Glenview photographer captures award
Everyone has a story. Writers thrive on that fact. So does Glenview photographer Sari Pina.
"I feel like everyone has an interesting story," Pina said. "There is a benefit to get to know people on a more personal level."
She's been doing that for more than eight years professionally with her company, Sari P. Photography.
On location or in her studio at 3230 Glenview Road, in the same building as The Laughing Academy, Pina takes individual and family portraits, shoots events, and snaps corporate branding pictures and head shots.
Pina recently earned accolades as Glenview Local Business Person of the Year by Alignable.com, an online referral network of small businesses in the United States and Canada.
"The award really was a bit of a surprise, and it really does validate the power of networking within your community," Pina said.
"All the people that voted for me (represented) local businesses that I worked with. So it's very humbling, and makes me proud of what I do and makes me strive to continue what I'm doing and get better and better and connect with more people."
Pina grew up on the east side of Glenview, near Loyola Academy, and after some time in Chicago she and her husband moved back to Glenview to a house in The Glen. The couple have two children, 10- and 3-year-old boys.
Pina has been taking photos for more than a decade, simultaneously working full-time as a teacher. The past 13 years she's been at Hester Junior High School in Franklin Park. She's a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) teacher there, and is currently teaching her eighth graders, coincidentally, photography.
Pina said she doesn't have a degree in photography, but has "taken a million classes" in it. Sari P. Photography became a limited liability company about two and a half years ago, she said.
She likes volunteer work "where I can help positively through photography," she said, such as taking pictures of children who are cancer patients or cancer survivors.
A subset of her work is "Free to Be Imagery" that offers empowering photo sessions for women and teens.
A favorite recent shoot was of United States Olympic women's hockey player Jesse Compher for Northbrook Living magazine.
In a statement that aligns with the Alignable award, Pina said that over years of taking photos of subjects from babies to corporate events, the common denominator was the connection between herself and her subject.
"One of the reasons why I think I gravitated toward doing head shots and personal branding for businesses is it's a little bit more of an intimate session," she said.
"When I have someone standing in front of me for a head shot and the camera is so closely focused on their face, I really get to not only know their face but also their expressions.
"One of the things I really strive to do is to make people forget that the camera is there so they can relax and let their true expressions come out," Pina said.