PORTRAIT: Natalie

In 2007 I was a gymnastics coach for my awesome girls at Hinsdale South high school and one day during practice, a voice called out from behind me, "Chalupa!?!"  I turned around and was delightfully surprised to see this shining smiley faced girl.  "Natalie!?!"  I said with shock.  It was one of the gymnasts whom I helped coach a number of years back at Illinois Gymnastics Institute.  She was now attending Hinsdale South and a part of the diving team but has many friends in the gymnastics program.  We chatted and caught up on some old times.  After season was over bitter sweetly I had the opportunity to move to Hawaii for the year of 2008, but Natalie and I became facebook friends and kept in touch.  One day I get a wall post from her asking for me to do her senior pictures whenever it is I get back to Chicago.  I told her that it might not be for a while?  She cheerfully explained, "That's okay, I want you to do my pictures so I can wait..."  This almost broke my heart.  God has truly blessed me with some wonderful individuals and supporters in my life.  

Fast forward and finally August 2009 comes around and I am finally back in Chicago.  Not even a week has passed and to my delightful reminder, on my calendar, is Natalie's photo shoot!!!  So after numerous re-scheduling and deliberation of locations, we finally found a beautiful spot and did our shoot.  Oh and did I mention it was 4 hours before she was getting ready to get on a train to visit some friends then off to college?  But you know even though we had a time crunch the pictures came out wonderful and I had a super awesome time hanging out with Natalie, her mom, and Lily her cute little chiwawa.  Her smile can match the sun, so Natalie these are for you and I hope you love them!?!  "Thank you for being such a smiley person, a big supporter of my photography, and it has been so much fun seeing you grow into an accomplished young woman from our gymnastics days.  I'm so proud of you and good luck with College in Miami!" 

One of my favorites, such a beauty shot ;)

Lily wants to be in the picture! 

Love these close up beauty shots, check out more in the slideshow at the bottom...

This is the cutest mother/ daughter pair... I love this shot (above) looking into the future with the love they have for each other.

Even the bugs wanted to get in on the shot ;)

CLICK the middle of the box, there is a really light "play" button to view the slideshow :)

Thanks all for viewing my blog!  Stay tuned, cause an amazing fashion shoot is on the way!  God bless! :)