the first days of spring have arrived in the midwest. the sun has only made a guest appearance, but the temperature is warming to the 60's. thunderstorms rolled in this afternoon with the kick drum and i'm tempted to sit in the middle of it just for the quiet-loudness of it all.

i spent all morning at the cook county courthouse waiting to take a picture of the attorneys for a big murder trial set to start here next week. 8 tv people and two other still shooters and i set up base camp outside of the security booth. we waited for hours. the smarter ones among us (read: not me) had packed snacks ("have you tried these dried oranges?") and diversions ("oh! USWeekly says brittney called justin from rehab!"). note to self: court assignments suck.

coincidentally, three other huge court cases also heard motions that morning so i found myself snapping pictures of a priest in a sex abuse scandal and a drunk off-duty cop who beat a (female) bartender to a pulp because she wouldn't serve him. strange mix, that cook county court house. all the while lines of people shuffling in and out, beltless and recently frisked.

by 12:00 the judge finally relented for lunch and we got our sideshow of defense and offense. snap, snap, snap. done. a long gray drive back to the office with low blood sugar and that was my day.

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this family is having their home renovated for free by a local contractor. the mother has neurofibrosomethingorother (notebook is at the office) and is in 24/7 care. her husband and four kids are living in a local hotel until the house is finished. i would like to hang out with them more for a possible story.


gets a kiss from her oldest son.


with some more planning this shoot could've been great. according to another staffer, this is the reason the paper needs and assignment editor. we've been sitting on a request for a historic prom dress fashion shoot for two weeks. we could have found props, developed a story board, researched lighting schemes, borrowed lights from another office (ours are still broken). but no. i got this assignment 2 hours before the shoot was to start. sigh. frustrations of the grind.

so this is what i could come up with. luckily the light in the historic home the writer had set up was very nice at 5pm.








a little something from the hatchery at the museum of science and industry. getting born is tiring work. must. take. nap.


my nun massage therapist with a client. we ran into static at one of the nursing homes she visits. we walked in to go to work and for some reason the hospital's top brass was right inside. "oh taking pictures?! you need to talk to rex in the PR department first." gah. busted. we were escorted to rex's office where we sat outside in the hallway while they talked it over behind closed doors. felt like being called to the principle's office. a few minutes of PR double-talk and we were on our way.


shot water polo (for the first time) in a cave. grabbed this in between periods, or quarters, or whatever they call them. with more light i would love to shoot this again. with a water housing it would be really fun.