[07.28.08] Monday Night Recap
- July 28, 2008 -
- [Photo Challenge] This month’s almost done, so get your submissions in ASAP! I promise I’ll be better about posting the next challenge within the first week of the month. :)
- [Nish & Joel] I posted yesterday, but my sister got married on Saturday and the happy couple are on their honeymoon now. I was told not to bring my camera so my gear sat at home throughout the festivities. But if you want to see some pics from the rehearsal and a quick grab of the details, check out yesterday’s post.
- [Summer League] The Bulls win! The Bulls win! They beat the Jazz! Reminds me of mid-90′s…except no last minute jumper by MJ to win it. With 6 rookies, the Bulls took had am impressive run through the league losing only one season game on a last second shot on day2. There was some amazing talent that came through again, and it’s only looking to get even more exciting in years to come. Thanks to all the staff who helped put this together as well as the players for making it the success that it was. Check out the site for many more pics for this year’s league.
- [Teaser] I’m still getting through Linzy and Christiaan’s wedding, but wanted to get another teaser out there for you..the full recap will be coming soon.
Do you see where the ball is? Passes like that will always bring the oohs and ahhs…
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natemathai | 
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Nisha and Joel
- July 27, 2008 -
This past weekend, my sister finally got married! I did their e-session a bit ago, but they said I have to stand in the wedding so they hired other photographers…ah well, such is life. After many years and a lot of planning and preparing, everything finally came together yesterday. We had many relatives coming in from around the country for a 600+ person wedding, and everything went by smoothly.
By order demand request of my girlfriend, I was not aloud to bring my camera with me to the wedding and take pictures while being a groomsman. So sadly, my gear sat at home for the entire festivities. HOWEVER, I did grab some shots at the rehearsal earlier (with some fun processing).
I was also able to get a quick grab of the dress/shoes when the girls were getting their hair done.
They’re off to their honeymoon tomorrow, and then next up for our family is my engagement ceremony in a couple weeks (wow…things are coming up out of nowhere!)
PS> There have been many questions regarding the realness of emotion in my toast. Let’s just say the dramatic pause in the beginning was pre-planned for an added kick to the punch line, BUT it was more dramatic than I had intended due to some realness sneaking in. Make sense? :)
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
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Linu and Sunil’s Engagement
- July 23, 2008 -
Earlier in the month I shot the engagement ceremony of Linu and Sunil. Their wedding is going to be held in India, so this was their opportunity to bring all the close friends and family together to celebrate with them who will not be able to make the trip.
I love it when you can see the union not just of two individuals, but also two families. It was also so great to experience the love within each family…the fathers had so much to say of their children, and it was very clear how tightly knit all of them were.
Linu and Sunil, I wish you guys all the best in your married life to come.
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
natemathai | filed under: Modern Events, engagement No Comments | add a comment
[07.21.08] Monday Night Recap
- July 21, 2008 -
- [Photo Challenge] I know I posted it late, but the month’s almost up for July’s challenge! Get on it and send them in!
- [Turning 24] This past Thursday I celebrated my 24th birthday…man am I old! I started with work from 9-5 (I know…I should have taken the day off, but I need to save my vacation days). Afterward, I came home for dinner with my family and girlfriend, and then the two of us went to watch a movie in the park. A rather relaxing night.
Last year, I made a point to respond to each person who wished me a happy birthday, but this year there were way too many sources! Text messages, phone calls, e-mails, facebook, twitter, IM…I just couldn’t do it! I’m thankful to all of you who did send messages though…if it makes you feel any better I did read them all!
Oh, when you get this old, you rarely receive physical gifts, really…but my girlfriend came through yet again (isn’t she the greatest!): - [Indo-Pak] I remember going to helping out with the Indo-Pak tournaments in the early 90′s since my cousin ran them, and this year I went back as a photographer. I’ll have a write-up once I process the images, but here’s what you get for now:
- [Girl Seeing] That’s a very loose translation of what Saturday held for me. It’s an Indian tradition for the groom (to be)’s family (elders) to go to the house of the bride (to be) and see the girl…and so on Saturday my family went to visit my girlfriend. About 15 from my side of the family drove over there, sat around and stared at each other, ate dinner, and returned. In the end, I think everything worked out because nobody is going to call off the wedding :)
- [Summer League] My season is over. Sadly, I wasn’t able to take any pictures this past week either! I was shooting Indo-Pak earlier in the evening, and made it to Summer League just in time for the last 3 games of the night, 2 of which I was playing in (we need more photographers!). The good news is we finally won! We had inter-league games, and we pulled out the first win in OT, and the second one we pulled away at the end. Even with those two wins, though, we weren’t able to get into the playoffs because of the point differential. Ah well, we played the spoiler determining the fate of a couple of teams in the West. Looking forward to seeing EVERYONE there next week for the playoffs and All-Star game!
- [Wedding Planning] Man is it busy! My sister’s wedding is this coming Saturday so it’s a last minute crunch on seating charts and details and such. The good news is I’ll have a lot of things taken care of and organized for my wedding next year! Yay for silver linings!
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
natemathai | filed under: Modern Events, Personal, [MNR] No Comments | add a comment
Jiju and Soumy (and Baby Abigail)
- July 17, 2008 -
I remember the younger days with Jiju. Being cousins and all, we had a lot of family parties and such, and I still hear him claiming he was Michael Jordan and the famous Indian actor Mamooty. Now he’s all grown up, married a little over a year ago, just had his first child, and is finishing up seminary. It’s crazy to see how much we grow over the years, yet still how much we retain our character.
I went over to take a few family pictures with Baby Abigail and the inlaws, and followed it up with little portait session of just Jiju and Soumy. They had their wedding in India (and I wasn’t doing international destination weddings at the time :) ), bu really wanted to have some portraits of just the two of them…and of course I was game!
We started indoors for some family portraits:
Isn’t she precious?
The rain let up, so we decided to take their portraits out by a lake nearby…
The winds picked up, though…which was entertaining, but a bit hard to control…
So we took the shoot back indoors…
Jiju, Soumy and Abigail…I had a great time shooting you guys. Definitely looking forward to seeing Abigail grow up this year!
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
natemathai | filed under: Modern Portraits No Comments | add a comment
Happy Birthday!
- July 17, 2008 -
24. Wow, I’m old. God is good, still. It was a rather crazy 23 with many ups, downs and changes in life, but all with a purpose (much of which I’m still looking to figure out). All things considered, I’m thankful.
I realize you people come here for the images and not for the words (it’s OK, I’m still going to write stuff :)), so here you go. In the past year there’s been a handful of images from my younger days posted on Facebook, so I figured I might as well post one from ‘way back’. Enjoy! (I was rockin’ the orange way back then too!)
Happy 17th Everyone! Celebrate it well!
::EDITED TO ADD::
Like last year, I was planning on responding to everyone who wished me a happy birthday…but this year I was receiving it from too many sources! I had around 100 on Facebook, a couple e-mails, some texts, a few phone calls, some twitter ones, gChats and a blog comment (plus the obvious face-to-face). SO…consider this message to everyone who contacted me through those sources: THANKS!
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
natemathai | filed under: Personal[07.14.08] Monday Night Recap
- July 14, 2008 -
- [Rough Thursday] Last Thursday I had a rough day. A bunch of last minute projects made me stay at work an hour late. Then I had to walk to the train in the rain. Then I drove through a hailstorm to get to the Men’s Warehouse in order to get fitted for my tux for my sister’s wedding in 2 weeks. I pulled into a parking lot to turn around and I hit pothole and popped my tire. And I still hadn’t packed for my trip. But I thought, ‘Ah well, it could be worse.’ And then I was fine. :)
- [North Carolina] Because you all are obviously wanting more, here’s a pic of part of the living area in the cottage I was staying at, and then a view of my “backyard”:
- [Linzy and Christiaan] Like I said before, I was out in North Carolina to shoot my first destination wedding! The wedding was at the beautiful Duke Chapel (…I’m still not a Duke fan), with the reception back at the Governor’s Club. I’ll have a full write-up later, but here’s a handful of teasers until then:
- [Photographic History] Somewhere on the plane ride back I got a bit under the weather, and just felt like sleeping. But I got a quick call from my dad asking to go to my godparents place (his uncle) to take a portrait shot of them (which I wasn’t too excited about intially due to my ‘under-the-weather-ness’). You see, hanging in family room is a picture from India taken awhile ago with my Dad’s father, his brothers and their wives (minus the youngest brother, who is my godfather). So my dad wanted to get a picture of them in a similar pose/style blown up to hang right next to it. I don’t have a copy of the original, but this is what we’re blowing up:
It really helped me remember the importance of photography in people’s lives. This is something that goes back many generations. My only knowledge of some of my grandfather’s brothers are purely through these pictures. I’m glad I’m able to provide a service like this which last well beyond even my client’s years. - [Summer League] After the portraits I got changed up and headed out to summer league. There were some good news and bad news. The good news was I played like I knew what I was doing (unlike last week) and felt closer in skill to my younger days. But the bad news – we lost both our games. So that makes us 0-4, and the only team not to win a game yet. Sad! We’ve got to step it up big time next week as our league lives are on the line…I’ll have gone from being in the Eastern Conference finals last year to not even making the playoffs this year. Wish me luck!
- [The Shot] Sadly, I didn’t have a picture of this as I put my camera to get ready for my game. But just a story: Going into the day, there were 3 undefeated teams, and all 3 suffered their first loss. The one with all the attention was the Pistons vs. the Bulls. Clock winding down, tie game, Shawn Thomas with the ball…8, 7, 6…baseline, spin…5, 4…turnaround, fade, shoot…3…around the rim, SCORE! The Bulls had 2 seconds but couldn’t get a good shot, and so ended their run to perfection! This porved a couple things to me…1) Summer League is filled with MADNESS!, and 2) Never put down the camera. Sorry guys!
- [All-Star] This is probably most boring time in sports during the year, as none of the 4 major sports in the US have an official game going on. It’s the night of the MLB home run derby before the all-star game, but it just doesn’t have the same excitement as before for me. But the All-Star game tomorrow…the Cubbies got 8 represented (with Marmol taking Woods’s place because he has a blister)! Awesome!
- [2.0] The iPhone 3G came out, and over million were sold over the weekend (the original iPhone took 74 days to hit the one million mark). I’m still debating whether to switch over to AT&T once my contract with T-Mobile finishes up, but we’ll see. I must say, I am liking the 2.0 software though (played around with it on my brother-in-laws original iPhone…).
The chapel was AMAZING!
…inside and out…
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
natemathai | filed under: Modern Events, Modern Portraits, [MNR]Welcome to the Governor’s Club
- July 11, 2008 -
I just got into NC a little bit ago and haven’t had a huge amount of time to wander, but wanted to let you all know I got here safely! Oh…and here’s where I’m staying:
And that’s just my room. There’s also a living area in the center since there are four rooms attached.
Alright…time to go!
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
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NMP Challenge Submissions: June-Rule of Thirds
- July 9, 2008 -
I posted the July challenge here, so make sure you check that out and get your submissions in this coming month. For June, we worked on composition, and I applaud you guys. In honor of the 4th, here’s one of the submissions by Bincy from NY:
And here are the rest:
[Bincy]
[Leena T]
[Taffy]
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
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NMP Photo Challenge: July
- July 8, 2008 -
I said I’d post it, and here it is!
Theme: Games
The theme is pretty simple enough…I’m looking for games. Maybe those fun little past time games that you might play 1-2 times a year but they are just so fun! Or games that you find yourself getting overly competitive in. Games that remind you of your childhood.
This theme might not be that difficult, but get creative with how you set it up! With this one, I lined up the dominoes, then used an off-camera flash to camera right to throw the shadows in the frame and give the image more depth. Now, I know not everyone has an off-camera lighting set-up, but again…GET CREATIVE! Give us a point of view that we normally would not see. Take something simple then make it something eye catching. Happy shooting everyone!
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
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Alexis’ 3rd Birthday
- July 8, 2008 -
It seems like just yesterday I left work early to get to the hospital to see my first niece. Now she is 3 years old and has a baby sister. It’s crazy how fast things change.
Alexis had a luau for her 3rd birthday and invited a bunch of her friends (and their parents), which meant the house was filled with these little ones running around. With a scare of rain, they brought much of the festivities indoors, but were able to go outside for some cake…and everybody loves cake!
Here’s the birthday girl…
There was a time for dancing…
Some of the best limbo you’ve ever seen!
When I took this picture, I thought “If these two hook up, this is definitely going in their wedding slideshow”. Then I thought, “That’s like in 20 years at least!” Do you think they’ll still be doing slideshows? What do you think will be the next big thing?
And with everyone there, it was only fitting to have a quick portrait of all (most of) the parents with their little ones(I think the parents enjoyed it a bit more than their children)…
The wife and kids couldn’t make it…but that doesn’t mean he can’t have a picture…
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
natemathai | filed under: Modern Events No Comments | add a comment
[07.07.08] Monday Night Recap
- July 7, 2008 -
- [Photo Challenge] Sorry everyone for the delay…things have been VERY hectic as of late. I’ll get the challenge for July out by tomorrow, and post the June entries by Wednesday. (remember, you can keep sending them in until I post everyone’s submissions…my delay means more tme for you!)
- [All-Star] The MLB All-Star game is right around the corner, and the Cubbies will be sending 7 guys, including our rookies Soto and Fukodome! It’s also pretty impressive that Kerry got called as a closer…well-deserved recognition for the Cubbies. (I am a bit surprised that Soriano got voted as a starter with his limited action as of late, but ah well…I’m not complaining)
- [Linu and Sunil] On Saturday, I shot an engagement ceremony for Linu and Sunil, so I’ll have a full blog post coming up (…along with many other blog posts coming up :)), but here’s your tease to hold you over:
- [Summer League] The first day of summer league kicked off yesterday, and boy was it exciting! There was a new batch of rookies (and some vets back to prove a name for themselves) which proved to show for some tight games. Personally, I played as if I never shot a basketball before (we went 0-2 on day1), but it’s alright. Now that I know what it feels like to play again, I’m ready for next week! Here’s a couple shots, and you can find the rest on the summer league website (for the photogs, I normally shoot raw, but I did these jpg with limited post production for quick turnaround. I give much respect for sport shooters who have like a 10 minute turnaround time to turn images in for the web or paper while producing amazing images…it’s tough stuff!)
- [Things to Come] So you all know, I’ll be flying out on Friday to shoot a wedding in North Carolina on Saturday, and I’ll be back on Sunday in time for day2 of summer league, so I’m not sure if you’ll hear much of me during that time. But I’m looking to get a couple posts up before I leave, so that should be a fair trade, right? :) Happy Monday everybody!
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
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4th of July
- July 4, 2008 -
Another national holiday means another chance for my college friends to hang out. We weren’t able to get 100% attendance again, but got a good majority to celebrate and catch up.
The food:
Here’s a cake shaped like a hamburger! (nobody really ate it, but it sure looked cool…)
In addition to the 4th, we were celebrating 6 birthdays (one from January, one from February, 2 from June, and 2 in July), a welcome back to our friend who is in London the past year, and a ‘congrats on a new job’ to a friend who wasn’t even there today [but at least we caught up!]. My girlfriend asked to borrow my camera (literally took it out of my hands) because she wanted to take the picture of myself and Ekta (the July birthdays) blowing out the candles on our cakes. She still hasn’t grasped the concept of the back focus…
Hers was actually a set of cupcakes…
My cake had these basketball candles on it…getting me hype for summer league (rosters will be posted tonight!)…
And this is what everyone actually looks like when we have our conversations…
Happy 4th everyone!
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
natemathai | filed under: PersonalDianna & Joe’s Wedding
- July 2, 2008 -
They had been together for around 5 years, and finally chose to take that next step into married life. It’s such a special moment to see two people so entwined together make a commitment to each other. Dianna and Joe wanted to have a very small wedding with just their family and close friends, and they got exactly that. It’s such a different look for me, as I’m used to a 500+ wedding every other weekend, so it was very refreshing to see a gathering like this. With such a small group, Dianna and Joe were able to share their special day personally with those they love, and you could definitely feel the love between everyone that day (especially these two!).
Some getting ready time…
Have I mentioned how much I love ring shots?
Help me out…I keep looking at the next 3 and can’t figure out which one is my favorite! They are so in love…
Here’s a nice rendition of the wishing well…shaped like a cake! (It was surrounded by smaller cakes for the reception)
The pastor had received the rings earlier without the knowledge of Dianna and Joe…just before this he asked for the rings and there was a brief moment of silence/searching by Joe before he finally pulled it out.
Dianna and Joe, thank you so much for letting me take part in your special day and I wish you all the best!
be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.
natemathai | filed under: Personal
