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SPOTLIGHT
Isabelle & Sister Teddy
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Expression and personality.
Heather says she decided to bring her four children (ages 7, 4, 2, and 4 months) along with her Samoyed, Casey, to Sutton Studios because, "we had read and heard wonderful things about David, and we wanted pictures of our four children with our dog (our first 'child!')."
"Our experience was phenomenal! My husband and I were so impressed that David gained the trust and obedience of Casey and the children in the first five minutes, and that he captured such true expression and personality of each one!"
Heather asked Isabelle, 4, to comment on this photo of herself. Isabelle replied that she is holding her very special teddy, called Sister Teddy (Sister Teddy has a sister named Old Teddy) and feels happy because she loves her teddy, "really a lot."
Sister Teddy's other eye fell out when Isabelle was, "hugging on her a lot" last Spring.
Sweetie Pie
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Christmas gift.
Allan says he probably wouldn't have treated himself to the luxury of a photo session with his dog Sweetie Pie, but his wife gave one to him as a Christmas gift.
"She had done this last year, for my previous dog, but from a less professional photographer. When my dog died suddenly about 3 months later, those photos were very precious to me. Someone told her about David's skills, and she thought I would truly appreciate seeing Sweetie Pie from his vantage point."
Allan describes the session as warm and welcoming. Most of the time he was holding Sweetie Pie. But, "when I put her back down on the floor by herself, David took these last few shots, which I think captured her wonderfully."
Our framing partners
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REFLECTION & REFRACTION
Teachermate
I recently had the pleasure of photographing students at Chicago's Jungman Elementary School in the Pilsen neighborhood. The occasion? The introduction into classrooms of a brilliant little device called the Teachermate.
If there's any justice in the world, the Teachermate will soon have made as profound an impact on Chicago's school kids in terms of basic reading skills as the iPhone has made on the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
That's thanks in no small part to the ongoing passion of my friend Seth Weinberger, director of a smart not-for-profit organization called Innovations For Learning.
Mr. Weinberger took a deep, personal interest in education and beginning literacy instruction around the time his own two children were entering school. In 1994 he helped found Evanston's Cherry Preschool, a non-sectarian, parent-governed, early-childhood program.
While involved with Cherry Preschool, Mr. Weinberger applied himself to the problem of increasing - multiplying - teacher effectiveness. Students always outnumber teachers. How could they create the effect of a more favorable teacher/student ratio without hiring more teachers?
He knew that computers could act as teachers and were being used that way in other schools. Seth thought the school needed effective software that could teach children to read.
 One of Seth's clients at the law firm Mayer Brown (where Seth currently serves as counsel) had a business developing "shoot 'em up" gaming software. Pressed for a favor, the software developer worked with some educators at Northwestern University to create a simple learn-to-read program. The program worked, and that's how Innovations For Learning got its start.
Encouraged by the effectiveness of his first title, Seth went back to his client for more software. The developer, too busy with his popular gaming software, politely declined. Undeterred, Seth did the (to him) next logical thing. He taught himself to program. Before too long he had added three of his own titles to IFL's offerings.
Innovations For Learning's learn-to-read software proved quite effective. Royalties from Seth's own software titles allowed the budding not-for-profit to expand, making the software available to more schools.
Bouyed by the effectiveness of IFL's programs, Seth set his sites on putting his software to work in every one of the five-hundred Chicago Public Schools.
 Significant obstacles stalled those ambitions. Many classrooms had perhaps two or three older model PCs available at any one time. Seth's plan for Chicago would require multiplying teacher effectiveness by more than twos and threes.
Or perhaps the school had a real computer lab, enabling an entire classroom to work with the software at the same time. IFL designs its software to run on older PCs to increase its usability, but computer labs have another downside - which you will guess if you've ever tried to organize and transport twenty second graders down a school hallway and back. Far too much time gets swallowed up in logistics.
Seth quickly realized the real bottleneck his plan faced was hardware. When it comes to running IFL's software, a PC represents serious overkill. PCs are expensive. They take a long time to start up, and to restart when they crash. They're too complicated, so it takes too long to train kids to use them and too much can go wrong.
 The innovators at Innovations For Learning, by this time a team of six, full-time employees, applied themselves to this problem and came up with a brilliant, task-appropriate hardware solution they call the Teachermate. This simple-to-use, hand-held device, slightly larger than a deck of cards, runs all the software it needs to run and has all the controls it needs to have. Teachermates start up quickly and rarely crash. They do their job simply and efficiently. The device fits comfortably into a child's hands and utilizes simple controls.
What's more, a classroom's worth of Teachermates stashes neatly into a lightweight attaché that doubles as a dock. All the devices are charged up and synched at the same time by a single power cord and a single USB cable.
 The sweetest part: Innovations for Learning can put twenty Teachermates into a classroom for the price of one PC. That puts Seth Weinberger's goal of getting IFL's teaching software into all 500 Chicago public elementary schools within reach. A generous Grant under consideration by JPMorgan Chase could set Innovations for Learning up to do just that. In the not too distant future, public school students in other cities where JPMorgan Chase has a presence could also have their lives as readers jump-started by Teachermates.
When the kids at Jungman school were issued their Teachermates there was a flurry of activity as they got their headsets plugged in and powered up their devices. Then the classroom fell nearly silent as they dug into their "games." After a few minutes I started hearing happy little outbursts erupting around the room like popcorn: "I got it right, I got it right!"
Step aside, iPhone. Teachermate has arrived.
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COMMUNITY FOCUS
 Spokesdog
Sutton clients Greg and Louisa Hayward loved their photos of German Shepherd Rudy so much, that they decided to share them with the world - or at least with Lincolnwood! Greg wrote an article for his training center's newsletter all about Rudy's day in front of the lens. You can see their photos, too - just log in to the Hayward's gallery with the username in the article!
 2008 Calendar
There's still time to make good use of the beautiful 2008 Dog Days calendar!
Support your local animal shelter by purchasing one from them, or stop by the studio and get one from us (we'll donate the funds to our local shelter).
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