Archive for December, 2008

MTC Regionals: Day3
- December 30, 2008 -

Full recap to come, but for now enjoy the images.

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Modern Events

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MTC Regionals: Day2
- December 28, 2008 -

Full recap to come, but enjoy the photos for now!

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Modern Events

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MTC Regionals: Day1
- December 27, 2008 -

After our bus broke down, we finally arrived in Michigan (a 12 hour tour). Since we arrived late, we came partway through the sessions, but here’s a sneak peak.  (more commentary to follow, enjoy the images for now!)

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Modern Events

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Nate Mathai Photography | 2008
- December 25, 2008 -

I’m a bit of a people watcher. I find myself in an area, watching the subtleties of the interactions between people. What I see is not simply the kiss between the couple, but the shy smile and glance she gives him immediately afterward. It’s not the laughter of a child being thrown in the air by her father, but the look of anticipation right before she is lifted up. It’s these moments before and after ‘the moment’ that get my attention, and play a huge role in the story that I tell through my work.

Throughout the past year, I’ve had the honor and privilege of being asked to participate and document the important moments in the lives of many. Here’s a recap of 2008 (I also have done a handful of family sessions and events, but I wanted to keep these images more…couple-y… ;)).

2009 is right around the corner, and I’m looking forward to some awesome things to come. If you are interested in learning more about my services or availability, head over to the contact section and drop me a line! I’m looking forward to connect with all of you a bit more in the years to come.

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Couples Lifestyle Sessions, Modern Portraits, Modern Weddings, engagement

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Merry Christmas!
- December 22, 2008 -

A quick little Christmas message…stay warm everybody!

Like last year, I also made a couple of Christmas cards…and again, I have no wife or kids to put on it.  So which one do you like better?

The clean and crisp…

…or the vintage?

Merry Christmas Everyone! Stay safe and warm!

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal

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A Message to Parents…
- December 16, 2008 -

My parents worked really hard to provide for my siblings and I so that we wouldn’t have to struggle (they are 1st generation immigrants, moving to the US when my oldest sister was little).  They allowed me to live sort of a western lifestyle without losing sight of my Indian Christian lifeline.  I was able to do any thing I wanted to – I played little league baseball and basketball, participated in many sports tournaments, was a part of a chess team and volleyball team, and so forth and so on.  Educationally they challenged me to strive for the best (…a B+ is nowhere close to being good enough) because they wanted me to excel in everything.  Through all of this, though, my dad was never one to really show affection or encouragement (sort of an Indian-culture type thing).  It’s something that I greatly got used to growing up, and something I never really longed for. My interests (somewhat obviously) were never really in line with my dad’s, as I was completely into sports (just not the ones he was in) and technology and creative arts…and that just wasn’t his style.  And although he ‘allowed’ me to pursue my dreams and desires, he never really participated much.

Tonight I had dinner with my parents, which doesn’t normally happen because of our schedules.  Partway through, my dad says “Remember, one Thanksgiving it snowed and we made a turkey?”  Personally, I didn’t remember, but my mom was saying I was probably in Jr. High then.  My dad started reminiscing (internally), then said “we should make a snowman tonight”.  Normally, I laugh these off and carry on my way.  But I realized my dad was being more serious than not, so I said “Alright, let’s go”.  Now, for those of you not from an area that sees snow, you should only make snowmen after the snow sets for awhile so it gets hard enough to pack…right after or during snowfall its too soft.  I still decided to humor my dad and we went.

After about 20 minutes of building a mountain, my dad finally accepted it and we went in.  Here is what we finished it with…

What I realized though, is my dad is starting to recognize that I’m getting married in less than a year.  It’s sort of as if he’s making up for lost time.  He sort of re-living what he wish he did with me, but couldn’t because of how he was trying to provide for us when we were younger. But it’s better late than never. And I’m going to try my best to do my part for him over these next 9 months to help.

To the parents out there, don’t miss out on those little moments of your kid’s youth.  Play with them as much as you can…you don’t want to think about what you could have done when it’s too late.

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal

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Baking Competition
- December 16, 2008 -

During my senior year of college, I attempted to create a baking competition.  The rules were pretty simple- each person would make one dessert, and it would be judged on taste, presentation, and creativity.  My roommates and myself would be the impartial judges, and the winner would be know as the “Best Baker”.  It didn’t go over too well…not only did people not participate, but they took the time to call me selfish and just trying to get people to bake for me.  It was from that point that I turned away from baking.

Well, my roommate had sort of a bake-off for his company, and so I went over to help him out a bit.  He was making his secret recipe for oreo balls.

To spice up the presentation, he wanted to add a little strawberry syrup on the plate, but couldn’t get an even flow.  In my quick thinking, we cut a hole in the bottom of a paper cup, and BAM!  I’m a genius!  “Top Chef” here I come!

We finished it all with a few mint leaves for garnish, to help portray a mini faux-Christmas tree.

Hopefully he wins!

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal

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Who Would Shoot Me… (Jesh de Rox)
- December 15, 2008 -

If there were no restrictions what-so-ever, I would also have Jesh de Rox shoot my wedding…well, maybe just the portraits. Actually, maybe just to talk to…he’s deep.

This man has done amazing things with his photography, and is most known for his work using textured images (which many try to emulate with very few duplicating).  But more so than his style is his spirit.  I’ve never personally met him, but through various online interactions and hearing interviews and following his work, it is evident just how much he loves life…and loves love.  He doesn’t let himself be directed to fall into norms that society puts around him, and therefore is able to connect with people on a much deeper level, bringing about very powerful imagery in his work.  His vision as he looks into the world is simply amazing.

check out his work:  site | blog

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal

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The Bears and My Nieces
- December 13, 2008 -

On Thursday, I went to my first Bears game of my life!  We had some great seats in the north endzone, and it was an amazing (and cold) game!  You know it’s going to be entertaining when the opening kick gets returned for a TD.  We got a bit of a scare with Forte missing much of the first half, and then Orton paying like…Grossman…but we still pulled off the win.  Woo hoo! (note: the above picture was taken on my iPhone)

On Friday, I went over to my sister’s to take some family pictures of the family for their Christmas card.  And like many, they were hoping to get that ‘perfect picture’ with everyone looking at the camera, sitting straight, smiling beautifully, completely clean and what not.  Now, I understand the desire, but I love EVERY OTHER IMAGE. :)  And so for your viewing pleasure, here are my nieces in all their beauty:

And my personal favorite (with some personal processing ;) )

Parents- don’t be so concerned about that ‘perfect’ picture…take the ones to help you remember their childhood as they naturally were. (we were able to get them looking at the camera and smiling…but aren’t these more fun?! :))

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal

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Michelle and Suresh :: engagement
- December 11, 2008 -

Like many in the Indian community, Suresh and Michelle had a formal engagement ceremony to announce their plans for marriage.  I do enjoy the concept of it because it’s a verbal declaration of two families (not just two individuals) of their decision to move forward.  It’s awesome to have agreement from both parents and friends as you move forward in such an important step in your life.

We started with Michelle getting ready…

I love Indian events because the colors are awesome!  All the details were beautiful for the day…

Before heading to the hall, the family had a short prayer session…

For centerpieces at Venuti’s Banquets in Addison, Ilinois, Suresh and Michelle placed goldfish and fish food at every table for the guests to take with them- how awesome is that!?

Both of the fathers said a few words before announcing the date for the wedding next spring…

Their friend also gave a short message…

The MCs played a little game of “Who is more…” that got quite a bit of laughs.  Did you know Suresh takes longer to get ready, while Michelle is better at football?  The things we learn :)

Afterward, the MCs also did a short re-enactment of how Suresh proposed – I love when people do this!

A few of their close friends also performed a dance for them…

Michelle and Suresh, I had a great time working with you guys!  I’m looking forward to th e-session and wedding in May!

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Modern Events, engagement

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Leadership Fellowship
- December 11, 2008 -

Last night, the leadership team at my church met up for an end of the year fellowship, which was a great time.  I’ve been so blessed to be able to serve alongside them over this past year, and I look forward to what’s to come in the future.  We had some dinner, then played a couple games (a hand tapping game and this odd game called “Poor Kitty”), and then closed the night off with some praise and prayer.  Afterwards, a couple of us stayed back to play a few rousing rounds of Cut-Throat Uno – it’s been so long since I played!  For those who don’t know, here are the rules:

-  Standard Uno Rules apply
-  Regardless of turn, if you have the same color and number as a card that has been played, you can play your card and cut the rest of the group.  So if someone puts a blue-9 down, you can put down a blue-9 even if its not your turn.  Also, ‘draws’ are additive…if a person puts down a Draw-4, and then you put down a Draw-4, the next person must Draw-8.
-  If anyone puts down a 3 (any color), everyone rotates their entire hand to the right.
-  If a person puts down a 7, they have to trade their hand with anyone they wish
-  (my favorite rule) you do not have to play card, even if you have it.

This play causes alliances to be drawn and much screaming in large groups.  We only played 4 or 5-handed, but it was still fun!  You know, people make the best expressions when they are playing games :)  Enjoy!

IN OTHER NEWS
I’m going to my first Bears game of my life tonight against the Saints! Definitely a great way to have my first game- Bears facing a must-win game against Drew Brees and the Saints, night game, middle of winter with possible flurries during game time…BALLER! I’ll definitely be layering up…now do I bring my gear or no?

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Modern Events, Personal

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The Zachariah’s
- December 9, 2008 -

I have known Mohan and Susan for quite awhile as they were members of my home church in the past, and now Mohan is the campus pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel in Niles, IL.  Susan contacted me as they wanted to get some family pictures taken for their holiday cards, and we were able to have sort of “A Morning With…” session with the family.

The kids got some reading in to start of the day…

The little one found her aunt’s heels and took a stroll…

And then came breakfast!

We did do a traditional/formal pose, but instead of showing that, here they are with their best ‘having a blast’ look…

Mo and Susan, I had a blast spending the morning with the family, and look forward to seeing you guys again!

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Family Lifestyle Sessions, Modern Portraits

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The Intro
- December 8, 2008 -

As I said before, I’m stepping away from the “Monday Night Recap” moving forward, but one of the new things that I planned on rolling out every now and then (not every Monday, sorry :)) will be some videos!  Here’s the first installment of my video posts…not sure what I’m going to call these, so if you have a creative name, drop it in the comments below! (To spice it up a bit, the person who gives me the winning name will get a free $10 iTunes gift card- woo hoo!).

**so you know, you can actually comment on different parts of the video itself. Just mouse over the “+” sign in the bottom right and click “add comment”, and a little comment box will show up over the timeline. This way, you can comment on a specific moment in time and everyone will know what you’re talking about. How awesome is that?!**

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal

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Playdate
- December 5, 2008 -

My nieces and nephew got together today for a little play date (two from my sister, and two from my fiancee’s sister), so I swung on by to hang with all of them.  They had a fun filled day of playing games, eating pizza, making brownies, coloring, watching tv…you’d expect them to be exhausted at the end but they still had plenty of energy when all was said and dun.  Here’s a glimpse into the fun times:

As a side note, for those of you interested in booking lifestyle family sessions, I cannot stress enough how great it is to just do things that your family enjoys – playing games, baking, reading, things you normally do to have fun.  It brings much more memorable images and a ton of fun for everyone involved!

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal

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NMP Challenge
- December 5, 2008 -

THEME: Black & White (in color)

To end off the year of photo challenges, I thought this would be an interesting concept to ‘push’ your creativity with. Basically, I want you to take a picture that is black and white, but in color. This means, you CANNOT do any processing on the image to convert it to black and white, it should already be a black/white object. Make sense? You can make other adjustments to the image if you wish, but DO NOT desaturate the image or use other black and white/grayscale conversion. Sound good? Awesome! Looking forward to seeing what you guys do with it!

Size your images to be no more than 800 pixels on the longest size, and e-mail them to challenge(at)natemathai(dot)com with the month in the subject line. Happy Shooting (and Happy Holidays) Everyone!

I’ve posted the November submissions here, but here’s a ‘family friendly’ one :)

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: Personal

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[12.01.08] Monday Night Recap
- December 1, 2008 -

• [Photo Challenge] November is complete, so get your submissions in for last month’s challenge.  I’ll post the last one of the year later this week!
• [Mumbai Attacks] It’s been all over the news, but in the last week there were some crazy attacks that occured in Mumbai, India, at major tourist locations.  Although my family is primarily out of southern India, my churches missions team was currently up north, and they were about 1 hour away from the major attacks.  They were actually scheduled to return home the following day, and luckily were able to make it home safely.  I ask for continued prayer, though, for all those in India, as well as for the remaining members of our missions team who will be coming home later this week.
• [A Model] So a friend of mine seems like he’s interested in doing some modeling and asked me to take some pictures for him.  He caught me a bit off guard when I showed up, saying he was specifically looking into hand-modeling…but who am I to judge?  So what do you think, does he have what it takes?  ;)





• [Family Thanksgiving] On Thanksgiving, I had Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s place.  They kill two birds with one stone by having both sides of the family over, which is nice.  My job was making the punch (of which I did a mighty fine job in, I must say)…and later got blindsided by having to do the dishes.  Ah well, I think I did a mighty fine job with that as well.  Here’s a couple pics of my youngest niece celebrating her first Thanksgiving – she still seems very surprised about everything:




• [Black Friday] It’s turned into an annual tradition (this is year 2) going out for Black Friday.  I wasn’t too interested in picking much up so it wasn’t too big of an event.  We hit up TigerDirect (I waited outside for about 45 minutes as they did the smart of think of only letting in roughly 50 people at a time to avoid a mad rush and tramplings) to start everything out.  Surprisingly I technically didn’t buy anything for myself.  The picture below shows what I picked up (less a GPS system I got for my dad).  All these are actully for all of you!  It speeds up my processing time as well as gives me even more backup confidence with the precious images I take for you (pictured is a 4GB memory upgrade for my Macbook Pro, 1TB hard drive, and a casing for 2 internal hard drives).



• [Inlaws Thanksgiving] On Friday night, I made my way over to my fiancee’s place for the second Thanksgiving dinner.  Another great time of feasting, and I also helped set up their Christmas tree.  Here’s a little family picture of them.  Also, my soon-to-be brother-in-law just got a Canon XSi and here he is putting it to good use (…this is generally what events start to look like once parents get a dSLR…its AWESOME!)




• [Michelle and Suresh] On Saturday morning, I shot the engagement ceremony of Michelle and Suresh, who will be having their wedding next May.  Here’s a little teaser for you:



• [Turkey Bowl] My church held our first annual Turkey Bowl- a touch football game between the older and younger guys.  And as expected, us older guys won it 13-6.  I caught the extra point that put us up 7-6 in the first half, as well as helped hold down their offense (once I showed up, they were shut out the rest of the game).  Although it was touch, I did get my lip busted by getting hit in the face, and lack of stretching has caused some back pains, but its slowly getting better.  Ah well, it was worth the W.
• [506 Thanksgiving] After the morning festivities, my college friends got together for our seasonal dinners.  This was quite possibly the longest/latest we’ve hung out since we were actually in college, as I think I went to sleep around 3am (and my roommate lives like 5 minutes from my house).  As always, it’s a great time for us to just catch up with what’s going on in everyone’s lives, play some games, and definitely great food (as always).  It’s crazy how we’re all growing up and moving to different stages in our lives…my how things have and will continue to change, but it’s always great re-connecting.  Also, a week ago I helped redecorate/rearrange my roommates place, and we finished it off by framing a couple of my Chicago pics for his wall…don’t you just love framed art!?







• [Bears] We started out well, not letting AP run all over us.  Then we got stopped with a drive inside the 3 yard line on four straight plays, and then gave up a 99-yard TD pass to former Bear Bernard Berrian.  And that was the last we heard of the Bears offense in that game.  We’ve dropped our standing atop the NFC North and have a tougher road to finish the season than the Vikings, but I still think we can make a playoff run.  Here’s to hoping…
• [Fantasy] This will be my last update, as my season our officially over (I finished with a win though!)  I end off the leage in a sad 9th place.  It’s been a great season- what you all have missed out on, though (for those who have been following) is the message board- it’s been quite fun talking trash week in and week out.  I also had been doing weekly predictions of our matchups since about Week 8, and I’ve been above .500 so far.  All in all it’s been a fun- playoffs start next week for those remaining, and we’ll see how it all plays out.

be sure to visit the contact page if you’re looking for a chicago wedding photographer, available nationwide.

natemathai | filed under: [MNR]

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