I've known Jen Hathy for a few years. She is a photographer living in Chicago. (I've had a lot of Chicago artists lately, huh? Maybe I'll move there and start Design Chicago...)

Jen's been taking photos since she was a kid. As she recalls, her family never really took pictures or kept record of special events. "We've got nothing for family photos, and some things just need remembering.

"I started stealing my grandfather's camera, it's either a really old Nikon or a Cannon, I forget which, when I was like, 7. It has this telephoto lens that's like 2 feet long, and you usually had to use a tripod with it. It was my favorite thing ever. I still have it, but it's missing a lot of the original lenses and filters."

She started taking photos of her cats, then started climbing trees to take pictures of thunderstorms. As she grew up, she would take photos anywhere she could, whether it was for her friend's metal magazine or chasing tornadoes. "Later in my teens, I hooked up with some Doppler weather chaser nerds. I always had stuff to take pictures of, and I really miss tornado chasing. Somewhere I have pictures of a tornado devouring a trailer where I lived at the time. Man, weather is fun to shoot."

Jen has a DeviantArt account, kind of a cross between Etsy and Myspace. On it, you can view a user's gallery of work, and if you like something, you can order a print. DeviantArt will take care of printing and shipping it to you, and keeps a portion of the profit.

My favorite thing about Jen is her lack of pretension, whether it be in her work or her life. "I don't have a message or a manifesto or a particular 'thing' I do, I just shoot what I like."