Kristi and Jeremy

When I arrived to Kristi's house I was so in love with her bedroom, I wanted to keep shooting all day there! Kristi and her brides' maids where so happy to do something fun instead of a formal bridal party photo, it's a delight to work with such fun group of girls! I loved how expressive Kristi's Dad was, it brought tears to my eyes... seriously. Jeremy is one of those grooms that let the bride choose the photographer, so we met at the church for the first time. It was obvious from the begining that Jeremy trusted his future wife's common sense, he just surrendered to all my directions, I absolutely loved all his photos. At the reception site the parking lot was packed so I had to park at the very back, and thanks to that, I found this great locations that shelterd us from the blasting sun, don't you just love these images?

LEAH AND DANIEL, NAPERVILLE SETTLEMENT

I can't tell you what a delight it was to photograph Leah and Dan, even though I had never met Dan, he was so easy to work with and met all my photographer desires. Their wedding was so intimante at the Naperville settlement chapel, it's a great place to get married with it's old arquitecture, lighting is difficult nontheless beautiful for photos. I found out that Leah and Dan were planning to elope and after a lot of thought, they decided to have a ceremony since Leah is the last of her siblings to get married and all the family insisted. I had so much fun photographing them that I couldn't resist to include so many images of their wedding, everybody catered to my photographer ego! Thanks guys for such a great honor!

Quinceanera

Elizabeth turned 15 this year and it's a Mexican tradition to celebrate it as the ocassion when a girl turns into a woman. It is called Quinceanera and it's as important as a wedding. Family and closest friends get together for a mass and then a feast and dancing. Elizabeth and their family are very dear friends of mine and I believe they are one of the best looking families I know! Thank you for the privilege of capturing this special day, it was a delight and so easy since there is no groom involved like in a wedding! Elizabeth's album is so beautiful I made one for myself to send it for competition, I'll let you know the results next Spring!

A new life

I want to share with you some beautiful photos that I took of Celia and her husband Benjamin two weeks before the birth of their fist new born. As I post these photos, they are still waiting for the arrival of the baby. Benjamin is an actor and will be performing at the Latino Theater festival this month. We're also planning of taking some photos of Benjamin to promote his career as an actor, can't wait for this challenge! I love to photograph pregnancy and babies, it's so full of emotions, especially with the first born. Celia and Benjamin, you guys are so great, it was such a delight working with you and enjoyed so much seeing your faces when you saw the photos, I'm glad you liked them as much as I did. Can't wait to see junior in few weeks!

Hello everyone, after a lot of procrastination I finally had my friend Brissa from BreezeArt to help me set up a blog. I hope you all enjoy it and forward it to all your friends. I will be posting images from my weddings and other photo sessions as well as keeping you informed of my whereabouts. I recentrly came back from a week long photography workshop with one of the best photographers in the world, Jerry Ghionis from Australia. I have been using some of the techniques that I learned in this intensive seminar with a lot of satisfaction. I'm planning in submitting prints and albums for competition next year, let's see if I can beat my teacher!
If you want to send me a testimonial or a comment, please send me an email at photographer@argentinaleyva.com. I'm trying to keep this blog clean and update it monthly, let's see how diligent I am! In other news, I want to introduce my new assistant Julie, she's a new college graduate and I'm training her on photoshop and she will be assisting me in my weddings and other assignments. I have been blessed with a growing business thanks to many of you and it finally came to the point to get help. Well, I want to keep it short and to the point, thank you for visiting and stay tunned!