Ocken Photography

Chris Ocken and his assistants were amazing!!! Chris did our engagement photos and they were so amazing with the entire Chicago skyline in the background. It was also so FUN to work with him because he has such a great sense of humor and his laugh is contagious! Scott and I felt so relaxed, comfortable, and natural with him. Based on the great engagement photos, we immediately booked Ocken for our wedding. He was so accommodating and flexible. He brought Leigh, an awesome assistant who took many "artsy" pics and Mona, his wonderful intern. We took pics getting ready and all over the city. The results were better than I could have ever imagined and all the pics were ready for us to view and purchase online by the time we came home from our honeymoon. My husband and I enjoyed Ocken so much that Scott actually already said he can wait for us renew our vows so we can work with Chris again! We highly recommend Ocken!

Chris is an amazing photographer, extremely down to earth, and lovely to work with. He and Leigh did a wonderful job with our wedding reception.

Chris and his photographers were great to be around. Chris is like having my own family with me, he made us feel that comfortable. He was clicking away but not in our face making us pose. Once the pictures were given to us to look back at, I made my husband sit and look through them all. The photos told us the story of our wedding all over again. I lived through it and looking at the photos I was able to watch my wedding day as well. Great experience!

AMAZING. Chris and Jessica were so easy and fun to work with for our wedding! The engagement photo shoot, as well as the wedding photos, surpassed our expectations as well as everyone who has seen them. Everything was beautifully shot with a creative perspective. Our friends and family can't stop raving about the capture of our wedding day. They both have such an easy personality that makes it so un-awkward and comfortable. They're always smiling, joking and laughing, but never loose the professionalism. If there's one photographer to go with in Chigao, I'd choose Chris Ocken every time.

Absolutely the best photographer in Chicago!! Chris really made our day special and everyone loved him. Especially since he had to play along at first and pretend to be our long time friend so not to give up the surprise.I will refer Chris to everyone I know.

I could not be happier with Ocken Photography. Not only were they easy to work with and EXTREMELY responsive, but the photos from my wedding were absolutely gorgeous. Chris captured so many special moments that when I look through the shots from the day, it's like reliving it all over again. I truly could not have asked for a better photographer, and I highly recommend Chris and Ocken Photography!

I can't comprehend the first review of Ocken Photography. Chris was very respectful as well as professional and we had over 600 images to chose from when designing our album. Clearly Chris' style and aesthetic was misunderstood. If you want unremarkable bridal photography (i.e. pictures with your feet in them, overlaying hands displaying rings, etc.) then go with Stuart-Rogers or Fred Fox.

We utilized Ocken Photography's services for our wedding and could not have been more pleased. Chris and team were extremely responsive and flexible to our requests. Most importantly the quality of work and ultimately the wedding album turned out great. We would, and have, recomended Ocken Photography to friends and family. Compared to some horror stories from other friends' weddings we feel very lucky to have been referred to them ourselves. Trish & Josh

Ocken Photography were amazing. They are creative, thorough, professional and friendly! All our guests enjoyed having them photograph our wedding and the outcome was a gorgeous montage of the day. I highly recommend them to any couple...espeically if you want quality and creativity!

We picked Chris Ocken to photograph our wedding because we personally clicked with him when we met him --and I thought it would be really important to have someone that we would get along well with since we would be spending so much of our day in close proximity to him. Chris is fun, sweet, and fun-loving and it was a pleasure to spend our day chatting with him. Our whole bridal party really enjoyed him. I wanted pictures in front of the Planetarium, and we took cabs there and had them wait for us...unfortunately his cabbie decided NOT to wait--and drove off with half of Chris' equipment! He was unphased! He continued to take amazing photos at our wedding and had his wife bring him his 'backup' equipment. He was an amazing sport and our pictures were exactly the type I was looking for. I would recommend him highly to anyone!

Wow, that's a rough review, and opposite of what we experienced. Chris was professional, polite, worked hard, and took awesome pictures. Review his portfolio. Our wedding pictures rocked! I don't understand how someone could have had such a horrible experience when ours was so good. Seriously, our pictures are absolutely awesome. Look at his website and the pictures they have taken. I'm almost offended by this bad review becuase we really have pride in our wedding photos and regularly recommend Ocken to our friends. Judge him based on his work and his portfolio, not on a bridezilla (sorry, but we really like him). Rock on Chris, thanks for the great photos...

Ocken Photography came highly recommended and did an AMAZING job at our wedding. They were both professional and fun and made the day last forever with wonderful pictures. I would not hesitate to recommend them to a friend or anyone looking for a great photography experience.

I know that some others have found Ocken to provide decent photography but I had the opposite experience. He seems like a nice guy but is very flaky and didn't take our wedding day seriously. He admitted he was tired but that's no reason we should pay the price for poor photography. Chris Ocken of Ocken photography missed taking pictures of our entire ceremony in what can simply be described as unprofessional negligence. He said he was tired b/c he had worked a previous wedding the night before (imagine saying that to the bride) and then proceeded to miss capturing the entire ceremony -- the rings exchanged, first kiss, etc. to the point where the priest actually stopped the ceremony and asked why he wasn't taking pictures. To think that this is what we remember our priest saying to us during our ceremony. Not only do we not have pictures of our most important moments (the other pix were of the worst quality too -- feet cut off, pictures were dark i.e., inappropriate lighting, among other amateur errors), but he actually became a bad part of the ceremony itself. His wife came in the guise of serving as his "assistant" but I didn't see her do anything and they both sat around leaning against the wall drinking during most of our reception as opposed to taking pictures. Unbelievable. Do not risk hiring him. He may have done good photography for some, but he's definitely selective about when he's "on."

Ocken photography was almost perfect. I'm an artist so wanted fun, unique photos. I told her to please be unobtrusive, have fun, and follow her artistic intuition. We like quirky. She was delighted, and my friends all loved her. The photos were amazing and I loved them.

The package I bought includes a Kolo album with her top 20 photos in it, and I never received it, even though I followed up on it later, which disappointed me. The DVD with all the photos arrived in a timely fashion, though, and the quality was out of this world.

If you are looking for a non-traditional photographer in the Chicagoland area Ocken is fantastic. We were very please with the level of professionalism and that he did everything just as we had discussed. We really wanted to made sure that there were plenty of "candid" shots and not so many posed/forced shots. Chris Ocken did a great job of captuing this while making sure that all of the needed pics were taken, family, first kiss, first dance, etc. We were so please with our wedding pictures that we have hired Chris Ocken to take pictures of our son!

We really loved Chris Ocken! He and his 2nd shooter were a great team and made everyone around them feel comfortable. They're just nice, great guys and overall, very talented in what they do. Very respectful, thoughtful and sweet. They captured some lovely moments and provided some artistic shots of our wedding, which were wonderful. On the whole, we were very happy with their artistry.The only issue we had was the editing. Most of the photos taken raw were dark. I think they only offered 10-15 edited images of the 300-350 images we were given. We also had to pay another $1500 for rights to the images. They were very willing to work with us when we expressed our unhappiness with how dark all our images were. I think for what most photographers provide these days, we didn't get much bang for our buck in retrospect. Overall, I would highly recommend them if they got those kinks ironed out!

Chris, Jen, and the Ocken Gang are fabulous to work with. I even as a industry person trusted their vision for my own wedding. Tons of my clients work with them upon my reference and absolutely love their work!