World Photography Day 2016 | Northern VA Family Photographer

Name: Ever After Portraits
Price range: $$$

Today, August 19, 2016, is World Photography Day! The first patent related to photography was granted today in 1839. World Photography Day is a day to celebrate and recognize photographers and photography around the world. It’s an ancient day of celebration (actually, it’s been around since 2010). But, as a portrait studio located in Northern VA, we love the idea of an international day to honor all photographers and their work! We also think it’s a great day to consider scheduling your own fall family portraits!

You don’t have to be a professional to be recognized today. In honor of World Photography Day, we thought we’d share ten facts about photography. We are also posting a website honoring this special day where you can upload your photos on a gallery.

World Photo Day Website

A World Photo Day website collects photos each year throughout the month of August. Users may create an account and upload their photos to their galleries. We have not used this site ourselves so as always, we recommend you read carefully through their user and copyright information. Typically, we suggest watermarking your photos when posting them publicly. (There are several online websites and programs to help with this.)

We wish we could take the credit for compiling this list of facts, but we have to give credit to William Hartston of The Daily Express in London.

TEN FACTS ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY IN HONOR OF WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY DAY:

1. The date celebrates August 19, 1839, when the French government bought the patent for the daguerreotype and released it “free to the world”.

2. The daguerreotype, invented in 1837, was the first practical photographic process.

3. The earliest known permanent photographic image, however, was created by a more complex process called heliography in 1826.

4. The exposure time needed to create that photograph was eight hours.

5. Thanks to digital cameras on mobile phones, more than 350 billion photos are now taken worldwide every year.

6. Around 250 billion photographs have been uploaded to Facebook.

7. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a darkroom installed at Windsor Castle to indulge their passion for photography.

8. The first photo of the Moon was in 1851; the first photo of its dark side was in 1959.

9. The earliest known use of the word “photograph” was in 1839 by the astronomer Sir John Herschel.

10. The earliest known use of the abbreviation “photo” was by Queen Victoria in a letter in 1860.

If you’d like to honor World Photography Day by not only taking your own pictures but by scheduling a professional family portrait session with our professional portrait studio in Northern VA, not too far from the Round Hill, VA area, contact us today! We’re happy to help you out and explain our services.

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. 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

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly! | Northern VA Family Photographer

As a headline for a photography blog, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” might have caught your attention! However, it’s not exactly what you might think. We thought we’d share some portrait photography studio stories from here in the Potomac Falls, VA area!

The Good

There are so many things that are good about being photographers! Where do we start? Without a doubt, the best thing is our relationship with our clients. They are the backbone of our business and the reason we do what we do!

We love to photograph families who have never had a custom, wall-art experience. Their reactions when they come in to view their slideshow of completed portraits are gratifying and validate our work as photographers. Our clients often tell us that their portraits are far more beautiful than they expected. But, we already knew that; we could see the emotions on their faces!

The Bad and The Ugly

Luckily, there truly haven’t been many bad or ugly experiences! During our early years doing portrait sessions, we had a client purchase wall art where things did not go as we’d hoped. Unfortunately, when she took home her portrait, it did not fit the wall she had chosen in advance. Fortunately, there was another wall in her home for this special family portrait, but she was so disappointed – as were we! The last thing we ever want is for ANY of our clients to leave disappointed from an Ever After experience!

Soon after that, we invested in specialty design software to ensure no other client ever had the same experience. We no longer ask our clients to pull out the tape measure or to do what some want to do and guess at the size of a wall. Our clients can now tape our rule to the wall they’ve selected, take an iPhone photo of the wall, and text or email it to us. We upload that picture into our software, and when we are ready for the client’s viewing, we can show them exactly what any portrait would look like in various sizes on their wall! That’s technology put to truly good use!

Life is made up of experiences which become memories. Learning from our mistakes makes our lives better in the future. For Ever After, our “good” has far outweighed the bad and the ugly! If you’d like to work with a professional portrait photography studio in the Potomac Falls, VA area, we would love to work with you.

Family Photographer, Portrait Photography Studio

Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography studio team in Potomac Falls, 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

Our Happiness Project | Northern VA Family Photographer

Do you know what makes you happy in your life? As a Potomac Falls, VA portrait photography studio, we might be the last people you expect to ask what makes you happy. However, it’s an important question and one that Gretchen Rubin posed in her bestselling book, The Happiness Project. After an epiphany one day, Ms. Rubin realized that life is short and she wasn’t focusing on the things that mattered to her. She dedicated the entire next year to what she called her “Happiness Project” – her exploration of different avenues to being a happier person.

Happiness comes from within ourselves

So, how about you? What makes you happy? We know what makes us happy. Besides our family, our work brings us tremendous joy and happiness. Unlike some people, we are so fortunate to be able to follow and live our passion as photographers. Do you practice what you love each day? Do you work in a job or profession you’re excited to be a part of each day? Sometimes we don’t have a choice and need to work to make ends meet. However, that’s not to say you still can’t find ways to practice happiness in your life. Jobs can be a means to an end while what we do outside of the job can bring joy and meaning to our lives.

We Love What We Do!

We have spent decades building up our clientele and establishing a highly-reputable studio working with families and individuals throughout Northern Virginia. It hasn’t always been easy, and certainly some days were far better or more interesting than others, but we feel incredibly fortunate. We spend our days pursuing an art form we respect and enjoy honing and perfecting. More than that, we enjoy connecting with people and being a part of their lives. We have the privilege of being entrusted with our clients’ important moments in life. Every time we see the happiness we bring others through our work, it’s personally satisfying to us as well!

Seek your happiness in whatever way you can! Start your own happiness project if you haven’t already. Trust us: The hard work on the path to finding happiness will be well worth it! For about 20 years now, we have built our professional lives around our Potomac Falls area portrait photography studio. We would do it all over again if we had to! It’s been OUR happiness project!

Family Photographer, Portrait Photography Studio

Ever After Portraits is a portrait photography studio in Potomac Falls, VA, in Northern VA. It’s comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter photography team. 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

Clivia, Mayra & Enriqueta, Family Portraits | Northern VA Family Photographer

Women tend to bear powerful connections to other women in their lives. When it is three generations of women, then it is all the more powerful! Our dear friend Clivia knows the role photography can play in honoring these relationships, so she contacted us at our studio not far from Lowes Island, VA.

Clivia, who lives with her husband and three older children in Sterling, VA, asked us to photograph three generations of women in her family – her daughter, her mother, and herself. We were honored and excited to work with Clivia and her family! Rather than shoot the portrait in our photography studio, we opted for our Outdoor Portrait Park.

Three Generations

As you can see, the two younger women, Clivia and Mayra, lovingly leaned in and wrapped their arms around their matriarch, Enriqueta. However, what we also see is a beautiful pillar of strength in the center bound by two legacies emulating that force. There is no better example of the power of photography.

Photography, like a painting, can capture something that isn’t possible to do every single moment of our lives. In this case, it is the love and bond between three generations of one family. Clivia’s mother lives some distance away, making it difficult for the three generations to see each other often. Clivia, who’s quite close to her daughter, wanted a personal portrait of the three, their first professional portrait together.

The portrait, depicting the love and bond between them, captures a rare moment for them. All three are together. When they are apart, their portraits serve as a potent reminder of the love that binds a family together.

Outdoor Portrait Park

As a studio, we treasure the role photography plays in the lives of our clients. Photography allows us to capture something worthy of being documented and of being honored. While we took this portrait in the Lowes Island, VA area, if you are within driving distance we would love to work with you. Together, we can document that which you treasure most – your love for your family.

Family Photographer, Family Photograpy

Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located in Sterling, VA, near Lowes Island, 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

Pass on your family legacy & bring your old photos back to life | Northern VA Family Photographer

There are many ways to tell a story. More than a decade ago, we chose photography as our form of storytelling. It’s not just our profession; it’s our passion here in the Lowes Island, VA area. Long before the invention of photography, written and oral storytelling were how families passed down generations of history. Although those forms remain invaluable today, combining the three is a powerful way to retell our stories through the generations.

Not long ago, our friend and fellow photographer was fortunate enough to experience all three forms of storytelling: oral, written, and photographic. Her story reminded us that many people have old photo albums and pictures collecting dust somewhere. It’s time to pull those out and do something with them!

Our friend, Sabina, had the opportunity to enjoy weeks of visits with a beloved grandmother before the older woman’s passing. During their visits, Sabina and her grandmother sat and looked through old family photos. The older woman recounted memories and the stories behind the pictures. As her grandmother talked, Sabina wrote down her stories. It was a rare opportunity and precious gift from one generation to another.

After her grandmother had passed away, Sabina gathered the stories from her visits, as well as the photos, and created an album for the family. Thanks to Sabina’s visits, the old photos and the stories shared by her grandmother and written down by Sabina, a precious legacy was left by Sabina’s grandmother for future generations of family.

Creating a Legacy

We all have old pictures and old albums (remember those sticky pages and plastic covers?) lying around our homes somewhere. Whether you have an older generation who can share their stories or not, you too can create a legacy by gathering old photos and restoring or scanning them. There are numerous internet companies where you can upload your old photos and create albums.

Share your Story through Pictures

It’s time to tell your family stories through pictures and, more importantly, create your legacy for the next generation in your family. We aren’t all as fortunate as Sabina to have those precious weeks worth of visits with our grandmothers. Use your family photos to document your history. Create new family portraits to tell the story of your family.

If you’d like to do family portraits with Ever After and add to a rich collection of memories through photography, contact us. We are within easy driving distance from Lowes Island, VA and many other Virginia cities and towns. It would be our honor to help you document your family’s story and help pass on your legacy.

Family Photographer, Family Photography

Ever After Portraits is the mother-daughter portrait photography team of Mindy and Joriana, with studios located near Lowes Island, 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

My portraits, will I like them? | Northern VA Family Photographer

A client might like our style and want to commission our studio for their portraits. Although they love our photography on our website, they nervously wonder if they’ll like their own family portraits. In case you are wondering it as well, we want to provide some reassurance. As a longstanding photographer in the Lowes Island, VA, and Northern Virginia areas, we want to get your portraits just right for you. As professionals, it is paramount to us that we do!

We do all we can before your session to understand your vision for your portraits. We will share our ideas with you, and together we will create a stunning portrait. We understand that your pictures are a time and financial investment for you. More importantly, we know that professional portraits are a legacy one generation gifts to the next.

A beautiful portrait’s value extends far beyond its cost. It has a priceless emotional value.

Here are a few things you should know:

• We have an initial discussion with each client to get to know you better. The more we understand you and what you’re looking for in a portrait, the better the results.
• Your session will have two photographers with two sets of cameras and equipment. This means more images, two perspectives, and a wider variety of portraits from which you can select.
• We offer our clients a private 2.5-acre Outdoor Portrait Park exclusively for our clients, as well as a fully equipped Indoor Studio, both in Sterling, Virginia.
• For those clients requesting it, we offer sessions on location within the D.C. Metro area.
• As a full-service, fine art portrait studio, we offer beautiful, high-quality wall concepts – customized and created specifically for your walls, your decor, and your home.
• We offer custom styling suggestions for clothing, tailored to your personal style.
• We offer our assistance in your image selection.
• You will be able to select from artfully designed products in a variety of styles – available only through professional photographers.
• We offer editing, retouching, and custom products.

You will have a customized experience.

As a full-service portrait studio, we customize and plan your portrait session and experience. We also can plan the session and portraits so that it complements your home’s interior. We use state-of-the-art interior design software to help us show you how your final portrait will look upon your own wall! As a full-service photographer, your portraits leave our studio already ready to display.

But, you’re still wondering if you will like your portraits! Our years of experience and extensive training aren’t all we offer you. A great photographer strives to reflect the character of their subject. That’s always our goal! Our uniquely keen eye for composition as well as a sincere interest in our clients (and who they are) are what set us apart from many photographers. It’s what has helped us build our reputation as skilled and caring professionals. It’s what helps us create photographic works of art. We are happy, when are clients are happy!

If you are searching for fine art photography with a highly-reputable photographer in the Lowes Island, VA area, please contact our studio. We would love to create beautiful portraits for you and your family.

Family Photographer, Family Photography

Ever After Portraits is Mindy and Joriana, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Lowes Island, 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