is Dan I’s hometown. He was at the wedding that I shot at so we got to go to church together. Dan wants to kiss dating goodbye. Wonder how Genuine feels about that?

Meet Peter’s daughter Naomi. She’s so dang cute. I even got to hold her for few minutes before she asked me nicely if she can go back to her daddy.

Okay, that was just a quick random update. Back to waiting. Hopefully my flight will leave soon….

—————— END UPDATE ——————

Whew, I had a blast this weekend traveling to VA/DC area to cover a wedding of Justin & Virginia. What a way to wrap up this Thanksgiving holiday! Virginia has been a good friend of mine and Justin & I got along so well because he’s such a great guy. I’m thankful that I got to be there to be part of their celebration. Thank you guys so much for allowing me to capture the unforgettable moments! Here’s just a few from the slideshow that I showed at the reception. There’s plenty more to come in the future when I get a chance to blog more about them. I miss you guys already!

Thanks to Peter Bang for coming out to shoot with me. We had a blast at this wedding!

Let me know what you guys think about the new image sizes for my blog. They are slightly bigger.

1 famliy shoot, 1 wedding & 1 concert to go for this year. Whew. It’s been quite a journey this year. Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving!

I’ve spent few days here in central part of New Jersey and I must say that I’m pretty impressed. I can see why it’s called the Garden State. There’s lot of scenic places around here. My cousin’s place where I am staying at has a back yard that’s part of a state park and you can see wild animals randomly running around. It’s peaceful here.

Today I went to a place called King Spa Sauna in Palisade Park, NJ. It was nice relaxing, eating and sitting in various steamed rooms. I have to admit it was a bit of culture shock for me while I was in the bath house because you are surrounded by bunch of naked men. That was the part I enjoyed the least. I just sat in the hot tub in the corner by myself for awhile then walked out. I had hard time making eye contact w/ people.

Here’s a photo of the place I found online:

Afterwards I met up with an old friend Song Eun at a nearby Starbucks for some coffee. It was good to see an old U of I face. Check out her new look:

Song Eun wants to improve her English and I want to improve my Korean so she speaks to in english while I attempt to speak my Konglish every time I talk to her.

Then our family went out to eat at this place called Boom Boom Chicken (553 Main, Fort Lee, NJ) I know the name sounds funny but they are serious about their fried chicken. I have to give credit to my sister for finding this place. I was a bit hesitant to try it at first but this stuff melts in your mouth. There’s sweet flavor and spicy. I recommend getting both as it will please all parts of your taste palette.

Here’s my sister all satisfied after eating some Boom Boom.

On the side note, I got an email from Adam Nitti (bassist for Steven Curtis Chapman) telling me that they chose my photo for the upcoming (nov/dec) cover of Christian Musician Magazine that has him featured. It’s the small one on the bottom left. Pretty cool. I’ll have to go check out a copy soon:

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Whew, it was a busy weekend! All my weekend was spent doing this:

and this:

Tomorrow I fly to the east to do their wedding:

2 weddings, 1 family session + 1 concert to go before this year’s shooting gigs are over. Then I’ll be spending December catching up on work, detoxing, and meeting up people. Whew. Can’t wait. But I can’t complain either.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!