I Got It!

I got an internship!
Thanks to Barb Paul's who is the owner of Mid America where my mom works I now have an internship. My mom had asked her if she might know of any photography places. Barb mentioned there possibly being a photo place in the office buildings in Bloomingdale. This same building is were Kristi and I used to go for our orthodontist Dr. Katsis. Barb's kids had also gone there for Dr. Katsis and that's how she remembered it.
So my mom ended up driving by there and saw 'Just Picture It' on the sign. I ended up checking out the website and emailing the owner Hank Steermann. He told me to call him on Tuesday (Today) which I did and the phone call went great. He said he was willing to help me but wanted to make sure I got the experience I needed. So after talking on the phone for a while he said why dont you come in so we can meet. I said "great! I'm free all day" so I ended up skipping my internship class and driving over there from school and meeting with him. He has a small intimate studio space in some office buildings right in Bloomingdale. This building is literally about three minutes from my house, its brilliant how close it is! I wont have to waste any gas.
I didn't think I'd be there as long as I was but we talked for a long time. He's very friendly and showed me around his studio as well. He also looked at my portfolio and loved my images. He does portraiture, senior portraits, some weddings, corprate events and business portraits. He does a little bit of everything in the portraiture world. Everything he does is right up my alley, exactly what I want to be doing.
He works by himself there and said I could probably shadow him or help him out with some of his shoots. He also wants this to be a benefit to me so he said maybe we could schedule some shoots just for me. I'll bring a friend to the studio and we'll just set up a photo shoot and take their picture. He especially liked my images of Chandra! I told him she was a great friend of mine and that she loves modeling for me. Her tall and skinny figure makes her very model esk. He said we should have her come into the studio sometime and maybe we could even help her create a portfolio since shes trying to get into modeling.
All the stuff he does is right around the area or in his studio. He shoots portraits at Mecham Grove Forest Preserve alot which is very close by.
I'm so excited I got this internship, Hank is wonderful! I'm going to be working on a set schedule with him starting Thursday from 11-4. I'll probably be working every Tuesday and Thursday since those are the days I do not have class. Maybe a weekend day or two, whenever he wants me there I'll be there. This internship is going to take priority over anything right now because I just need to graduate!
Come get your picture taken! :)

My Website

This quarter I'm in a class called Portfolio. Portfolio is basically a class where everyone works on their own at there own pace. Its basically a class where we're preparing everything for the Portfolio show we have before we graduate.

Portfolio class To Do List:

Finish logo design
Finish business card design
Print business cards
Complete design resume
Print copy's of design resume for portfolio show
Create my website
Put my portfolio in order
Print and mount my portfolio images
Find Archival box to hold my images for show
Figure out what my give away is for the show (pens, magnets, ect)

The reason I'm blogging today though is to put the link to my website in this post. I don't want to spend the money for a real website right now so for the time being I created a free one one on wix.com. It will get me past this class and work until I decide to create a real one in the future. My teacher said it was fine with him.

http://www.wix.com/hollymickow/photography

I have so much other stuff I need to worry about for this class right now so I'm happy I was able to throw a simple website together and move on. The school makes this portfolio show out to be something amazing and something we spend alot of money on. My teacher for portfolio is blunt and honest and is telling us its not what the school makes it up to be. He says don't be spending gobs of money on everything and go the cheap route. He says even if we go the cheaper route we can still make our stuff look good. So instead of spending alot of money on a fancy portfolio book I'm going to have my images scattered in an archival box. They'll still be mounted and they'll still look real nice.

More fun!

Over break I did alot of other fun things that I thought I would share with you on my blog. Now I haven't been ice skating in years but all the sudden in the three weeks I had break for everyone wanted to go. So I ended up going ice skating twice. It was very fun though and it came right back to me! I used to take lessons for quite a few years when I was younger.

Barrington Ice Arena. Holly, John and Jessica.























Center Ice. Holly, Chandra and Chester.






















Over break I also did alot of gift exchanging. For the first exchange my friend Celia and I met over at our friend Chandra's house for presents. Secondly Celia and I went back over to her house so I could exchange with her sisters and family. Next exchange was at John's house with him and his uncle. Last but not least I exchanged with my two friends at work Olivia and Pedro. All together It was alot of present wrapping and alot of present unwrapping!


Gift Exchange #1





















Gift Exchange #2





















Gift Exchange #3

















Gift Exchange #4















Gift Exchange #5

Winter Quarter- Chicago

Back to school- (1-9-2012)
This past Monday January 9th was my first day back to school. My break was long and glorious but I still wasn't ready to go back to school. Honestly I'm a bit nervous for this quarter because it is technically my last quarter before I graduate. This quarter I'm taking Senior project, Seminar in Science, and Internship. All my classes are Monday-Thursday and there only in the morning/mid afternoon. This schedule couldn't be more perfect for me! The only thing I'm freaking out about is Internship because I don't have an internship yet! I've searched high and low and emailed many company's with my resume over break but I have had no luck finding an internship. The school is helping me a little bit but alot of it I have to do on my own. I should have already found an internship before I even started back to school. Now it's crunch time for me because there's no way I'm going to be able to put in 134 internship hours unless I start right now. If I don't get an internship and complete it this quarter then I wont graduate this quarter. Wish me luck, I need all I can get.

Chicago- (1-8-2012)
On a happier note I wanted to plan something fun before I went back to school. Since I ended up having Sunday off of work my friends and I took the train down to Chicago. We were in the city all day from about 11 am until about 6:30 pm. We walked everywhere in the city at least twice we were there so long.

Carla and Carol- Sears Tower.













Art at Millennium Park.













Carina, Carla and Carol. Sisters shot with a view of the city.













I'm under the bean!












At the bean- Carla













Millennium Park fun!


























A cow!













The Chicago Theater.

















Lion statue outside the Art Institute.













An awesome flowered wall we came across!













The lights at night.













Carol passed out on the train ride home.

2012!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On New Years my luck struck again because I landed an on-call shift. I thought for sure I would have been scheduled to work at night but I wasn't. Now who is really going to come to the movies on New Years Eve? I didn't want to get my hopes up but I was almost positive I wouldn't be called in for my shift that night. I called in at 4:30 and they told me they didn't need me so I got real lucky again.
My parents were in Wisconsin on their Granite Peak ski trip this weekend so we were home by ourselves with grandma. Now my parents told my sister she could have a few of her friends over but they all ended up bailing on her. So in the end I decided to have John and my good friend Olivia from work over instead. So last minute my New Years Eve turned out to be absolutely wonderful! Olivia and John both had to work but they still made it over before midnight and we partied down for about 20 minutes until midnight came around. After midnight we just had fun eating food, listening to music, and watching everyone party in New York on the Dick Clark show.
Olivia and I also attempted to learn Beyonces single ladies dance on YouTube and John and Olivia danced the jig...
:)

Happy 2012.. a little bit late!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christmas Day

I cant say I'm a very lucky person but this holiday my luck really turned around. I was supposed to work a 2-10 pm shift on Christmas which is terribly awful. I mean honestly who wants to work on Christmas day? One of the guys at my work ended up switching with me though and I was so grateful. He didn't want to work Christmas Eve and I didn't want to work Christmas day. So I ended up switching with him and working his morning shift until 2:00 pm on Christmas Eve so I was still able to enjoy the night at Kyle and Teri's. He took my Christmas day shift so I had off completely. It was a win win situation in the end and I'm so happy I was able to all my time with the family.
On Christmas Day we don't really do to much but its still nice to have it off and be lazy all day. In the morning we woke up and opened presents. My sister and I got matching tire gages for our cars this year since we've been having tire problems recently. My mom got a deep fryer from my dad with some funnel cake mix. We recently tried it out on her fried chicken recipe and it was mighty tasty. I'm so anxious to make some funnel cake in the fryer. My dad got a bunch of new clothes and some hats for Christmas and my grandma got a new robe from Kristi and I. Usually she doesn't ask for anything, she says she doesn't want anyone to get her stuff. But this year she actually said she could use a new robe so how could we not get it for her. It's the only thing I've probably ever heard her actually ask for. I'd say this Christmas was quite brilliant despite there being no snow on the ground! :(
Later on in the day Aunt Laurel and Uncle Larry came over and we hung out with them all day, played scrabble, and had a nice dinner later on.

All the presents under the tree.














Grandma trying on her new robe.














Kristi and I showing off our new tire gages!














New shirts for dad.














Christmas Kitty.















New C'n Green Landcare hat.














Mom's new deep fryer.














Carnival funnel cake mix! :)














My new purple leopard pajama pants from dad, so stylish!




















Kristi's new hand weights.














The Ham Hat (as my dad calls it). Holly Ann Mickow.













Mom sporting her new Christmas socks and slippers.














Cafe' Frappe coffee maker so Kristi can make all the fancy coffee's she likes