Frequently Asked Questions

Not on a separate trip, and I will tell you why. Light at 6pm on a Tuesday in September is not the light you get at 6pm three weeks later, so a scouting trip photographs a location that will not exist on your day. What actually matters is arriving early enough to read the place as it is.

I get there 20 to 30 minutes ahead and look for specific things: where the sun is actually setting, backlit angles that can give you a silhouette nobody else has, flowers or foliage I can frame you inside, an ice cream vendor I can buy from so you have something in your hands to play with, a piece of signage that can be used with a sense of humor. After 300 proposals across this city, I know most of these locations well enough that the work on the day is finding what is new, not learning the place.

What I do not do is show up and hope. The plan is built on the planning call. The 20 minutes early is what turns a plan into photographs.

It depends entirely on what the location was doing for you.

Some spots are built on a view. The Nature Boardwalk is a skyline frame, so in dense fog or heavy cloud, the skyline disappears and the photograph goes drab. There is no saving it with settings. When that happens I move to the Honeycomb, a wooden structure about a hundred feet away that you can duck under for a few slightly more sheltered frames, because it has a strong architectural frame of its own that reads whether or not there is a skyline behind it.

Other locations do not care about the sky at all. Overcast is genuinely flattering light on faces. Rain gives you drama. Snow gives you something most people never get.

Every proposal gets a backup established on the planning call, so the decision is already made before the morning arrives. You will never be standing outside wondering what happens next.

Yes. Every Collection includes a planning consultation. After 300+ Chicago proposals, I know which locations photograph best at which hour, where to position myself, how crowds behave at each spot, and how to keep your partner from suspecting anything.

On the call we cover location recommendations, timing for the light, positioning and cover, your cover story, and the weather backup.

If you are bringing in musicians, flowers, or a setup, I will tell you where to place them so they photograph well and how to time their arrival so nothing gives you away. You arrange those vendors yourself. I make sure they end up in the right place at the right moment.

You do not, because I do it. But this is worth explaining, because it is the single most common way a well-planned proposal falls apart.

One client did everything right. He picked Adler Planetarium, called the planetarium, confirmed there was no event on the calendar, and booked the date. What he had not checked was Soldier Field, where Ed Sheeran was playing that night. The Museum Campus was gridlocked hours before the show. We moved the session to Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown that same day and it came out better than the original plan.

The lesson I took from it: never assume the venue is the only thing that can affect the venue. I check the surrounding area myself now, on every booking, because a client cannot reasonably be expected to know that a stadium two blocks away is going to decide whether you can park.

The locations I return to most, and what each one is actually good for:

• Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo: skyline across the water, with the Honeycomb, a partly sheltered wooden structure a hundred feet away, as a built-in alternative.
• Milton Lee Olive Park: skyline without the crowd that comes with it.
• North Avenue Beach: lakefront and skyline together, best in the last hour of light.
• Chicago Riverwalk: architecture on both sides, and it holds up at almost any hour.
• Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool: a hidden pocket in Lincoln Park, quiet and green.
• Willis Tower: two very different options in one building. See below.
• Lincoln Park Conservatory: indoors, warm, and immune to February.
• Ping Tom Memorial Park: Chinatown, the river, and far fewer people than you would expect.

Which one is right depends on the season, your partner, and how much of an audience you want. That is a real conversation, not a list. See the full location guide →

The view is one of the best in the city. The logistics are the hardest of anywhere I shoot, and I would rather say that plainly than let you find out on the day.

The problem is not Adler. It is the Museum Campus. Between Soldier Field, the museums, and events that never appear on any calendar you would think to check, parking and arrival can go from routine to impossible in the space of an afternoon. A proposal has a hard start time built around the light and around whatever story you told your partner to get them there. It does not absorb an unexpected hour in traffic.

I still shoot there. I just plan it differently: earlier arrival, a parking answer settled in advance, and a fallback location already agreed. If you want that skyline and harbor view without the stress, Milton Lee Olive Park gets you close with a fraction of the risk.

Yes, and most people do not know there are two entirely different ways to do it.

The Skydeck on the 103rd floor is open to the public with a ticket. The Ledge boxes put you 1,353 feet above the street on glass. It is the iconic version and it is accessible to anyone. It is also a crowded room, and working a proposal in a crowd while still producing a clean frame is a specific skill. That is my job, not yours.

The 99th floor is a private event space you rent through the building, with its own coordinator and its own rates. You arrange that directly with them. What it gives you is an entire floor with nobody else in it, which means the moment can be staged with flowers, champagne, whatever you want, and photographed without a single stranger in frame.

I have photographed a privately rented 99th floor proposal, and I will show you the gallery if you are considering it.

It depends on the location, and we cover it on the planning call so you are never guessing.

Usually permit-free: public sidewalks, most of Lincoln Park for a casual session, the Riverwalk, most street-level spots.

Permit typically required: Grant Park, Millennium Park, Garfield Park Conservatory, Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago Botanic Garden, and museum properties.

To be clear about how this works: when a permit is required, it is purchased in your name, by you. I do not buy permits and I do not include them in any Collection. What I provide is the exact link, the form, what to write on it, and how far ahead to submit. It takes most people about ten minutes.

Three to six weeks is ideal. That leaves room for a proper planning call and for any permit that needs submitting. I regularly take proposals booked within a week, and occasionally within 48 to 72 hours when the schedule allows. Holidays and fall weekends fill first.

Call or text (847) 212-8642 if you are working on a short timeline.

No. Discretion is the whole job until the yes happens.

I shoot with long lenses from real distance, dress like everyone else who is there, and use whatever the environment gives me for cover. Outdoors I look like one more person taking pictures of the skyline. Indoors I coordinate with staff for a position that makes sense.

Across 300+ proposals, the surprise has held every time.

The Cinematic is a 150 minute proposal Collection at $1,795 with two photographers.

To be clear about the name: The Cinematic is photography. It does not include video, film, or any moving image. "Cinematic" describes how the images are shot and edited, rich tones and intentional light, like stills from a film. Two photographers means two simultaneous angles on the moment itself: one on the reaction, one wide enough to hold the location. If you want video coverage of a proposal, that is a separate conversation and a separate vendor.

After the yes, the remaining time is a full portrait session across multiple locations.

Yes, and it is often the better value. Collection III and The Cinematic both carry enough time after the surprise to function as a full portrait session, across more than one location.

The tradeoff worth knowing: you will be photographed in whatever you wore to the proposal, at whatever hour the proposal had to happen. A separate engagement session lets you choose both. Some people want the emotion of that same day carried through the portraits. Some want a second day with the ring on and no nerves. Neither is wrong.

Each Collection carries a guaranteed minimum, and these are the numbers written into your agreement:

• Collection I (25 minutes): 25 or more hand-edited images
• Collection II (60 minutes): 45 or more
• Collection III (90 minutes): 65 or more
• The Cinematic (150 minutes, two photographers): 100 or more

Those are floors, not targets. Most galleries land above them. Every image is individually edited, and nothing is padded to hit a number.

No. Nothing from your session is published anywhere until you have announced. That is written into the agreement, not just a courtesy.

You get your highlights within 48 hours, which means you control the announcement completely: who hears first, when, and how. Once you have shared it publicly, I may use images from the session unless you tell me otherwise. If you would rather I never post yours at all, say so and that is the end of it.

Yes, and the difference shows up in the parts nobody photographs.

A wedding is scheduled, staffed, and rehearsed. There is a timeline, a coordinator, and a second photographer. If a moment is missed at cocktail hour, the night keeps going and there are five hundred more frames to come.

A proposal is roughly ninety seconds that happen once, in public, with no rehearsal, while you are hiding. There is no timeline to fall back on. Either you are in position with the right lens and the right exposure when they turn around, or you are not. Everything that makes it work happens before the shutter: reading the location, having a second position ready, knowing what the crowd is going to do.

I shoot both, and I would tell you honestly that the proposal is the harder of the two to get right.

Something small usually shifts. A location is busier than expected, the clouds do something, you lose your nerve for ten minutes and walk one more lap. None of that is a problem, and none of it needs to reach you in the moment.

What I can promise is the planning and the presence: I will be there, in position, prepared for the location we chose and for the alternative we agreed on. What no photographer can honestly promise is a specific frame, because I cannot control where your partner turns or what a stranger does behind you.

Every proposal I have photographed has come with a gallery the couple was happy with. Not every one went according to the plan we made three weeks earlier.

About half the people who come to me arrive with a vision fully formed. They do not need convincing and they do not need reassurance. What they need is execution and one honest voice on the things they cannot see from inside the idea.

Usually that is light and timing. If you have your heart set on noon because that is when you two first met at that spot, I will tell you the sun is at its highest then and the photographs will suffer for it, and I will offer you a time when the light is working with us instead of against us. You choose the moment. I protect how it is going to look.

Beyond that, my job is to honor what you actually said you wanted rather than substituting my own version of it. If you want the elaborate setup, we build the elaborate setup. If you want something strange and specific that nobody has done, better still.

There is actual science behind this:

The mere-exposure effect: you see yourself reversed in mirrors. Photos show you as others see you, which feels subtly wrong.

The freeze-frame problem: snapshots catch millisecond expressions. A professional shoots through the moment to find the one that looks like you.

The lighting problem: bad lighting makes everyone look bad. Good lighting is literally my job.

The anxiety loop: camera makes you tense, tension shows, you hate the photo, cycle continues.

My job is breaking that cycle.

"Not photogenic" is almost never true. You have just rarely been photographed well.

Most photos of you were taken by friends with phones, in bad light, with nobody helping you.

• I find or create good light
• I give prompts that produce genuine expressions
• I know the angles that flatter every body type
• I shoot through moments instead of at them

You do not need to be photogenic. You need a photographer who brings out what is already there.

Yes. One of the best things you can do.

It is a low-stakes practice run. No timeline pressure, no family waiting, nothing riding on it.

By the end, people usually say some version of "that was actually fun" or "I forgot you were there."

On the wedding day, you are already comfortable. Anxiety gets replaced by trust. Learn more →

Four things, and they come out of a decade of coaching actors:

Prompts, not poses. Instead of "put your hand here," it is "walk toward me and tell each other your favorite thing about today."

Movement over stillness. Walking, spinning, dancing all feel natural. Standing still feels like being inspected.

Connection over camera. You will rarely look at me. You will look at each other.

Celebration, not documentation. Your job is to be present. Mine is capturing what is already there.

I blend photojournalism, fine art, and cinematic portraiture. Candid moments captured as they happen, plus elevated portraits that still feel like you.

The editing leans cinematic: rich tones, intentional light, and a look that will not date itself in twenty years.

See examples →

Traditional: posed and structured. The photographer arranges groupings and compositions. Polished, and often stiff.

Photojournalistic: documentary. The photographer observes and never intervenes. Authentic, but you are relying on luck for portraits.

What I do: both, in different parts of the session. The event itself gets documented as it happens. For portraits, I use guidance that produces real emotion rather than arranged limbs. You end up with genuine moments and intentional portraits, which is the point.

It depends on the date and the session, and you will always know before you book.

Jeremy-led: I photograph your session or wedding start to finish.

Associate-led: one of our associate photographers shoots, and I personally edit every image in the gallery.

The final gallery comes from the same hands either way, because I do all the editing. Associates are selected individually, work in the same approach, and are matched to the session rather than assigned at random.

Yes. Every proposal includes a planning call. Every wedding includes a consultation, by video or in person, and I am based in Highland Park.

By the day itself we are collaborators rather than strangers, which is most of why people feel comfortable.

Yes. Every wedding Collection includes a complimentary engagement session. If you would rather not use it, it becomes an added hour of coverage on your wedding day instead.

Standalone engagement Collections start at $750. Details →

North Avenue Beach for lakefront golden hour with the skyline behind you. Lincoln Park for tree-lined paths and the Nature Boardwalk. The Chicago Riverwalk for architecture and water. Milton Lee Olive Park for skyline without the crowd. West Loop and Fulton Market for industrial texture and murals. Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool for a hidden garden. And the North Shore, Highland Park, Lake Forest, and Evanston, for estates and gardens.

I will help you choose based on the look you are after. See session examples →

Golden hour, the hour before sunset, gives you the warmest and most cinematic light. In Chicago that is roughly 7:30 to 8:30pm in June, 6:15 to 7:15pm in September, and 3:30 to 4:30pm in December.

Sunrise sessions are available too, and they give you empty streets, which is worth a great deal downtown.

Something that feels like you.

• Coordinate, do not match
• Bring two or three options
• Consider the location (heels and cobblestones fight each other)
• Avoid logos, busy patterns, and neon
• Solid colors and muted tones photograph beautifully

I send a style guide when you book, built around your locations and time of day.

60 to 120 hand-edited images depending on session length and how many locations we use. Every image is edited individually, in the same style as the wedding galleries. Delivered within 7 to 10 days.

Yes. Day-after sessions are wonderful, especially if the wedding day is packed or you are traveling somewhere scenic. Wear the attire again in a new place and get a completely different feel out of it.

The one who makes you feel comfortable, not just the one with the prettiest feed. Most engagement sessions feel awkward because the photographer is arranging bodies instead of giving people something to do.

My sessions run on prompts rather than poses, which is where the actual laughter comes from. 150+ five-star reviews, Fearless Photographers member, Jeff Award winner, and every image hand-edited personally. Collections from $750. View sessions →

Three Collections:

• Collection I: $750, one hour, one location
• Collection II: $850, an hour and a half, one or two locations
• Collection III: $950, roughly two hours

Every Collection includes wardrobe guidance, golden hour timing, and a private hand-edited gallery. View details →

Collections range from $5,975 to $7,500. Every wedding is quoted to your date, venue, and coverage needs.

• Collection I: 8.5 hours, $5,975
• Collection II: 9.5 hours, $6,750
• Collection III: 10.5 hours, $7,500

Two photographers on every Collection. All include hand-edited galleries, timeline planning, and a pre-wedding consultation.

Associate-led options are available for couples who want the same look and the same editing at a more accessible investment. I edit every gallery regardless of who photographs. View full details →

In 2026, Chicago wedding photography breaks down roughly into four tiers:

Jeremy Glickstein Photography sits in the mid-range to premium band, with Collections from $5,975 to $7,500. Every image is hand-edited personally.

• Two photographers, on every Collection
• Hand-edited images, web-size for sharing with full-resolution files in your gallery store
• Private online gallery with integrated store for prints, albums, and wall art
• A complimentary engagement session, or an added hour of wedding day coverage in its place
• Timeline planning and lighting guidance
• Pre-wedding consultation

A third photographer is available at $300 per hour and is the only add-on. Full details →

Yes. Most people secure the date with a retainer and split the balance into one or two payments.

1. Reach out through the Connect page, or call or text (847) 212-8642
2. I reply with real answers, including pricing, usually the same day
3. Tell me which Collection you want and I send the agreement and retainer link
4. Sign and pay the retainer and your date and photographer are locked

The planning call happens after booking, not before. Booking is what actually runs out. Check availability →

Proposals: three to six weeks is ideal. Shorter is often possible.

Engagements: two to four weeks.

Weddings: 12 to 18 months, especially May through October. I photograph a limited number of weddings a year.

We keep a bench of associate photographers who work in the same approach. In the rare case I cannot be there, we match you with the right photographer, handle the logistics, and I still edit your gallery myself.

Across 250+ weddings and 300+ proposals, a session has never gone uncovered.

No. I edit every image myself.

Many photographers send galleries to editing services at ten to thirty cents an image. Faster turnaround, more volume.

The editor shapes the final product. Someone who was not there cannot bring the same judgment, quality varies by whoever picks up the job, and if someone else edits, you are not getting what you paid for.

Editing is where a photograph becomes a picture. Raw files are flat and unfinished. Editing does four things:

• Color grading creates the mood
• Exposure balances light and shadow
• Retouching removes distractions while keeping you looking like you
• Consistency makes a gallery read as one story

Two photographers at the same event produce completely different galleries, largely because of this. You are choosing an editing eye as much as a shooting one.

Cinematic, painterly, and built to age well. Rich tones, intentional light, natural skin. Stills from a film rather than a filtered post.

What I avoid: orange skin, crushed blacks, trend filters that will look dated in five years, and retouching heavy enough to make people look like plastic.

See my style →

Collections run 8.5, 9.5, and 10.5 hours, which covers getting ready through reception with room to breathe.

8.5 hours works when getting ready and the ceremony are in the same place and the reception ends at a normal hour. 9.5 or 10.5 is the answer when there is travel between locations, a large family formal list, or you want the end of the night covered.

We build the timeline together before we settle on the number, so you are not guessing.

You already have one. Every wedding Collection includes two photographers, because the alternative is choosing between the aisle and the faces watching you walk down it.

A third photographer is available at $300 per hour if you have simultaneous getting-ready locations far apart, a very large guest count, or a venue with action in several rooms at once.

Yes. Elopements and micro-weddings are some of my favorite days. Fewer logistics, more intimacy, all of the emotion.

A courthouse ceremony followed by portraits through the city, a private room with twenty people, or something with no precedent at all. The approach does not change: make you comfortable, capture what is real. These are quoted individually. Tell me about your plans →

Yes. Just ask. Instagram shows the best twelve frames. Your gallery will have 500 to 1,200.

A full gallery shows consistency through hard light and dark rooms, narrative flow, detail coverage, and whether the guest moments are any good. I will send galleries from weddings similar to yours in venue, season, or style. This is one of the best ways to evaluate any photographer, including me. Request a gallery →

Yes. Realistic timing, the best-light windows, coordination with your other vendors, and a family formal list that does not eat your cocktail hour.

For a first look: a private moment, portraits done before the ceremony with the pressure off, more of your own cocktail hour, and nerves handled together.

Against: the surprise at the aisle, tradition, and the ceremony as the first reveal.

Both produce beautiful photographs. We will talk through which one fits you.

15 to 20 minutes for immediate family. 25 to 30 once extended groups are involved.

We build the shot list beforehand and you designate someone who knows everyone by name to gather people. That person saves more time than anything I can do.

Something will run late. That is weddings.

Hair goes long. The car gets lost. Rain starts. In 250+ weddings I have seen the whole catalog. I stay steady, prioritize what matters, talk to your other vendors, and find something in the chaos worth photographing. Some of my favorite frames came out of the parts that went wrong.

Your job is to enjoy your wedding. Mine is everything else.

Won't share full galleries. Highlights hide inconsistency.

Vague backup plans. "I've never missed one" is not a plan.

Pressure tactics. "Book today or lose the date" with nothing behind it.

Undisclosed outsourced editing. Ask directly whether they edit every image.

Cannot explain their own approach. "I just capture moments" is not an approach. Ask how they handle nervous people and listen for specifics.

About approach:

• "Can I see full galleries?"
• "How do you help camera-shy people?"
• "Walk me through couple portraits."

About reliability:

• "What is your backup plan if something goes wrong?"
• "Dual memory cards?"
• "Insurance?"

About editing:

• "Do you edit every image yourself?"
• "Do you use AI tools?"

These separate the photographers who care from the ones booking volume.

The photographs are the only thing from the day that lasts.

Flowers die in a week. The cake is gone in a night. The dress goes in a box. The venue hosts someone else tomorrow.

The photographs are what you show your kids in thirty years, and what your grandchildren will hold.

The gap between good and great is not just sharper pictures, it is a better day. A photographer with the right approach captures things that actually happened rather than things that were staged for the camera. That is most of what 150+ five-star reviews are describing.

I have never heard: "we spent too much on photography."
I have heard many times: "I wish we had invested more."

A camera is a tool. The work is everything around it: finding light in a dark church, getting a nervous couple to genuine emotion, moving a family formal list in fifteen minutes, carrying backup bodies and dual cards so nothing is ever lost, and editing 800+ images into one coherent gallery.

And if something goes wrong, missed moments, lost files, a blown exposure during the vows, there is no recovery. Those moments do not happen twice.

The wrong photographer costs you twice: once for the pictures, and again when you understand you cannot get the day back.

The best one depends on what you care about. Here is how to evaluate anyone, including me:

For my part: 150+ five-star reviews, Fearless Photographers, WPJA Spotlight, Zola Best of 2025 and 2026, a comfort-first approach built on a decade of coaching actors, and every image hand-edited personally. See if we're the right fit →

For coverage over five hours, yes. A standard vendor meal from your caterer is perfect. We eat fast during a natural break, usually cocktail hour, and stay close in case something happens.

Nine hours on your feet without food makes anyone less sharp, and the last two hours of the night are when the reception photographs are best.

The honest answer: guests with phones in the aisle are the single biggest obstacle to good ceremony photographs.

An uncle leaning out with an iPad blocks the sightline to the first kiss. A guest's flash fires during the vows and destroys the ambient light. A well-meaning cousin stands at the wrong moment and is in every frame of it.

The best thing you can do: ask your officiant to announce an unplugged ceremony. "Please put your phones away and be present. A professional photographer is capturing everything." Your guests actually watch you get married instead of watching a screen, and the photographs come back clean.

Afterward, phones out, absolutely.

Before the day:

• Schedule hair and makeup to finish 30 to 45 minutes before photography starts. Running late compresses your portrait time and nothing else.
• Tell your wedding party the photo timeline so they are ready instead of scrambling.
• Finalize the family formal list. I will help.
• Gather details in one place: rings, invitation suite, shoes, jewelry, perfume, heirlooms.

Day of:

• Eat. Seriously. Skipping breakfast shows by the ceremony.
• A getting-ready room with a large window beats a hotel bathroom every time. Tell me the room and I will advise.
• Trust it. If you did an engagement session you already know how this goes. If you did not, five minutes.

Rule of thumb: every grouping takes about two minutes. Ten groupings is twenty minutes. Twenty groupings is forty minutes of your cocktail hour.

Must-haves: each partner with their parents, each with their immediate family, both families together, the wedding party.

Add selectively: grandparents, godparents, anyone who would genuinely be hurt to be left out.

Skip: every possible cousin permutation, and large extended groups where half the people are strangers to you. They eat time and almost never get printed.

I send a template and we refine it together. The target is 15 to 20 minutes.

More common than you would think, and completely manageable.

We discuss it beforehand. Who cannot be in the same frame, who has remarried, what the sensitivities are.

The formals get structured around it. Every combination you want, without forcing anyone into a grouping that will show on their face. Mom and Dad do not need to stand together.

I read the room. Aware of the tension, keeping it moving, redirecting where it helps.

I follow your lead. If someone is not welcome in the formals, they are not in the formals.

You do not owe me an explanation. "Please don't include this person" is a complete sentence.

Every blended family is arranged differently. We build a list that reflects the relationships that actually matter to you:

• Traditional groupings with biological parents
• Separate groupings with step-parents
• Combined, if everyone is comfortable
• Whatever reflects your real family

There is no correct version of this.

Proposals: highlights within 48 hours so you can announce. Full gallery in 7 to 10 days.

Engagements: 7 to 10 days.

Weddings: sneak peeks within 24 to 72 hours. Full gallery in 3 to 5 weeks, hand-edited.

Private online gallery with no expiration. Web-size images are yours to download and share, and full-resolution files and finished prints are available in the store.

Redundancy at every step:

• On site: dual memory cards. Every frame written twice as it is shot.
• Local: transferred to redundant drives the same day.
• Cloud: secure backup.
• Archive: final galleries kept two-plus years.

Across 250+ weddings and 300+ proposals, no image has ever been lost.

A real concern that almost nobody thinks about until it is too late. If a photographer closes, the online gallery can vanish and the archive can become unreachable.

How I protect you: your gallery has no expiration date, and your web-size images are always yours to download and keep. Full-resolution files stay available to purchase from the gallery store for as long as the gallery is live. Behind the scenes I keep cloud backups and local archives for two-plus years, so the originals do not live in one fragile place.

Belt and suspenders: download your web-size gallery the day it arrives and back it up somewhere you control, and pick up the full-resolution files whenever you want them printed at their best.

Prints, framed pieces, wall art, and albums are produced by professional photo labs through your gallery store, so the quality is handled for you rather than left to a drugstore counter. Full-resolution files are available in the store as well.

The best ones have west-facing outdoor space, or a park within a short walk.

The Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo puts skyline reflections in the water at sunset. Milton Lee Olive Park gives you unobstructed skyline with warm light across the lakefront. Among reception venues, Lacuna Artist Lofts has rooftop access with a skyline view, and Ruth Lake Country Club gives you waterfront sunset light.

When we build your timeline, I make sure golden hour lands on couple portraits and not on cocktail hour. It is one of the most consequential decisions in the whole schedule.

Late September to early November: the peak. Foliage, comfortable air, and the best light of the year.

May to June: lush and green. Weather does what it wants.

July to August: the longest days, with golden hour past 8pm. Humidity can produce beautiful atmosphere.

December to February: snow, city lights, and almost nobody else outside. Underrated for proposals specifically.

We plan for it. Every outdoor session has a covered alternative established in advance.

And some of my favorite photographs happened in weather nobody wanted. Overcast is flattering. Rain is drama. Snow is something most people never get.

June: roughly 7:30 to 8:30pm

September: roughly 6:15 to 7:15pm

December: roughly 3:30 to 4:30pm

I build timelines around the light, and I can create good light with off-camera flash when there is none to work with.

We can, and sometimes there is no choice, but I will tell you honestly what it costs. The sun is at its highest point then, which means hard shadows under the eyes and squinting.

If the time is fixed for a reason that matters, because that is when you two first met at that spot, because that is the only window your family can be there, we work with it. I choose open shade, use the angle of the light rather than fighting it, and bring my own where it helps.

If the time is flexible, I will move you. Late afternoon costs you nothing and changes the entire gallery.

My primary bodies are the Canon R6 Mark III and the Fujifilm GFX 100 II, a 102 megapixel medium format camera. The Fujifilm matters in one specific situation: when a scene has both a lit subject and a bright window or skyline behind them, the file has enough information to recover the background without wrecking the people. That is the difference between a blown-white view and a city you can actually see.

Lenses are fast primes for low light and longer glass for discreet proposal coverage from real distance.

Redundancy is built into all of it: every body has dual card slots, so each frame is written twice the instant it is shot. Backup bodies, backup lenses, backup flashes, backup batteries, backup cards. If something fails, I switch and keep shooting.

Across hundreds of weddings and proposals, equipment has never been the reason a moment was missed.

There is a fifteen minute grace period at no charge. It happens, and nobody is going to make it awkward.

Past fifteen minutes, coverage still ends at the scheduled end time, because the light and the schedule do not wait. If you want additional time and your photographer is able to stay, it is $150 per additional half hour, added to your final invoice.

The reason it works this way: proposal sessions are booked around a specific window of light, and often there is another session after yours.

Yes. Professional liability and general liability. I can provide a Certificate of Insurance for your venue at no charge, and I handle it quickly since many venues require one.

Rescheduling: if I am available on the new date, payments transfer with no penalty.

Cancellation: the retainer is non-refundable, because it reserves the date and compensates for bookings turned away. Additional payments may be partly refundable depending on timing.

All of it is written plainly in the agreement. Nothing is hidden.

Yes. Based in Chicago, available across the Midwest, nationally, and internationally. Travel fees apply outside the Chicago metro. Get a quote →

I do not release RAW files. They are digital negatives: flat, unfinished, and not representative of the work.

The editing is where the pictures actually get made. What you receive is a complete gallery of finished, hand-edited images, web-size for sharing with full-resolution files available in your gallery store.

Collaboratively. Before the day I coordinate with your video team on positioning, flash use, and the timeline, so we both get what we need without ending up in each other's frames.

Yes. Jewish weddings across Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform, Hindu ceremonies, Catholic masses, interfaith celebrations, Chinese tea ceremonies, and more.

We talk through your traditions beforehand so I know which moments carry the most weight and how to photograph them respectfully. If there is something I have not encountered, I research it before your day rather than learning on it.

Yes. Mobility, sensory needs, anything else.

In practice this might mean choosing locations with level ground and short walks, adjusting how I communicate during the session, building in more time between locations, or changing the pace entirely.

Tell me what you need and we build around it. Let's talk →