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Creating a Legacy Through Photography | Northern VA Family Photographer
Creating a Legacy Through Photography | Northern VA Family Photographer
Throughout our lives, we will experience moments which disappear in a whisper. Some will be memorable; others are lost in time. Those moments create and often define our lives. As a studio photographer, we often ask our Round Hill, VA and Purcellville, VA friends and clients:
• How do you document your life for your children?
• How do you capture the special times in your children’s lives so that you can remember those precious moments rather than losing them to time?
What would be your answers to these questions?
Given that you are reading this blog post, then it’s likely that you have given some thought to these types of questions. It’s also highly likely that you value the role of professional portraits and the difference an experienced studio photographer can make in documenting your family.
We’d like to take a closer look at these questions and their answers and offer some tips based on our years of experience as a professional studio photographer.
How do you document your child’s life for them?
Professional Photography
If you haven’t done so already, you should make professional photography a priority in your family life. Prioritize the scheduling of professional portraits of your children and family as often as you possibly can.
Some clients do professional portraits annually and then use those portraits for their holiday cards and to decorate their homes. Those families take advantage of using photography to show how the family has grown and changed over the years.
Other clients opt to work with a professional studio photographer every other year. Some also schedule professional sessions for significant life events such as maternity, newborn, high school senior portraits, engagements, and other important events.
Whatever type of professional session you schedule, the important thing is to schedule it!
Snapshots
Family snapshots can be considered the bread and butter of documenting your family’s or child’s life. Keep your camera or smartphone handy so that you can capture daily life at a split second’s notice. Your child hugging the dog, playing outside, dressed up for prom, and so forth, are great photo ops to capture in a way a portrait photographer cannot because we’re not there on a daily basis.
Don’t make the mistake many people do of reaching for the camera to find it’s out of battery! Keep your camera handy and charged! Smartphone cameras are more sophisticated than ever and take some great pictures, too!
Those everyday pictures will help you document your family and, especially, your child’s life.
Lastly, don’t leave your snapshots living inside your camera or computer where you can’t enjoy or see them regularly. It’s not unheard of for something to go wrong and you lose them. We know someone who lost more than 1,000 precious family photos because they hadn’t backed up their laptop! We recommend using a cloud-based storage as well as occasionally taking the time to create printed photo albums you can order of your pictures.
How do you document your life for your children?
What does that mean, you ask? How are you documenting the lives of parents, grandparents, and other ancestors who are the story of your children’s history? It is their family story, the story of their roots.
Documenting the stories of those that came before your children is a precious gift you can make for your child. They will be so grateful as adults, when you are no longer with them, that you took the time to do so. Those portraits, along with photo albums of your life or your parents’ lives, are one way to document your life for your children.
Through portraiture, you are creating a powerful visual legacy for your children. Don’t underestimate the value of today’s portraits to future generations in your family.
Record Your Life
As a studio photographer, we urge you to record your life.
You can’t go back in time to take portraits, so there isn’t much sense lamenting what is now behind you. But you can assemble your story now through professional family portraits taken across the generations moving forward. Make it a point to capture images of your family and relatives, particularly your parents, your children’s grandparents, now while you can. Those will one day be especially beloved and cherished!
If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, you can write down your family’s history for your children to carry forth with them for future generations. It gives them a sense of self to know their family’s history. As the old saying goes: Roots and wings are the most valuable thing you can give your children! Photography has a unique role to play in giving your children roots and wings.
However you decide to do it, doing something is what matters! Record your daily life through regular snapshots whether using a camera or a smartphone. Document whatever you can so long as you leave a legacy for your children.
We have never heard a client complain that they took too many pictures, bought too many professional portraits, wrote down too much information about the family’s story. In fact, we’ve heard the opposite: Not enough pictures were taken when their children were young, and they never bothered to ask parents and grandparents for details of the family’s history. Remember that history matters to the future not yet lived, not yet born
Fine Art Studio Photographer
As a studio photographer, with both an indoor and outdoor portrait studios, we specialize in helping our clients document and tell their stories for today and tomorrow. Our Round Hill, VA, and Purcellville, VA area studio is always ready to participate in your family’s photographic journey. Contact us today!
Family Photographer, Studio Photographer
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Purcellville, VA and Round Hill, VA in Northern Virginia. We specialize in timeless and emotive fine art family portraits.
Family means everything and capturing those precious moments to preserve forever will mean family heirlooms for you to share for years to come.
Best,
Mindy & Joriana – Contact Us!
Professional Photographer
Photography Tips & Tricks: Confidence is key | Northern VA Family Photographer
Photography Tips & Tricks: Confidence is key | Northern VA Family Photographer
You can become a more confident photographer – yes, really! Being more confident in your photo-taking skills will mean better portraits. We might be a well-known family photographer in the Round Hill, VA area, but even we had to work on our confidence!
Here are eight tips on how to be a more confident photographer:
1. Shoot! And then shoot some more! Take lots and lots of pictures. Practice makes perfect, after all. Digital photography is terrific because there’s no expensive film to buy or waste. Shoot away! You can delete any photos you don’t like. So if you can, take pictures every day.
2. Even if you shoot on “auto” as an amateur photographer, try shooting on manual during various conditions – sunny, cloudy, and various lighting conditions.
3. Go back to school. Read books, read online, follow blogs, take a course or even a one-day class on photography.
4. Be mindful of what you’re not good at and make it a goal to learn more about that. Then practice what you’re learning as you’re learning it. Don’t wait to put into practice what you’ve learned.
5. Be confident even if you don’t feel confident. If you hesitate because you’re nervous putting that camera to use, then you won’t build up your confidence. Get that equipment out and give it a try.
6. Don’t be scared to try different methods or experiment with light. Again, digital photos mean you can delete, delete!
7. Study the work of photographers you admire. What do you like about their work? How can you emulate their work? Learn from other artists. It’s a great way to get better and get more confident.
8. Know your camera! If you don’t know how to operate your camera, it’s tough to feel confident.
The Round Hill, VA area is beautiful! Get outside while the weather is nice and get some great pictures! The more you shoot, the more confident you will get.
Other posts in this series:
Photography Tips & Tricks: Lighting tips for family snapshots
Photography Tips & Tricks: Get natural smiles from your kids!
Photography Tips & Tricks: Underwater Pictures
Photography Tips & Tricks: Pets
When you’re ready for a professional family portrait, be sure to give us a call at 571.434.0009! We look forward to meeting you!
Family Photographer, Portraits
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Round Hill, VA in Northern Virginia. We specialize in timeless and emotive fine art family portraits.
Family means everything and capturing those precious moments to preserve forever will mean family heirlooms for you to share for years to come.
Best,
Mindy & Joriana – Contact Us!
Professional Photographer
What families are saying, Michelle | Northern VA Family Photographer
What families are saying, Michelle | Northern VA Family Photographer
Being a family portrait studio photographer in Northern Virginia is such a pleasure! We proudly serve clients throughout the area, including Round Hill, VA and Purcellville, VA. For some families, portraits with us are the very first professional pictures they’ve had. We love the joy we see in those clients’ faces when they see their family portraits for the first time!
Family Portraits
Michelle and her two daughters, Isabella and Olivia, have had more than one session with us. The first one was held with the gorgeous fall colors as the backdrop. From that family session, Michelle chose a wall portrait collection in our unique Bamboo finish for her home.
She sent us some very kind words regarding both her experience with us as well as about those products. We were so pleased that she loved her portraits! When she later came back to us for a session in our indoor studio, we knew that we had truly made her happy!
Michelle’s Review of Ever After
“Once I scheduled my session, the magic started. Mindy & Joriana worked with me to figure out where I wanted to hang wall art and what various groupings of pictures would look like on various walls in my house, on the color schemes in my house so that the clothes would coordinate with it, and to plan clothing options that my daughters and I could wear.
“And on the day of our session, they were wonderful!! So amazing and personable. But it doesn’t stop there…during my ordering session they were so patient working through over 200 pictures and weeding out the ones I didn’t want and the ones I was on the fence with.
“They had so many different wall art options; of course, canvas, but they also had amazing options with bamboo, metal, and glass. In addition to wall art, they created a beautiful photo book for me. I actually hesitate to call it a ‘photo book.’ It’s a work of art, too! I don’t have strong enough words to express how much I would recommend them to others. I will definitely be working with them again!”
~ Michelle L., Arlington, VA
Family Photographer, Studio Photographer
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Round Hill, VA and Purcellville, VA in Northern Virginia. We specialize in timeless and emotive fine art family portraits.
Family means everything and capturing those precious moments to preserve forever will mean family heirlooms for you to share for years to come.
Best,
Mindy & Joriana – Contact Us!
Professional Photographer
Grandparent/Grandchild Portraits to be Treasured | Northern VA Family Photographer
Grandparent/Grandchild Portraits to be Treasured | Northern VA Family Photographer
Some of the most meaningful portraits we take as a family photographer in the Purcellville, VA area are with grandparents. They are a powerful tribute to the profound intergenerational love families share. They are a tribute to the legacy an older generation fosters with the younger generation of their family. If you haven’t considered doing a professional fine art portrait of your children with their grandparents, you should. Here are some beautiful examples we came across on Pinterest.
Let’s talk shop
So, why should you do a grandparents’ session? Here’s the one-word answer: Memories.
These portraits forever freeze in time a loving image of your child with their grandparent or grandparents. Depending on the age of your child, they may or may not remember their grandparents, or they may have only limited memories of them. Their together portrait is poignant evidence of their relationship even if the child doesn’t remember it. But, it’s also tangible proof of love.
As a photography studio, the importance of capturing the interaction, relationship, and the bond between our subjects is vital to the ethos of our work as fine art family photographers. Portraits need to evoke emotion by capturing emotion – that is what we believe as family photographers!
What can you do with these portraits?
Oh, you can do so many beautiful things with these portraits!
– Enlargements as a gift for your parents and order other ones for your own home!
– A beautiful album for the grandparents filled with gorgeous pictures of them with their beloved grandchildren!
– Order our frameless canvas portraits in any size for each of your children’s rooms – what better way to reinforce intergenerational love and connections?
– Order table-sized portraits for your office.
– The holidays are coming. Often entire families come together during the holidays. It’s the perfect time to schedule a multigenerational portrait session with the grandparents! One of our Generations Sessions would be a great choice for you.
The possibilities are endless.
Contact us to discuss more ideas on scheduling an appointment for your grandparent/grandchild portrait session. As a family photographer in the Purcellville, VA area, we enjoy shooting multigenerational portraits of our clients!
Family Photographer
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Purcellville, VA in Northern Virginia. We specialize in timeless and emotive fine art family portraits.
Family means everything and capturing those precious moments to preserve forever will mean family heirlooms for you to share for years to come.
Best,
Mindy & Joriana – Contact Us!
Professional Photographer
Do you follow us on Social Media? | Northern VA Family Photographer
Do you follow us on Social Media? | Northern VA Family Photographer
Pssst! Would you like to know a little secret? We have a confession! We spend our days dedicated to photography and fine art portraits across the Round Hill, VA and Northern Virginia areas! But we love social media during our spare time!
Do you follow us on social media? If you don’t follow us, consider this your invitation. You don’t want to miss out on any of our fantastic information. What can we say? We aren’t just good at photography. We are also good at posting and collecting great information through social media – and it’s all to your benefit.
Like most people, we use social media for the interaction it affords us with clients, friends, and potential customers. Whether it’s Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter, we post a broad range of information including Ever After’s services and upcoming sessions. We don’t just post, though. We also use social media to keep up with the latest trends, products, and services related to our work.
Social media has done more than revolutionize people’s lives. It’s also influenced how businesses expose their brand and services and maintain an active connection to their clients. Here are some of the social media sites we use and the links to them.
We hope you’ll stay connected to us!
Who doesn’t love Facebook?! You can find our website’s blog posts on our Facebook page along with other interesting information we like to post. Remember that when you “like” a Facebook page, you need to turn on notifications for that page, or you won’t see posts from that page in your news feed. To enable notifications for our FB posts, just hover your mouse over the “like” button and you’ll see a pop-up box. In that box, scroll down to Notifications and click on “on.” Voila! Now you’ll see our posts in your news feed. You can even send us messages via Facebook if you like! Let us know what topics you’d like to hear more about from us.
Do you tweet? We do! You’ll find more information and tips from us on a broad range of things related photography, our work, and everyday life!
Google Plus
Although Google Plus isn’t yet as popular as other social media platforms, it’s a quick and easy way to find us — especially if you have a Google Plus profile as well! Click open our profile to find our contact information and a Google map for directions to our studios. You can send us a message or leave a review. Our blog posts are all right there by scrolling down the page!
We saved one of our favorites for last! We don’t know about you, but we love Pinterest! If you don’t have a Pinterest account, we encourage you to join. We have to warn you, though: it’s addictive! Our Pinterest account is there for YOU. We have 246 board full of ideas; 18,800 pins; and more than 2,000 followers! If you’re not one of them, you’re missing out! We have 16, yes, 16, boards on what-to-wear suggestions! We want to make your portrait session as stress-free as possible for you. Need some inspiration or ideas for your next portraits? We have 21 boards of inspiration. There are links to other photography websites for inspiration as well. We could on and on, but it’s much easier if you just visit our page and follow along!
If you’re interested in fine art photography and portraits in the Round Hill, VA or Northern Virginia area, we hope you’ll connect with us on social media!
Family Photographer, Family Portraits
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Round Hill, VA in Northern Virginia. We specialize in timeless and emotive fine art family portraits.
Family means everything and capturing those precious moments to preserve forever will mean family heirlooms for you to share for years to come.
Best,
Mindy & Joriana – Contact Us!
Professional Photographer
What families are saying, Deveney & Christian | Northern VA Family Photographer
What families are saying, Deveney & Christian | Northern VA Family Photographer
As a professional photographer located in Northern Virginia, near Purcellville, VA, we specialize in family photography. This gorgeous mom, Deveney, wanted special portraits with her son, Christian, and we were more than happy to provide them! We featured Deveney and Christian on our blog a short time ago if you’d like to see more of their fall portraits.
Deveney sent us some very kind words regarding both the session and the products she chose. We are always pleased when we give our clients what they want!
“My experience with Ever After was that they were very accommodating with helping me with the colors of clothes, with rescheduling because of weather — and I really liked how they took the sunlight and the elements around us and made sure everything was in place to get the perfect shot. In addition, they just have the eye and the expertise to put everything in place together in the final product — I just love the design of my album!
“The quality of the products is like none other that I’ve seen. You can’t get what they create just anywhere and it’s not something that you see every day. I would not know where you could go to purchase what I have because it is so unique. I consider it art — it is so much more than putting a photo up; it’s capturing a moment and then being able to share that moment in time with everyone who enters my home.
“One of the things I loved about working with Mindy & Joriana was the custom nature of the products and how personal the service was. It was specialized and custom to fit my needs and desires. I didn’t want to just get one large single image; I loved so many of the images that I wanted a grouping to tell a story. They worked with me to choose images that complemented each other. I love enjoying the art on my walls every day. I look forward to being photographed again to document the next stage of my son’s life, hopefully with my parents.” ~ Deveney (from Virginia)
Family Photographer, Professional Photographer
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Purcellville, VA in Northern Virginia. We specialize in timeless and emotive fine art family portraits.
Family means everything and capturing those precious moments to preserve forever will mean family heirlooms for you to share for years to come.
Best,
Mindy & Joriana – Contact Us!
Professional Photographer
Storing Digital Photographs | Northern VA Family Photographer
Storing Digital Photographs | Northern VA Family Photographer
By far, the question we get the most in portrait session phone call inquiries is, “When I have photography done, do I get the digital files?” That has prompted this post and what some may feel is a controversial statement: Far and away, the very best way to “store” digital photographs is still to print them!
I can practically hear you gasping at this concept but please hear me out.
The earliest known surviving photograph made in a camera was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826, 190 years ago. It’s the view from an upstairs window at his estate in the Burgundy region of France. No, it’s not of the finest quality available to us today, but you can still clearly see the courtyard, buildings and trees. More important, though, is this fact: This photograph has lasted all of this time.
Photography, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826
Printed photographs are truly tangible memories. You can see them, touch them. They call up the emotions we were feeling when they were taken. They draw us back to what was happening on that day. They link us to our past.
Unfortunately, today photography is thought of in a throwaway fashion. We take multiple shots with our phone cameras. Then we delete all but one of them, the one we feel is “perfect.” That perfect shot is kept on the phone, or occasionally it’s transferred to a computer hard drive.
In essence, as a society we are depending upon digital media to keep and preserve our memories. By doing this, we’re putting all of our eggs in one proverbial basket. We all know what that means: If you drop the basket, you lose all of the eggs. The same can be said for our reliance on digital storage to preserve our precious photographic memories.
The chart below clearly shows the durability of digital storage. I can tell you this: I was shocked at the short duration of these various mediums.
Durability of Digital Storage
Consider this: Niépce’s photograph is still with us because it was printed. Obviously, there was no alternative for him. Nor is there one for us now, in truth.
When a potential photography client asks me for digitals, I ask them, “Why do you want them?”
Usually, the reply is something like “So I can print them” or “So that I can have them.”
My response to the first reply is usually this: As a professional photographer, I know that taking a digital file to a drugstore or a big box store and printing it will not provide the client with the same quality as I can provide with a professional commercial lab that works only with photographers. I love my clients so much that I feel their precious memories are worth only the highest quality in print media.
The second reply is based on a fallacy that by having a digital, you have the image and you’ll have it forever. But digital data is just an abstract of ones and zeroes, and being able to access it in the future depends entirely on the format it’s saved in and the durability of that format.
So the only real justification for having digital files is so that you will have a backup in case something happens to your prints. In the time of film photography, people would ask for the negatives. But it appears that today, people have come to believe that prints are the backups of digitals, not the other way around!
This truly unfortunate reliance on digital has caused people to assume that their future selves or children or grandchildren will still have access to this data and be able to retrieve it. Think about this: If you look in your attic or storage building, will you find old boxes containing 8-track and cassette tapes, or VHS and Beta tapes? You probably have at least a few of those somewhere. Now, do you have a device on which to play them?
The same thing will be true of digital photography files in the future. There’s even a new photograph file format now, the BPG, which some expect to replace the JPG. In 25 years, will your children be able to even look at digital files saved in the JPG format? We don’t really know.
I have several discs of photographs from when my daughter, Joriana, was a baby and a toddler. The last time I put one of those discs in my computer (trying to pull up some of her child photographs for her wedding slideshow), the computer made the most awful noise! It was having great difficulty reading the disc. In fact, most of them were completely unreadable. They’d degraded and/or become damaged through the years, maybe because of heat or just scratched in some way. These discs were made 20 years ago. Thankfully, I had a few prints for the slideshow, but I truly wish I had had more.
Technology moves so blindingly fast nowadays! The assumption that digital is forever is a tragic falsehood. Just look back to the above chart!
A lot of people will say that they’re not at all worried because everything is backed up in “the cloud.” But what they’re forgetting is that “the cloud” is just another hard drive, another server, one that is just as susceptible to failure, hacking, viruses and corruption as any computer we ourselves have. Even if the server doesn’t fail, will you always remember your password? Will your children and your grandchildren have access to this in the future? Will they have your passwords and logins? Will the company you’re using to back up your data even be around when your grandchildren grow up?
BloombergView Columnist Justin Fox recently wrote an article entitled “The Digital Dark Ages Are Upon Us.” In his article, he references a speech given by Walter Isaacson, the biographer of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. Mr. Isaacson’s next subject is Leonardo da Vinci.
Mr. Isaacson had this to say regarding his research efforts, “Leonardo left more than 7,000 notebook pages of drawings, thoughts, and ideas. They’re all on paper, which makes them extraordinarily easy to access even after five centuries. Indeed, Leonardo’s notes are far easier to access than our e-mails, tweets, blog posts, and Facebook pages will be five centuries from now. When I was meeting with Steve Jobs and we were trying to get the emails he had sent in the 1990s, they were impossible to retrieve, even by his tech people. When I asked a university librarian recently the best way to preserve some interesting e-mails I had, she said I should print them out on paper and put them in a box.”
Justin Fox can relate to this apparently, because he says, “I have similar issues with my own published writing. I still possess copies of pretty much everything that’s come out on paper, but some work that appeared only in digital form is gone forever.”
There is no doubt that there will soon be a generation of children with little to no evidence of their childhood because any photographic digital files have corroded and been lost or are simply inaccessible.
I do not want this to happen to even one of my photography clients! I help each client choose the right printed products for their budget and taste. A beautiful family wall portrait for the home will be seen and enjoyed every single day. There is so much value in having portraits displayed in your home, portraits that capture the love you have as a family and which make you smile every time you walk past them!
I truly believe with all of my heart that it is a disservice to my clients if I were to only give them digital files and then leave them to swim in the abyss of various poor printing options. After all, the labs we use are professional labs not available to the consumer, and they provide high quality printing, even museum quality printing.
If I were to provide a client with only digital files, I’m sure that most clients would really have the best of intentions regarding printing; but in all honesty, the majority would never do a thing with them, would never print a single image, and would simply put the USB in a drawer and forget it was even there. Regarding this exact matter, a fellow photographer recently conducted a survey of 50 clients. Of the 32 who responded, only 2 had printed anything!
So please, please love your future family enough to print and display your portraits!
For professional family portraits, please consider hiring a professional photographer. We have access to wonderful labs, and your family portrait artwork will be more beautiful than you can imagine. For our studios, every single wall art finish is rated to last 150 to 200 years with normal use. That is truly a precious heirloom to be passed down to future generations.
I leave you with a photograph of my grandparents, Joriana’s great-grandparents, on their wedding day back in 1908. I am so very grateful that my mother had this printed photograph!
Family Photographer, Family Photography
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located in Northern Virginia, in Sterling, VA. We specialize in timeless and emotive fine art family portraits.
Family means everything and capturing those precious moments to preserve forever will mean family heirlooms for you to share for years to come.
Best,
Mindy & Joriana – Contact Us!
Professional Photographer
Ann, Headshot Portrait Session | Northern VA Family Photographer
Ann, Headshot Portrait Session | Northern VA Family Photographer
Just before leaving for her new job in Georgia, Ann contacted us for headshots she needed. Never underestimate the value of a great headshot photo! Like Ann, most professionals will need a good headshot at some point. The Northern VA area, including Purcellville, VA and Sterling, VA, is well-populated with professionals, and many turn to us (as their family photographer) for their professional pictures.
The growth of social media and its enormous influence on how business is conducted these days has impacted the need for professional branding headshots. Our professional and personal digital footprints are everywhere from LinkedIn to Pinterest to a company’s website. Even speaking before an audience today finds you needing a headshot! As a portrait studio in Northern Virginia, we know the value of headshot and can do a terrific portrait for you!
Unfortunately for us, Ann didn’t just need a headshot, she was also moving away. She had hoped to do a family portrait here in the area before their move, but they ended up not having enough time. The family moved this past July. We wish them well in their new state and their new lives there. However, we know that Ann’s infectious smile (just look at her gorgeous picture!) and terrifically upbeat personality will help her make the personal and professional transition very quickly. After working with Ann we have no doubt that Georgia’s gain is Virginia’s loss!
As a full-service and versatile family photographer near Purcellville, VA, we are happy to work with current or new clients to offer them a great headshot or photo portfolio. Sometimes having more than one headshot handy is a great idea; different looks for different needs.
Think about it: Do you have a recent professionally done headshot that represents you well? Call us if you’d like to do one or update your old one!
Family Photographer, Headshot Photographer
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Purcellville, VA in Northern Virginia. We specialize in timeless and emotive fine art family portraits.
Family means everything and capturing those precious moments to preserve forever will mean family heirlooms for you to share for years to come.
Best,
Mindy & Joriana – Contact Us!
Professional Photographer
Great Places to Explore in Northern Virginia | Northern VA Family Photographer
Great Places to Explore in Northern Virginia | Northern VA Family Photographer
You don’t need to be a professional photographer to be struck by the beauty of the Virginia landscape between Sterling, VA where our studios are located and the general Purcellville, VA area. While we tend to see things through the eye of a photographer, anyone can enjoy the many beautiful sites Northern Virginia has to offer!
We wanted to share a few great spots with you in case you’re inspired to explore with your family and maybe even get that camera out. We’re pretty sure you’ll get some fabulous pictures in any of these places. Feel free to share some of yours!
Fun Family Places to Photograph
1. Sunflower fields: Just across the Potomac near the Seneca Schoolhouse, you’ll find the Sunflower fields. There are several opportunities there to browse and cut your own flowers (purchased), but you also can get some stunning pictures here throughout the day. Remember to ask before wandering around on private property!
2. Walney Pond and Park: This lovely park with a nature center, extensive trails, and a pond makes a great choice for those who love water pictures! It’s also a lovely place for fine art photography for the pros out there.
3. Algonkian Regional Park: You can get some nice sunset pictures here (if it’s not too busy). There are some open fields and meadows as well as picturesque wooded areas accessible by paved and natural trails. Check out the Potomac while you’re there!
4. Walker Nature Center in Reston also offers some beautiful sites to enjoy as well as photograph. There are more than 700 acres of forest, 50 meadows, and four wetlands in addition to four lakes, three ponds and 20 miles of streams!
5. Meadowlark Botanical Gardens with its stunning 95 acres of ornamental-display gardens in Vienna, Virginia are also perfect for exploring and photography. If you want to take pictures, you might want to consider a weekday. There are lake views, a Korean Bell Garden, and a restored 18th Century log cabin.
6. We’re stepping out of Virginia for this one, but Harper’s Ferry is both a town and national park. History abounds here from the charming streets of the town to the lush forests of the park and historical site.
As one of the leading professional photographers in the Purcellville, VA and Sterling, VA area, we’d love to hear from you on what your favorite places are across Northern Virginia. Maybe we’ll feature of few of them on our blog as well!
Family Photographer, Professional Photographer
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Purcellville, VA in Northern Virginia. We specialize in timeless and emotive fine art family portraits.
Family means everything and capturing those precious moments to preserve forever will mean family heirlooms for you to share for years to come.
Best,
Mindy & Joriana – Contact Us!
Professional Photographer
Photography Tips & Tricks: Pets | Northern VA Family Photographer
Photography Tips & Tricks: Pets | Northern VA Family Photographer
Continuing our Photography Tips & Tricks for our clients and friends, we want to discuss our pets! Yes, we may be a family photographer near Purcellville, VA, but we know just how much humans love their pets. So, let’s talk pet photography!
When is the last time you took a great picture of Fido? (We are using a dog name but it isn’t to demean cats or their indentured servants a/k/a humans!) You don’t need to bring Fido into our studio, but it’s really worth taking a nice photo of your beloved four-legged friends!
Here are some tips on photographing your pet:
Natural light
It’s much easier for you, and less frightening for your pet, if you use natural light as much as possible. There won’t be a flash to startle the dog/cat/lizard/pot-bellied pig (you get the idea!) and it will be much easier if you don’t have to fiddle with a flash!
Focus on their eyes
With human subjects, we suggest you focus in on their face and, especially, their eyes. You should be able to see light reflected in their eyes. If you can’t see the reflection, there’s not enough light. Focus in on your pet’s eyes!
Get down to their level
Just as with human photos you’ll find on any photography websites, you want to get down to their eye level or below. Get down on the floor at Fido’s level.
Personality
Just as we work hard to capture your family’s personality in our portrait work, you should do the same for your four-legged friend. You know them better than anyone. Documenting what they typically do or like is a great way to capture their portrait. Do they have a favorite spot on the couch or armchair? Shoot them there.
Come in close
People often make the mistake of shooting their pet from a distance and not zooming in. Some of the best pet pictures involve their face – after all, the eyes are the window to the soul. Zoom in close!
Candid shots
Unless your pet is exceptionally well-trained, it will be difficult to get him to strike a pose for more than a few seconds, if at all. Make sure you’re ready to take the shot before you actually try to take it!
Patience
Use your patience, dear human; these are animals after all, descended from the wild!
Snap away
Just like with humans, you’ll likely need to take a lot of pictures in order to get a few great shots. Snap away and be prepared to do more than one “pet session”!
We’re always happy to have you include your beloved furry friend in your next family portrait whether or not yours have worked out. It can take years of experience (and a large dose of patience) to photograph children and pets. Luckily, as a family photographer near Purcellville, VA, we have both and we love both children and pets!
Other posts in this series:
Photography Tips & Tricks: Lighting tips for family snapshots
Photography Tips & Tricks: Get natural smiles from your kids!
Photography Tips & Tricks: Underwater Pictures
Family Photographer
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Purcellville, VA in Northern Virginia. We specialize in timeless and emotive fine art family portraits.
Family means everything and capturing those precious moments to preserve forever will mean family heirlooms for you to share for years to come.
Best,
Mindy & Joriana – Contact Us!
Professional Photographer