Work with me

My current rate is $95 per hour, rounded up to the nearest hour, with a one-hour minimum. Please note that this rate is subject to change.

You’ll be on the hook for any location fees or permits. These come up most often at public and private parks.

I take 50% up front and the remainder after the shoot. You’ll receive the link to your photo album within 24 hours of your final payment.

Cancellations made at least three days before the scheduled shoot are fully refundable. After that, the 50% deposit is forfeited.

If a shoot can’t happen or is interrupted due to bad weather or other outside factors, I’ll make the call to cancel and will happily provide a refund: a full refund if we cancel before the shoot starts, or a partial refund if we’re interrupted partway through.

Anywhere within an hour of Wheaton, IL isn’t considered travel and doesn’t incur any extra charges.

Beyond that radius, let’s talk! My commitments in Chicagoland generally make travel difficult, but with enough notice it’s possible.

I’ll send you a link to your photos on my private server. The album will be password-protected and available to download for six months after the shoot. You’ll get both RAW and JPEG versions of every usable photo from the session.

It depends a lot on the shoot, but 50–150 photos per hour is typical.

I technically keep the copyright, but you get a broad license to print and post the photos for personal or commercial use. I’ll likely include some shots in my portfolio, but I’ll never post photos of kids.

Editing plays an important part in most photographers’ workflows. A few bad shots of a critical moment can really harm the trust a client places in their photographer, so carefully choosing and editing the best shots helps keep that trust intact. The client can rest easy knowing the photographer captured the heart of the event.

This isn’t me. Simply put, I don’t enjoy the editing process. When I deliver my RAW photos to you, you’ll see every vulnerability in my photographic technique, and I’m okay with that. As a nifty little trade-off for skipping the editing, you get your photos quickly and at a much lower rate.

A RAW file contains the full, unprocessed data that a camera captures. Mine are Nikon RAW files (.NEF), which you can view or edit in many apps you may already have, including Apple Photos, Affinity (free) and Adobe Lightroom (paid). Many of these tools also offer an easy “auto-adjust” option to quickly clean up a photo. AI can be a pretty powerful tool here, too.

RAW Edited

Not at all! My camera also saves a standard JPEG of every picture I take, and I’ll include those alongside the RAW files.

Absolutely! In fact, my two kids are why I got into photography in the first place. Out of an abundance of caution, though, you won’t see any photos of them in my portfolio.

Some of the coolest shoots start this way! That said, there are a few things I won’t agree to:

• Nudity or erotic shoots
• Graphic depictions of violence

Beyond that, let’s talk!

Not at all! I usually come prepared with a series of poses, but they’re more of a general guideline for us to follow. More often than not, we’ll see what feels natural and make adjustments based on what we like. If you have ideas for poses, we can absolutely try those, too.

Not for photography! Connecting with clients and capturing the moment is what I enjoy most, and AI doesn’t help with that. I would also never use AI to change the content of a photo, since even the “imperfections” tell a larger story.

That said, I’m not against AI entirely. For some things, like building this website, it’s an excellent supporting tool.