CHiCAGO PHOTOGRAPHER : Artist’s Favorites

Hi, I’m Mare, a Chicago Photographer. Welcome to my Artist Favorites gallery – with over 20 years behind the lens means I have accumulated a lot of them.

This gallery showcasing images I claim as my favorites is not exhaustive – it is just a small taste of what gets created when a family trusts me enough to show up as themselves. Some of these images are from the beginning of Marmalade Photography (2005!) and some are far more recent…

The absolute truth? I have favorites from every single session I have ever shot. The images that make me catch my breath are my favorite because they capture something about the spirit of the people being photographed. This gallery exists because these particular images represent something true about why I do this work and represent something true about the person(s) in the image.

What I’d like you to notice – if you look closely – the feel (the vibe, the emotion) of these images has not changed much over two+ decades. Through the years: my technical skills have grown – yes. My experience has grown – absolutely. But the thing that drew me to become a Chicago Photographer focusing on the art and craft of photographing families and children is still right there in every frame. That “thing” doesn’t really have a name – it’s just what happens when you stop trying to take a perfect or just a pretty picture and start paying attention to the actual human beings in front of you.

This gallery may rotate over time. Twenty years is a lot of favorites to choose from. Come back and see it as it evolves!

We are thrilled to be the photographer of choice, over and over again for so many Chicago area families. Thank you for taking a look at our FAVORITES gallery. Please read our article about choosing a Chicago Photographer and the importance of photography in fostering a sense of well-being in children and young people to learn more about why Marmalade Photography does what we do, year after year.

Marmalade Photography’s mission as your Chicago photographer of choice is to create not only works of heart artwork worth displaying in your home (or office or second home…) but also to create images that capture the spirit and soul of the persons being photographed.

As I mentioned before, these favorites span more than two decades of my work as a Chicago photographer. Fun family imagery, smiling and serious child photography, detail work of newborns, maternity imagery filled with love and anticipation, the always-fun-soon-to-be-embarking-on-sort-of-adulting high school senior photography that I love!

All photographed in and around Chicago and the suburbs!

In this particular gallery you’ll find images taken in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, Rogers Park and the Gold Coast. Some of the suburban on location imagery was photographed in Naperville, Elmhurst, Frankfort and Orland Park and some as far flung as out of state sessions in Kentucky. I photograph my subjects in living rooms, bedroom spaces and in parking garages. On docks and downtown sidewalks, in fields and forests and church sanctuaries. Every stage of life. Every kind of family. Every location has a story. I love to tell the story of the people and places I photograph!

I think that my saying yes to the moment has its perks!! This is what those perks are – capturing moments that make me take in my breath and say “YES!” quietly to myself. I experience this at every session and I consider myself the luckiest person for it!

Twenty plus years in?! And this Chicago photographer is just getting started!! Stay tuned!