Back to School 2014 | Leesburg Child Photographer

I love back to school photos! This year I did a separate photo shoot for each of my children. For my daughter, I did the same as last year and took her out by our pond for an evening photo shoot. Unfortunately the weather was not as cooperative as last year, but I still captured her beautiful spirit and excitement over being in first grade.

For my son, there unfortunately was not time to take his before or after his first day of preschool (and the weather wasn't great that day either!), so at the end of his first week I did a shoot in front of the building that houses his school. One of the best things about little boys is their sheer enthusiasm and ability to have fun just running around!  I was also fortunate that, unlike some other times I have tried to take his photo, he was very cooperative with me. I think he was also very excited to be in the 4s preschool class; one step closer to kindergarten!

Ms. L: Author Photos | Northern Virginia Photographer

About a month ago I met up with the lovely Laura, a friend of a friend. Laura is getting back into freelance writing, and needed some photos taken for an article she was writing. I was happy to help, and so I met Laura at her house and we took some photos to go with her article.

The article is very moving and personal. It's hard to read at times, and eye opening, and I really respect Laura for putting herself out there to hopefully help others who may be in her position. I highly recommend clicking through and reading her very personal story.

http://www.xojane.com/healthy/i-reread-the-journal-i-kept-on-the-psych-ward-to-remind-me-what-i-learned-there

Little Miss J Turns 2 | Leesburg Child Photographer

A few weeks ago, my neighbor asked me to take photos of her daughter for her second birthday. She was an absolute gem to work with (which you can't say about a lot of 2 year olds!), and I could not be happier with her shoot! I mean, who can really get enough of those cheeks?!

Little Miss S: Lifestyle Newborn Photos

At the end of July one of my best friends gave birth to her second daughter. I visited her in the hospital, as I did the first time, only this time she asked me to also take some photos of her beautiful new baby girl. I was happy to oblige, as the love in the room was overflowing! Plus, who wouldn't want to photograph this beautiful baby girl?

Little Miss S: 1 day old

Just over a month ago, one of my best friends gave birth to her second daughter. Just like the first time, I wanted to visit her in the hospital, as I know how nice it is to get people to visit you during that time! Plus, you're of course very excited to show off your adorable new baby! This time, I brought my camera with me to capture some sweet newborn hospital photos for her and her husband. 

The I Family: Black and Whites | Leesburg, VA Family Photographer

Last month I had the pleasure to once again shoot family photos for some good friends of mine. Last year we did their shoot at Ida Lee park; this year we headed to Morven Park and the beautiful scenery there. I could not have been happier with this shoot - they are a lovely family, soon to add a fourth. I've already been asked to take their newborn photos; I cannot wait!

I've posted a sneak peek album on Facebook; while the colors they were wearing and the lovely background were stunning, here I wanted to focus on the black and whites that we got from this session. There's something about a gorgeous black and white portrait that really stands out!

The S family: Kids | Leesburg, VA Family & Child Photographer

In mid-April, my neighbors asked me to do a family photo shoot for them. We had a last minute change of venue due to an event at our planned site, but I scouted out a lovely covered bridge and walking path, and I think everyone was very happy with how the photos turned out - I know I was!

 I have already posted their full sneak peak album on Facebook - it wasn't just the 4 of them, but also their extended family (brother, sister-in-law, their two kids, and Grandpa!). Doing a shoot for 9 people is a  bit different from anything I have done before, but it was a lot of fun. Here, I wanted to focus on the four adorable kids! They were so good for the shoot, and lovely to photograph.

Baby E: 2 months

After taking headshots of a friend of mine, I had the opportunity to take photos of his two month old daughter. Her mother brought an absolutely adorable hand-made dress for the photos. This was a great opportunity for me to use a basket that I purchased specifically for baby photos!

Family photo shoot

Remember back at the end of 2013 when I posted all of those wedding photos? After the wedding, my brother- and sister-in-law, with their son, stayed with us for a few days before returning to Australia. For one night, my in-laws also joined us so that we could have some quality family time, as things were hectic during the wedding. While here, my sister in law asked if I would take some "official" portraits of them, and it turned into a photo shoot of the whole family, with a bunch of different combinations. We turned my living room into a portrait studio, and had some fun!

I started with my adorable nephew and his parents.

 

Silliness in the Studio

Yesterday's post highlighted the sweet shots that I captured when I put the kids in front of the new backdrop in my studio. Here I show their silly side..I can't decide which I like better!

Sweetness in the Studio

In February I purchased a few new things for my studio, including a new backdrop that I'm really liking. I popped the kids down in front of it with some props, and captured the sweetness that followed.

Be My Valentine!

I'm not really a Valentine's Day girl - my husband and I don't do anything for the "holiday", and it's always seemed a little silly to me. However, I have to admit that I do love the color combinations (red, pink, and silver? bring it on!), and with having a girly-girl in my house I thought why not set up a shoot for Valentine's Day? I knew she'd be a fantastic model, and I wanted to try out the new backdrop that I purchased over the weekend. I could not be happier with the results!

 In fact, I'm running a Valentine's Day special - $50 for a 30 minute session, getting 10 photos of your little Valentines! Please contact me if you'd like to schedule a shoot this week.

Two family photo shoots

In November I had the pleasure to do two separate family photo shoots - it made for a busy month! I put full sneak peeks of both families on Facebook, but wanted to show my favorite shots from each shoot here. Both shoots were at Morven Park, but ended up so different from each other! That's one of the things that I love most: finding a beautiful location and then personalizing it for each person/family.

Back-to-school High School shoot

About two months ago I had the pleasure of doing my first back-to-school shoot of the year, and my first ever of someone in high school! She is the lovely daughter of one of my colleagues, and I had a fantastic time shooting her. We headed over to Morven Park to take advantage of the beautiful setting.

Mother-daughter maternity shoot

About two months ago, I took some photos of my family's photographer (Blaire at Second Avenue Photography) before she gave birth. Blaire was well into her third trimester when she did our 10th anniversary photo shoot (those photos will be up soon as well, including the description of how they came about and our creative collaboration!), and I really wanted some experience with doing maternity shots. When I asked her if she would be willing to be my model for a maternity shoot, she gladly acquiesced and brought her adorable 2.5 year old along with her for the shoot. We went to the same location as our anniversary shoot, Morven Park, as the scenery is beautiful and we knew we'd have enough room for Izzy to run around. I ended up with dozens of shots that I loved, and quickly posted an album of my faves on Facebook here. I just went through these photos again this week, and realized I hadn't written up a post about them yet, so I thought I would rectify that immediately! Some of these were already posted in the FB album (I loved them enough to post them here again), but some are new.

Photo shoot at a lavender farm

My previous post were photos of the beautiful flora (and a few fauna!) at the Seven Oaks Lavender Farm. The real reason I went there, however, was to photograph two beautiful young ladies. I've wanted practice with more girls around their teen years, as I'd really like to do senior portraits next year, and our wonderful daycare provider was generous enough to let me use two of her daughters. The girls even volunteered to babysit the night before in exchange for dinner, then spent the night, and we headed out to the lavender farm early Saturday morning (after the appropriate hair and makeup time, of course!).

I wanted to catch the nice morning light; however, even at 9am the sun was quite strong. This was also good practice for me to work with that kind of light, and practice with my reflector to eliminate unwanted shadows. There's still a lot of practice to be done, but I'm very happy with these shots. The first ones are all from within the lavender bushes.

Girls in Tutus

A few weeks ago, my friend Blaire at Second Avenue Photography put a call out over Facebook for some girls to be models for her. She does a number of product shoots for people she "meets" on Etsy, and was doing a trade shoot for a tutu designer (she gets sent the items to photograph on girls, and gets to keep the products). A few of us volunteered, and all met up at a local park to take the photos. Blaire was generous enough to allow me to take a few photos during the shoot, but I stayed out of her way as it was her shoot!

Blaire posted her few favorites here on her blog (there is an embedded link there to even more photos on Facebook from this shoot). 

My shots of course focused primarily on my daughter. The tutus were *just* large enough to fit her, and she had a thoroughly wonderful time modeling various combinations.

The K family

Two weeks ago was my second large family photo shoot. The first you can easily access on the right sidebar - the Nicholson/Philips Family. Two adults, 6 kids...big group! This one was very similar - two parents, five kids, and one grandmother. The shoot primarily focused on the children, and I've shared my favorites of the family in an album on Facebook. It was ridiculously cold and windy, but the location was lovely and everyone was a very good sport despite the weather! We had beautiful early morning light, yet many of my favorites were the ones that I edited to be in black and white and/or muted tones, so I'm highlighting those here. Enjoy!

Baby B.

At the beginning of January I visited some friends of mine who had recently had a baby (she was 6 weeks old when I photographed her). She was so good - didn't fuss at all when I undressed her for the shoot, and she was so fascinated by the light from the camera that she made a wonderful subject. Here are my faves from the shoot:

Nicholson-Phillips family: Portraits

I have a few more favorites from my photo shoot from earlier this month to share here.