hello! nice to meet you!

I am a portrait and wedding photographer servicing Northwest Indiana and Chicago. I specialize in high school senior portraits and weddings but am available for all types of portrait and commercial photography. (Scroll for some personal stuff.)

Dreamers, Free Spirits, Wallflowers, Lone Wolves & Rebels Welcome!

I'm a portrait and wedding photographer servicing Northwest Indiana and Chicago. I’d say my style is fun, stylish, a touch edgy, and maybe even a little dreamy and dramatic at times. I specialize in high school senior portraits and weddings but I've shot everything from babies to bands. I love shooting in natural light, going with the flow and capturing a clients unique personality.

I find beauty everywhere I look and in everyone I meet. I seek it out and then I’m compelled to capture it. I'm always trying to freeze a moment by taking mental snapshots as I go through my daily life.

Some of the things I love best about what I do:

Capturing lifelong memories for people, sometimes documenting some of the biggest moments of their lives
Capturing small, sweet moments that might have been overlooked but sometimes tell the biggest story
Boosting someone’s self-confidence and hearing them say how much they love an image of themselves
The look on a parent’s face when they see their son or daughter confidently and beautifully expressing who they are
Hearing someone say they really had fun and enjoyed their experience
The exciting feeling I get when everything is falling serendipitously in to place and I think that maybe, just maybe, I’m creating art
Hearing someone giggle because I can’t hide my dramatic enthusiasm for the moment or “the shot”
Playing dress-up for shoots and creating a vibe
The father/daughter dance and mother/son dance at a wedding (gets me teary-eyed every singe time)
Documenting the details, capturing the feeling
Meeting people!

My love for photography started when I was a little girl during my visits with my grandmother in Tennessee. I'd flip through stacks of old family albums and delight in photos of my father as a baby or my grandmother looking young and carefree in her leopard print coat. She loved taking pictures and was notorious for turning a quick family photo into quite the photo shoot. (But I loved it!) I loved posing for her and playing dress up and I still love doing that today!

I started to take photography seriously in 2007 when I was pregnant with my daughter. I wanted her to see what it looked like to follow your dreams and do something that makes you happy. When she was born she became my little muse, much like I was for my grandmother. Fast forward and I have two great kids and a growing photography business that I'm proud of. Jamie Skripac Photography. (That's Skrip, like script without the t and Pac, like Pac-Man.)

Along the way, I was very fortunate to be introduced to another photographer, my dearest friend, Carmen Heller-Chariton. (She loves to play dress up and create art too!) We sometimes combine forces under the name Tales Of A Dream, Photography by Carmen and Jamie. We specialize in weddings and whimsical things. Most of my weddings, fashion shoots and commercial work has been done as a collaboration under Tales Of A Dream. The creative process gets exponentially more inspiring and fun when working with other creative people.

If you’ve read this far then I’m impressed! Thanks for taking the time! I’m so humbled and grateful that I get to do this as my “job”.