weekly interrogation: Amy Beth Harkess!

So ironically, today we have the very same friend of mine as yesterday! This is Amy Beth, another one of my cyber photographer friends (they're seriously the best! If it weren't for the internet my life would be a lot less fun) who lives in Chicago. If yesterday didn't prove to you that she has a great personality I don't know what will:) In addition to her wit she also possesses a great eye and uses it to create some stunning work!

name: Amy Beth Harkess
website: www.amybethphotography.com

1.What do you “do”?
By day, I’m a mild mannered administrative assistant, but by night (and weekend), I’m a photographic ninja. I fight the dark underbelly of the city, with my camera as my only weapon. OK, that’s a stretch. I mainly photograph weddings, unions and portraits.

2. Why do you do what you do?
I can’t imagine doing anything else. The photography bug bit me years ago, and there doesn’t seem to be any vaccine available. I love photography because of the people it allows me to connect with and because it changes the way I look at my corner of the world, even when I don’t have a camera in my hands.

3.Where are you from?
What I like to call Chicagoland. Which means that even though I’m a mere 20 some miles from the city, it takes 8 days to get downtown in traffic, construction or snow. OK. Again, that might be a stretch. I’m from the northwest suburbs of Chicago.

4. Favorite color?
Green

5. Favorite food?
I used to answer this question, “cupcakes!” with no hesitation at all. However, cupcakes seem to have taken over the universe. And with lots of cupcakes, that means I’ve encountered far more bad cupcakes than I imagined possible. So let’s just go with mojitos. That’s a food, right?

6. Favorite shoes?
My ugly as sin orthopedic style SAS wedding shoes. They will not win me any style awards, but they have made 10 hour weddings so much more pleasant, so they will always have my gratitude.

7. Favorite place in the whole wide world?
Savannah, GA. It holds so many wonderful memories for me from many different times in my life. I love that place.

8. Favorite piece of playground equipment?
Tire swing

9. Your funniest story?
I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you.

10. Mac or PC?
PC and proud (but you can pry my iPhone from my cold, dead hands)

11. Manual or automatic?
automatic

12. What do you consider your best asset?
I see things that other people don’t notice.

13. Guiltiest pleasure?
The movie Mean Girls. I could watch that 100 times. I probably have.

14. Biggest pet peeve? Unapologetic bad grammar. Listen, we all make mistakes and typos and forget the dangling participle rules here and there. It happens to the best of us. But people who know how to communicate in an effective manner, but choose not to do it? Drives me bonkers.

15. What do you consider priceless?
The time I’ve spent with my niece in the darkroom teaching her how to develop black and white film and print from her very own negatives.

16. If you could sit next to anyone on an airplane, who would it be?
Sally Mann

17. What would you choose as your last meal?
Mojitos and cupcakes. Just kidding. It would be whatever could be served on a big table with all the people I love most surrounding me and sharing it with me.

18. What era in time do you connect with the most?
I suppose modern day. There isn’t a time I look back on fondly and think, “oh, I wish I could live in the olden days when we all died of cholera and women couldn’t vote.” I feel pretty lucky to live in a time when just about anything is possible.

19. Your motto for life?
Always follow my gut.

20. Best advice you can give?
Be the honey badger, not the cobra.


And here is some of my favorite stuff she's done:

I LOVE the colors in the first one. And the vines:
http://www.amybethphotography.com/2011/05/rockford-il-portra40/

I can't help but love all of these (my dad is from Chicago and I have lots of family still there so it holds a special place in my heart):
http://www.amybethphotography.com/2011/06/millennium-park-ektar/

b&w photography is one of my absolute favorite things in this world... and that picture of the tree is fabulous:
http://www.amybethphotography.com/2011/06/black-and-white-film-botanic/

LOVE love love the third photo. Makes me miss moss, all things green and moisture in general:
http://www.amybethphotography.com/2011/06/zeiss-canon-test/

Hope you enjoyed it!!

If you'd like to participate, just click on the 'weekly interrogation' tab at the top and follow the instructions there. Hope to see you here!