In Bed with Sue

//If you're looking for my most recent wedding or engagement work, click here!\\

The title of this post will make sense if you follow Sue Bryce's blog. If you don't, I will explain. Sue Bryce is the number 1 portrait photographer in Australia. She's positively brilliant. And the name of her blog is In Bed with Sue. So why is my post titled the same as her blog name you ask? Last week I attended her masters class (workshop) here in Chicago, we did posing and shooting work out of a hotel room and ended up taking a group picture literally all in bed with Sue.

I have been so blessed to attend several workshops and seminars this summer with different photographers. I know I haven't blogged about all of them yet, but I promise I'll write much much more this winter. I came home exhausted both days just from awesome information overload. Thursday was a classroom day covering all marketing and business material. Friday we talked make-up, posing, and photoshop. The hotel was situated right in the middle of a million fabulous places to shop so Friday I skipped lunch in the name of fashion to window shop and touch $3000 blouses. These are just a few images I captured...

This last picture from Sue by Sally. The others are all mine :-)

Are you getting married? Hire me for your wedding!

No? I'd love to shoot portraits for you! Please come "like" me on facebook to see many more pictures! Do you tweet? Check out my website too!

Don't hesitate to contact me about absolutely anything, I'd love to hear from you!

New Logo Coming Soon!!!!!

I am so beyond excited to share this with you all today! As you know from my previous posts, I have been working with Ravyn of Three Fifteen Design on a new logo and website. You've seen the inspiration board and another sneak peek... it's all a work in progress but I can't keep this under wraps any longer! This will be the new sign of Emilia Jane Photography:

I am so excited and hope you love it as much as I do. I can't wait to print stickers of it and put them on absolutely everything from me.

This is wedding weekend 4 in a row of 9 completed this season with 4 more to go! I know I haven't shared pictures from them all yet, so definitely get excited for what's to come :-)

Annnnd Sunday I'm going kayaking with some fabulas APW ladies downtown (pictures will follow, I promise).

Have an amazing weekend! What are you up to?

Heck Yeah New Headshots!

//If you're looking for my most recent wedding or engagement work, click here!\\

I have to intro this post with a million thanks to Lauren of Lauren Wakefield Photography. She is a dear friend (we gchat allllll day). And she took these new pictures of me!

I won't lie, I'm way less comfortable on the being photographed side of the camera. But Lauren was awesome and worked with me! I'd kind of been procrastinating getting new headshots, but with the new branding and website coming together, it was truly necessary.

These are my favorites...I can't wait to hear what you think! xoxo

I want to hear your favorites so I can narrow down for the website, so let me know!!

Happy Wednesday all!

Getting Down to Business

//If you're looking for my most recent wedding or engagement work, click here!\\

If you remember last Wednesday I mentioned that I would be at WPPI Road Trip for the day. One of my favorite speakers was Sue Bryce. She challenged us to get organized, have a marketing plan, write down goals, get practical. I don't know about you, but I'm great at hearing that sort of thing, agreeing that I should do it, and continuing with my daily life. She really struck a chord though. Why don't I have a real business plan? Yeah...no good answer for that one. How am I supposed to be taking action on things that are hypothetical floating around in my head? As Mary Marantz says, action trumps fear. So, not knowing what my real plan was, I sat down yesterday with true intent, and made a plan.

I curled up on the back patio at Letizia's with a delicious chocolate shortbread cookie, some iced coffee, a pad of paper, and a pen. Real paper, real ink pen. And even though sometimes it's annoying, yesterday it was really helpful that they don't have cell service on the back patio. Zero interruptions. Just me, and that empty pad. At first it came slowly, things I knew I had coming up, things I wanted to do, then some months filled quickly with really cool ideas, fun purple cow type things. And then some months were hard to plan for, knowing I'll already be busy, etc. But, the really cool thing is, even though it took a while, I didn't leave until I had it all written down. Things I'd been mulling over, pondering, procrastinating. I have a 13 month marketing plan. I have business goals. I have a dream guys, written down on paper! And we're going to make it a reality.



iPhone 4 pictures, because no post is complete without at least a couple images :-)

Are you getting married? Hire me for your wedding!

No? I'd love to shoot portraits for you! Please come "like" me on facebook to see many more pictures! Do you tweet? Check out my website too!

Don't hesitate to contact me, I'd love to hear from you!

Branding Update 2

I've debated how much to share throughout this process, and I've decided I really want it to be a surprise at the end, so I'm only going to give you little sneak peeks :-)

If you are in need of any design work, you should reach out to Ravyn of 315 Design.
She is awesome.

Last Night's Adventure

This is my "I'm going on an adventure" face. (yes, I realize it's scary)


Last night I went to B&N (which will always have a happy place in my heart--from too many hours spent drinking coffee and taking BioChem and Physics at the same time) and the Container Store. It was honestly such fun, I bet you'll never guess what I went there for...




To buy presents! I'm still in the process of getting all of my new branding and packaging together, so this is just the start. I'm going to be running my first meetings somewhat differently moving forward, and I think you're going to like it!




Are you getting married? Hire me for your wedding!

No? I'd love to shoot portraits for you!

Please come "like" me on facebook to see many more pictures! Do you tweet? Check out my website too! Don't hesitate to contact me, I'd love to hear from you!

Come back tomorrow to see our Next Restaurant Tour of Thailand dinner!

Branding Update 1

You may remember the last time we talked about branding? I'm really excited to share this inspiration board my awesome designer has put together! She is seriously amazing. I can't wait to share with you all as this process continues!



Are you getting married? Hire me for your wedding!

No? I'd love to shoot portraits for you!

Please come "like" me on facebook to see many more pictures! Do you tweet? Check out my website too! Don't hesitate to contact me, I'd love to hear from you!

Cocktail fun coming tomorrow!

Pinterest Love

Do you pin? I am addicted to pinterest. I absolutely adore it for saving inspirational pictures, ideas, recipes, you name it! I've recently starting building a really important board though... for my rebranding! Yes, you read it here first. I will be working with Ravyn from 315 design to rebrand and transition to Showit. I could not be any more excited. For now, I leave you with the beginnings of my branding inspiration board. Updates to come. Have a wonderful weekend! xoxo

A Practical Wedding Sponsorship

Good Morning!

I have some really exciting news for you all today!!! I am officially an A Practical Wedding (APW) sponsor! I cannot begin to tell you how helpful APW has been to me throughout the past year. My dear friend Julia recommended that I start reading it right after we both got engaged, and I have been hooked since. As Meg says, "Somewhere along the line, the blog stopped being about me, and started being a lot of grounded smart-alecky women talking intelligently about their weddings and marriages." So, if you know me at all, you know this describes me to a T! And as far as business goes, these are really exactly the kind of women and men I want to work with! Since you read my blog...this probably describes you too.

So one of the amazing things about APW beyond the community is the commitment to local business vendors who share APW values. As Meg says "This allows you to shop for sane wedding vendors on APW, and put your money towards small businesses that share your values." I was SO nervous when I emailed Meg about becoming a sponsor (I have literally been procrastinating for months), but never fear she emailed me back in a matter of hours! And now my ad is up on the site! My page is listed under the Midwest Photographers, and I have a Sponsored Post coming up on July 22, so keep an eye out!






My ad is the itty bitty billy balls in the middle!

Check back later for the Daystar School Grandfriends Day update!

behind the scenes!

just a couple fun pictures from behind the scenes shooting nate & sarah's lovely engagement pictures

they're just so pretty! I promise their full post is coming soon :-)

you know when you're ready

I wish Canon still made ads like this. /via