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David Cuerdon Photographer 📷

@davidcuerdon

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Greater Chicagoland area, Northern Indiana Photographer, Retoucher, Pixel Pusher, Animal Lover, Nerd, Husband, Dad –Photos are mine, unless noted

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🎂 Happy Birthday, Alex! 🎉

Alex McDonald @amdoxc is a seriously talented photographer and a friend I’m incredibly grateful to have in my creative circle.

Of course, one of the dangers of being my friend is that sooner or later, I might ask you to pose for one of my crazy artistic ideas. 😂📸

I’m lucky to have so many wonderfully talented, creative, and generous people in my life who inspire me, challenge me, and occasionally let me turn them into my artistic guinea pigs. ❤️

Happy Birthday, Alex! Hope your day is as awesome as you are. And don’t worry… I probably have another crazy idea for another shoot soon! 😈📸

#NaturalLightPhotography #LocationPhotography #OnLocationPhotography #FineArtPortraiture #EnvironmentalPortraits by @davidcuerdon

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2 hours ago

I’M ALIVE!!! ❤️

I can’t tell you how much all of your kind, loving, funny, and sometimes wonderfully ridiculous comments and messages meant to me. They filled me with so much love and hope. 🥺❤️

Sincerely, this silly, sometimes cynical old man was overwhelmed with gratitude. I felt every bit of your love and support.

And please always know this: when I’ve told you I love you, I meant it. ❤️

A few details for those who have been asking:

There were some complications, and the surgery went VERY loooooong. In fact, it went on long enough that they had to switch out the surgical staff—eight people in all—with the exception of my two surgeons. Apparently, even the medical team needed a shift change before I was finished causing trouble. 😂

I finally made it to my hospital room very late last night and honestly wasn’t feeling up to getting on Facebook.

My surgeons feel the procedure went well, but we won’t know the actual results for a few weeks. So, for now, I’m taking the win that I’m still here, I’m recovering, and I have a whole lot of people to be grateful for.

After a brief hospital stay, I’ll be heading home for about two weeks of bed rest and recovery.

I’m exhausted, sore, and probably going to be spending a lot of quality time staring at the ceiling… but I’M ALIVE!!!

❤️‍🩹From the bottom of my healing heart, Thank you. ❤️

__________________

I no wasn’t going to say anything about this but I am honestly very frightened.

I have been having heart problems for a while now. Several hospital stays this year have finally brought me to today. Heart surgery. 💔❤️‍🩹

I really could use some love, kindness, and support right now. Is that weird to ask?

Please keep me in your thoughts and send me healing vibes, prayers, and funny memes.

I will be back to posting stupid sh*t soon. And if I never told you before, I’m telling you now, I love you ❤️ by @davidcuerdon

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a month ago

🇺🇸 Happy Fourth of July! 🇺🇸

I was going to ask my BFF and favorite Muse, Skyla, if she’d be up for recreating these Fourth of July photos we shot back in 2018.

Unfortunately, I’ve been dealing with some health issues lately. Fireworks and 95° weather seemed determined to finish me off this year, I decided to celebrate from the safety of my air-conditioned editing cave instead. 😄

So... I stayed in the AC with Photoshop, a couple of stock photos, way too much coffee, and reimagined our old photos instead.

My 2026 reimagined versions are first. The 2018 originals are 2nd.
What do you think? Which versions do you prefer?

The 3rd image is AI. Just for laughs, I asked ChatGPT to take the original sparkler image and “make it more dramatic and patriotic” I kind of like it’s over the top rendition in a campy sort of way. 😂

Have a wonderful Fourth of July, everyone! Stay cool, stay hydrated, stay safe... and please try not to lose any fingers. 🇺🇸🎆😂

🇺🇸 #HappyFourthOfJuly
📸 #CreativePhotography
🎨 #PhotoshopArtist
✨ #BeforeAndAfter
❤️ #BFFMuse taken in South Bend, Indiana by @davidcuerdon

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3 months ago

Not your grandmother’s Red Riding Hood.

In my version, Red is a warrior… and the wolf is her faithful companion.

The model, costume, dog, and photography were all real. The fantasy world was built through compositing, with very little AI used only to add subtle motion in small areas. The moon, background, some wolf elements, fire, and torch were all stock photos or videos, reimagined by me in post.

I’ve been planning this shoot for around five years, collecting over a thousand reference images, overlays, videos, and stock elements along the way. Thankfully, my BFF/Muse Skyla is very patient with my ridiculous fantasy-nerd brain.

Her sweet husky Athena inspired and played our wolf, and the irony is that she looks completely fierce in the final pieces — but in real life she is one of the sweetest, most loving dogs I’ve ever met.

I love creating fantasy images more than anything. It’s where photography, retouching, storytelling, and a little bit of madness all come together. ❤️🐺🔥🌕

Thanks so much to my beautiful model/best friend Skyla, her husband Ian for his help, and sweet husky / wolf model, Athena!

Model / Muse: Skyla
Wolf: Athena
Photography / Composite / Motion: David Cuerdon

#RedRidingHood #DarkFantasy #FantasyPhotography #CompositePhotography by @davidcuerdon

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4 months ago

More sci-fi candy from the ᵀⁱᵐᵉ ᵐⁱˢˢⁱᵒⁿ, ᵉⁿᶜᵃᵖˢᵘˡᵃᵗᵉᵈ ᵈʳᵉᵃᵐˢ, ᵘⁿᵖˡᵘᵍᵍᵉᵈ event — featuring the fantastic Whitney Darling.

I’m not entirely sure whether Whitney was a cyberpunk space fairy, an intergalactic rave queen, or a glam alien emissary… but whatever the title, she absolutely committed to the role. One of the things that made this shoot so special was how much Whitney stretched herself creatively, with multiple wild looks and incredibly imaginative makeup and hair — not just for my shoot, but throughout the whole event.

I got two messages from one disgruntled photographer, and a very smug retoucher, claiming these event images could only be AI. So apparently I now need a disclaimer with my neon sci-fi photos: these are real photographs of a real human in a real set. No AI was used in these images. I do sometimes use AI in other work, and when I do, I say so. But here, it was all Whitney, lighting, styling, color, and a photographer happily living his sci-fi dream.

I do use AI in some pieces, but I always label it when I do. For me it’s just one tool among many — never the idea itself. These, though, are all the amazing Whitney and pure practical visual fun.

If you’d like to see more amazing work from the artists involved, look up Unplugged Artistic Event Planning And Studios on Facebook.

Model: Whitney Darling @redheaded_darling
Event: ᵀⁱᵐᵉ ᵐⁱˢˢⁱᵒⁿ, ᵉⁿᶜᵃᵖˢᵘˡᵃᵗᵉᵈ ᵈʳᵉᵃᵐˢ, ᵘⁿᵖˡᵘᵍᵍᵉᵈ
Location: Time Mission, Mount Prospect, IL
Photographer: David Cuerdon @davidcuerdon
Event host: Unplugged Artistic Event Planning And Studios

#CyberpunkPhotography #SciFiPhotography #CreativePortraiture #FantasyPhotography #NeonDreams taken in Time Mission - Mount Prospect by @davidcuerdon

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5 months ago

So great to shoot again with the incredible Brandy Scibelli @b_scibelli. I recently got to work with her at another super fun workshop hosted by @arielsalazartphotography.

Brandy is not only ridiculously beautiful, she also moves with so much grace and ease in front of the camera that she makes my job look far more impressive than it probably is. She is fun, easygoing, and an absolute joy to work with.

Photographers: if you shoot beauty, glam, or portraits, book Brandy. She’s basically a cheat code 🎮 for your portfolio

#BrandyScibelli #BeautyPhotography #GlamourPhotography #portraitphotography taken in Des Plaines, Illinois by @davidcuerdon

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5 months ago

More sci-fi fun. I forgot to mention at he beginning of my previous posts that these new cyberpunk images were created at a photography/model event hosted by the astounding Evie Danecki and her Unplugged Artistic Event Planning And Studios — more info at the end of this post.

This was my first time getting to work with the awesome Katy Siesen, and I already think of her as a goth chameleon. I’ve admired for years the incredible looks Katy creates — fantasy, horror, sci-fi — she truly seems like the goddess of all things dark and fabulous.

And just to be clear: these are photographs, not AI. Katy is real, the set is real, the lighting is real, and all of it was created practically on location. I did add the colored smoke and fog overlays in Photoshop afterward. Being the retouching nerd that I am, I have an entire external hard drive filled with thousands of smoke and fog overlays ☁️💨

Model: Katy Siesen @madam.spookiness
Event: ᵀⁱᵐᵉ ᵐⁱˢˢⁱᵒⁿ, ᵉⁿᶜᵃᵖˢᵘˡᵃᵗᵉᵈ ᵈʳᵉᵃᵐˢ, ᵘⁿᵖˡᵘᵍᵍᵉᵈ
Location: Time Mission, Mount Prospect, IL
Photographer: David Cuerdon @davidcuerdon
Event host: Unplugged Artistic Event Planning And Studios

#timemission #cyberpunkphotography #scifiphotography #gothmodel #neonnoir taken in Time Mission - Mount Prospect by @davidcuerdon

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5 months ago

Another Mother’s Day post, because apparently I am making up for lost time. These are of my beautiful friend Jenny Gee from 2023, when she was pregnant with the first of her two precious daughters.

I meant to post these the Mother’s Day right after her daughter was born, but somehow kept forgetting (I’m getting old) every single year. So this post is only fashionably late... by a lot. 😄

I wanted to do something a little more high-fashion and glam than the usual maternity portraits, and Jenny — being the stunning, fabulous fashion model she is — absolutely understood the assignment.

Happy Mother’s Day to the breathtaking Jenny, and to all the wonderful moms out there. 💜

#MothersDay #MaternityPhotography #MaternityPortrait #FashionPhotography taken in South Bend, Indiana by @davidcuerdon

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5 months ago

There’s a quiet kind of beauty in motherhood that goes far beyond glamour, styling, or perfect light. It’s love, devotion, exhaustion, tenderness, strength… all existing at the same time. ❤️

Happy Mother’s Day to one of the most devoted moms I know, my best friend and Muse, Skyla. Shortly after precious Willow was born, we did some beauty portraits together. I actually love photographing new moms during this stage of life. So many women feel vulnerable after childbirth, and I love creating images that remind them they are still powerful, beautiful, and radiant.

My incredibly talented wife Lisa did Skyla’s gorgeous hair and makeup for the shoot. During one quiet moment, Willow needed feeding, and Skyla graciously allowed me to capture this image. It became not only one of my favorite photographs I’ve ever taken, but one of the most meaningful as well.

Thank you Skyla, for being my BFF, my Muse, an amazing mother to sweet Willow, and for trusting me enough to document such a real and beautiful moment. Happy Mother’s Day. ❤️ taken in South Bend, Indiana by @davidcuerdon

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5 months ago

Kay and Brandy the dynamic duo known collectively as KANDY!

Kay and Brandy are not only stunningly beautiful models, but successful entrepreneurs, hosting their own model and photographer events. I got to work with them both recently at an @arielsalazartphotography workshop.

They bring beauty, creativity, fun, and professionalism to everything they do!

@_kaybrooks_ @b_scibelli

These two are not only absolutely stunning models, they are also talented entrepreneurs creating opportunities for other creatives through the events they host for models and photographers.

Beauty, professionalism, creativity, and fun — Kay and Brandy bring all of it to everything they do. Working with them is always a reminder that great images come from great energy as much as great talent.

#KANDY #BeautyPhotography #PortraitPhotography #GlamourPhotography #ModelPhotography by @davidcuerdon

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5 months ago

Kay and Brandy the dynamic duo known collectively as KANDY!

Kay and Brandy are not only stunningly beautiful models, but successful entrepreneurs, hosting their own model and photographer events. I got to work with them both recently at an @arielsalazartphotography workshop.

They bring beauty, creativity, fun, and professionalism to everything they do!

Kay and Brandy — the dynamic duo known collectively as KANDY.
@_kaybrooks_ @b_scibelli

These two are not only absolutely stunning models, they are also talented entrepreneurs creating opportunities for other creatives through the events they host for models and photographers.

Beauty, professionalism, creativity, and fun — Kay and Brandy bring all of it to everything they do. Working with them is always a reminder that great images come from great energy as much as great talent.

#KANDY #BeautyPhotography #PortraitPhotography #GlamourPhotography #ModelPhotography taken in Chicago, Illinois, USA by @davidcuerdon

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5 months ago

Happy Birthday, beautiful Kells! 🎉🎂✨

A week ago today I got to work with this stunning human for the first time, at a @arielsalazartphotography workshop and wow… what a great first shoot. @kelseyjoanxx describes herself as an “Artist. Muse. Surfer. Solo Traveler.” All true. But she forgot to add: amazing model, genuinely hilarious, and dangerously easy to photograph.

Some people make you work hard for every shot. Kelsey apparently did not get that memo. She brought beauty, attitude, fun, and effortless presence to every frame, and made it all look unfairly easy.

Photographers, if you shoot glam, beauty, or gorgeous humans in sunshine, go work with Kelsey. Highly recommended.

Happy Birthday again to my new friend and muse — and yes, I am already looking forward to our next shoot! 🎁☀️📷

#HappyBirthday #BirthdayMuse #KelseyJoanxx #BeautyPhotography #GlamPhotography by @davidcuerdon

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5 months ago