The Story Behind Fab Photo: How We Became Chicago’s Red Carpet Experts

I moved to Chicago from Champaign in 2007.  I had experience shooting weddings and found work as a second shooter. The job of a second shooter at a wedding is to take action photos at an alternate angle, shoot candids of guests and assist the first shooter. 

At the time I was fascinated by this portable 4x6 photo printer. About the size of a lunch box, it could make a very credible 8 color 4x6 print in about a minute and a half.  I would take it to parties and get togethers and produce prints on the spot to impress my friends.

I started taking the printer to weddings. When I had a spare moment at the reception, I would find the best photo of the bride and groom, print a copy and pass it to the head photographer to pass to the bride. 

I liked to hang back and just watch the bride’s eyes.  Without hearing anything, I could tell she was amazed and  delighted.  

After a couple repetitions, I started to get the idea that in a digital world, physical prints were still valuable.

After some technological upgrades and experiments, it became clear that the most valuable product we could produce was a properly exposed photo of guests on a background delivered as a photo print or digital image shared instantly via text, Facebook, or Twitter/X.