Slideshows!

I'm SOOOOOOO excited to announce that we have a VERY new cool feature to our website....

SLIDESHOWS!! :)

Some of you may know that we've been posting slideshows to our recent weddings on the web, but they haven't been linked in from anywhere. Now you can see the same slideshow that we show at the reception of any wedding on the web hopefully the next day.

Annie, my beloved web helper (and my fiancee's sister), and I have been slaving over this for a little while now (she really did all the work, I just watched), and it's just about good to go!

This is so cool because now couples can share their wedding pictures with people who weren't able to make the wedding the next day. PLUS, since I've been so behind on updating the blog about a few of our recent weddings, now you can see what we've been up to the last few weeks! As you can tell....we've been busy. :)

Soon, we'll have a direct link from the website to the slideshows as well so you can check them out from there.

Check it out!!


www.chrishumphreys.com/slideshows

Chicago!!

Ok, so I'm hoplessly behind in updating this, but I have some awesome adventures to share!

I've been in Chicago the past couple days and it's been action packed! I came out here because I had a good friend from High School who now oddly enough shoots Northwestern University Football games and invited me out to come by and shoot with him. I couldn't pass up that kind of opportunity so I jumped on a plane and came out. The game, while a bit colder than I would have liked was incredible. I've never shot a football game before in my life, much less a Big 10 Game so this was a new experience, but super fun. For those of you who watched the game on TV you know how close it was. Northwestern came back and scored two touchdowns within a about a min and half at the very end to win the game. It was amazing!





Here was my buddy Jerry shooting.... (ladies, he IS available....)



And Jerry caught a shot of me as well. I think I don't look too happy cause I was cold and wet! (it rained) :(



The celebration after the game winning extra point.



The next day my dad volunteered me to shoot some pictures of his neighbor's two year old daughter. Julian was such a cutie! We had a blast putting her outside in the bright yellow and orange leaves, something I don't get to get to do a lot out in California!




The next day my mom and I took a nice walk through a nature preserve close to our house. It was one of my favorite places to escape when I was living at home in High School, and I still try to get back there whenever I'm home. We saw some deer as well!





Last, but certainly not least, I got to hang out with my dad for a good portion of the day shooting for an non profit organization called Exodus. The organization helps refugees from other countries get started here. This was one of the families that we visited. They were from Russia. Their son was super cute!




It's been quite a trip the last few days, I'm really excited to go home though and be with Katie. She's been moving into our new apartment and it's been a lot of fun putting the place together. It's hard to believe I'll be married in less than 2 months!

And don't think we haven't been busy with weddings! I'm just really behind on posting about them! I'll put up some highlights from the past month when I get back tomorrow!

Hope you all are doing well!

WOW!

Ok, so I'm really behind on updating this! I still haven't posted about the wedding from last weekend, (which was awesome by the way, images to come soon!), I just HAD to post this up tonight though cause it was so cool!

A few weeks ago this guy calls me asking me if I'd be interested in shooting him proposing to his girlfriend. Honestly, at the time I thought it was sorta an odd idea, but I went along with it. A few phone calls and last minute schedule changes later and we were on for tonight. I met Steve for the first time over by the Biltmore wall overlooking the ocean earlier this morning and we talked a bit of strategy as far as where they would be and where I could get some cool angles. A few hours later I showed up and got to capture this amazing life changing moment. It was such an amazing experience and I'm so glad I could do it.

I couldn't believe that Caitlin never heard me as I moved around them and grabbed all these shots. I stuck around and played paparazzi for about an hour moving around behind them. Luckily the ocean provided the perfect amount of noise that she never heard my shutter going off.

The best part for me was at the end. I had taken about 400 images and figured I was pretty good so I decided to take off. Steve had his arm around her and as I drove by them he took his arm off her shoulders and gave me a thumbs up. It was the perfect signal for the night. I've haven't left ANY shoot feeling this good in months!

On the way home I wanted to do something more for them so I called and left Steve a message telling him I wanted to give them something that night. He called me back and told me the name of the resturant that they would be hanging out at for the next several hours. I went home picked about 13 images and printed them out on my little Canon Selphy Printer and printed 13 4x6 prints and pasted them into an album for them and then drove up to the resturant to give it to them. It was such a great reminder as to how doing something nice for someone else is such a joyful experience. It was wonderful to meet Caitlin (offically) :) and to talk to both of them a little more about their experience. Funny how we can start a day being perfect strangers with a few people and end the day feeling like close friends. :)

What a blessing to be a part of that story!

In addition to the couple of pictures I posted here, I made a little slideshow so you guys can see more pics!

Enjoy!


Steve and Caitlin Slideshow

Lucy Speier!!

Wow! I'm not a baby photographer, but they sure are cute to photograph!

Lucy became a new addition to our church family 6 months ago, and when her parents asked me if I wanted to spend a little time photographing her I couldn't say no. :) She's just so darn cute! And not in the least bit camera shy either! She'll make a great bride in about 22 years! :)

Marieke and Nathan

Sorry I've been a little absent here the past week! A TON has gone on and I need to get caught up! :)

Last week started off with a really cool engagement session I did with Marieke and Nathan. The three of us ended up hanging out quite a bit, having dinner before hand and then shooting for a few hours and I can't remember the last time I've laughed so hard! My intern Alison came by and joined us halfway through and we seriously couldn't stop laughing! Nathan, you have the best sense of humor ever! :)

I also got a new camera, the Canon Mark IIn about a week ago and have been playing with it. It's such a great camera and will really allow us to do some really exciting things.

Check out some of the images from the night....

Matt and Julia!

Congrats to Matt and Julia who had a BEAUTIFUL wedding up in the wine country of Sonoma, CA. My assistant and I both were fighting colds and the flu for a bit of the day, but I think the adrenaline of the day kept us going. Plus, being around such cool people always brings your spirits up. :)

Here are a few of the pics from the day! :)

Plugging Dane Sanders....

So Dane Sanders is a good friend of mine, and is seriously one of the smartest and most gifted people I know. First of all he's an INCREDIBLE photographer. Check out his awesome stuff at www.danesanders.com

Second and really more importantly he's an inspiring teacher. I've been sitting in on his leadership class at Westmont and it's been so life changing. I think it'll end up being one of the most helpful classes I've ever taken at Westmont...and I'll have taken it when I wasn't even a student! :)

Thanks Dane for giving so freely of your time (he sits with students over coffee all the time), and for really believing that the world can change one person at a time. :)

I got the chance to take some pics of him during our class today. Check it out!

Jessica Ballew

Last night I so much fun shooting senior pictures for Jessica Ballew. Despite shooting at Chase Palm Park for the 3rd time in about 5 days, we came up with some really fun images. Usually, I don't like shooting at the same place so many times, but this week it's been really good to try to come up with new angles and fresh ideas! I kinda hope the next client asks to shoot there as well so I can keep working on this exercise of coming up with new shots! :)

Here are some of the images from last night...

TWO Engagement Sessions....

We had SUCH a busy week last night preparing for the class and editing I'm a little behind posting up here! We've had TWO great engagement sessions 2 days apart from each other. Both couples were smart enough to pick an awesome location (Chase Palm Park) and that gave me a chance to really try to keep creative and keep things fresh. I end up shooting there a lot, so it's always a good exercise in trying to be creative and come up with new things.

Katie and Hani were SO much fun to hang out with. I couldn't believe how natural they were! I'll admit I was a bit nervous shooting these guys. I had taken her sister's engagement pictures a few months before and they had turned out really well and her whole family (they go to my church) has been telling me how great those look, so when her sister came to me wanting do some engagement pictures and at the same place as her sister I felt a little pressure. :) I shouldn't have though, because Katie and Hani were so natural it made it easy to come up with great images.






They were also really open to trying new things. A few mins after the sun set it was starting to get kinda dark and I suggested we use State street to get some cool night city shots which they were up for so I grabbed my monopod and we headed out. I had a lot of fun experimenting with dropping the shutter down and getting some cool motion from passing cars and people. I've never had the chance to shoot stuff like that before and it was so cool taking a step outside the box to try to come up with something new. So much fun! Thanks you guys!!






Drew and Nick were just as fun to shoot with on Saturday night. The weather wasn't as nice as we would have hoped for, but we made it work and grabbed some great images. Again, it helps when you have people who are SO photogenic! I can't believe their wedding is a month away in San Diego. They were telling me some of the details about it over coffee before we started shooting and it's going to be so beautiful.