Hello friends!

I hope the summer is bringing you many opportunities for photography as life begins to return to normalcy. The Chicago Botanic Garden is fully open now and we are excited to be moving forward with holding our Out of Chicago Botanic Garden Conference we had to postpone last summer. I'm excited to be teaching alongside some of my favorite photographers at my favorite garden in the world. This is an immersive, 5-day flower and garden photography conference taking place August 29–September 2nd, 2021, with excursions to the Chicago Botanic Garden and presentations, workshops, classes held at the Embassy Suites North Shore, Deerfield, IL.  Spaces are almost full. Learn more and register at www.outofchicago.com. If you have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected].

Lensbaby released a new lens this week, the Obscura! I had the opportunity to beta test the lens over the past few months. A blog post with my impressions of the lens is posted on the Lensbaby website - "Capturing Landscapes with the Lensbaby Obscura." This lens is a lot of fun to use and it gave me an opportunity to shoot in a totally new way. Lensbaby is known for getting you out of your comfort zone and stretching your creativity and this lens really did that for me. As always, if you have questions about Lensbaby products, please feel free to reach out to me.