Name: Ever After Portraits
Price range: $$$

Moments | Northern VA Family Photographer

It’s back-to-school time, and even though my daughter, Joriana, is no longer in school, this time of year fills me with nostalgia. The older I get, the quicker the milestones come and go. When my daughter was born I entered a whole new set of milestones: first smile, first laugh, turning over, crawling, walking, first tooth – the list of firsts seemed to go on and on. And the milestones just kept coming more quickly in what felt like a series of stop motion captures: feeding herself (talk about messy!), choosing clothes (some interesting combinations, to be sure), learning to ride a bike, going to the beach and HATING the sand (that was fun!).

First Day of School

Then the big milestone came, one I was simply not prepared for: the first day of school. I still remember crying while taking Joriana to her very first day of school, and I can hear her telling me, “Mommy, it’s okay. Don’t cry!” She couldn’t wait to go to kindergarten, and I couldn’t stop crying. I was realizing she was growing up. Through the years, each new “first day of school” meant a bit of sadness for me. How had yet another year gone by? It wasn’t all sadness, of course. It was amazing to watch the changes my daughter made through the years, from simple things like her love of recess to her “love” for a little boy in her class. For weeks, we heard a lot of “Elvis said” and “Elvis did.” As time passed and school became more involved, it was hating homework and wanting to learn a musical instrument. She was growing and changing. It snuck up on me, to tell the truth! She was becoming a young woman. Soon she was making more decisions of her own and striving for independence. More moments flashed by in an instant, and suddenly middle school loomed, and new challenges were met and overcome. Before I knew it, years had passed and my daughter (who I couldn’t help but still see as my little girl just starting kindergarten) was graduating from high school! All of the moments that passed by had added up to days and months and years. How did that happen so quickly?! Next it was learning that she had an affinity for photography. Working with her in that way was a new experience, although a welcome one.

Getting Married

And then came what felt like a pinnacle milestone to celebrate: She was a grown woman. She fell in love with a wonderful man. She got married! How did my little girl, the one I cried over, become this beautiful young married lady? Being a photographer, I’ve been able to visually capture many precious moments to look back on through photography. I can’t tell you how much that means to me. Families change as the years pass, even if the amount of family members doesn’t change! Children grow into their independence, and parents look back with an almost melancholy smile thinking, “Where did the time go?” Sometimes it feels so easy to remember her “big” milestones: Walking, talking, school, riding a bike, graduating, working, wedding and marriage. But it’s a little more difficult to hold tight to the in-between moments, the little ways in which she changed: a change in the way she smiled, or the way in which she held herself tall, or when she learned to use logic when discussing what she wanted (I stared open-mouthed at this one). Sometimes those little moments are the most precious. We all go through life collecting precious moments in time, the moments that truly matter. These moments are the reason why, as a photographer, I say: Don’t wait on scheduling a family portrait! Do it now! If you don’t, “I’ll do it tomorrow” will become next week, then next month, and then next year, and you’ll look back and realize you’ve missed out on capturing “this moment” in your family’s lives! Today is the day to schedule your Family Portrait Session. Call us at 571.434.0009 and book it now!

Family Photographer, Family Photography

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

Mindy’s View: Photographers Who Inspire Me and Why | Northern VA Family Photographer

As a family photographer in the Middleburg, VA and Hamilton, VA area, there’s no doubt that other photographers have significantly influenced our work and love of portrait photography. While there are many talented photographers we admire across several genres, the first portrait photographer who comes to mind is the indomitable Annie Leibovitz. She sets the standard for all modern portrait photography.

Annie Leibovitz

There are few photographers not touched or influenced in some way by Ms. Leibovitz’s work. As for me, there are so many things I love about her work. (I even love the drama of her Vanity Fair cover portraits!)

She has continued to photograph throughout the decades of her life, giving further depth to her perspective.

She excels terrifically at what she does with a natural eye for perspective.

She has a gift for capturing unique perspectives reflective of her subjects.

Finally, Ms. Leibovitz’s portraits reflect the time and care she takes to get to know her subject. She then translates that knowledge of them in a way that elevates her work into art. (This is the goal of every portrait photographer and one not easily achieved.)

Other Photographers I Admire

Besides Ms. Leibovitz, I also admire the portrait work of Tamara Lackey, Meg Bitton, and Erin Elizabeth Hoskins for their lifestyle photography. These three talented photographers have an aptitude for capturing emotion in their portrait work – something we, too, love to do for our clients in Northern Virginia.

Photography is an organic medium. Astute photographers work to develop and evolve their skills, perspectives, and vision through the years they practice. Working as part of a family photographer team in the Middleburg, VA, Hamilton, VA and Northern VA area, that is our professional goal, too.

Family Photographer

Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Middleburg, VA and Hamilton, 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

Getting to know Mindy! Personal Life Experience and How it Affects Her Photography | Northern VA Family Photographer

Our photography work in the Sterling, VA area and across Northern Virginia is extremely important to us. It is a big part of who we are but, of course, there’s more to both Joriana and me than our passion for photography. While we want to get to know our clients, we would also like to share a bit about ourselves through this blog as we’ve done in previous posts.

We decided that one of us would answer the question, “Is there a personal experience in either of our lives that we can say has profoundly affected who we are today and how we tackle our profession as photographers?” I volunteered to answer this powerful and personal question.

I’m a cancer survivor. At the age of 34, I went to get the all-clear to try for a second child only to find out that I had to have a radical hysterectomy because of a rare and aggressive cancer.

It is quite sobering to reach a point in your life where you have to come to terms with the idea that you really might not BE there in the future – like seriously, might not be there. The survival rate for the type of cancer I had was 11 percent.

My world came to a stop.

You begin to think of what is important, of what is REALLY important. You realize how important relationships are with those you love. And, you wonder how you would be remembered if you are gone. My daughter was six years old. How would she remember me? How would anyone remember me?

My Family’s Love Helped Me

I got through those difficult times because of love. The love of friends and family during difficult times suddenly becomes almost tangible. Things that are difficult to experience make you appreciate life because you take the time to examine what really matters.

Love is important.

Using My Work to Reflect Love

Today, I hope that through my work I can in some way help families remember the love that they rarely think of and even take for granted. When they carpool their kids to and from school, do laundry, clean the house, or stress over the bills – these are all things they don’t love doing but do every week because they love their family so very much.

Because of my experience with cancer and the love I experienced while I was going through it, I want to create emotional portraits that showcase the love families share. I want to showcase our clients’ love in such a way that their families and others won’t ever forget the close bond of love that joins that family forever.

I hope that if you live in the Sterling, VA area, you will contact us so we can discuss how our photography can convey your family’s love in a way you will cherish for decades. Don’t wait! Life happens, and sometimes those things mean the real possibility of running out of time.

Get to know us a little better in the posts below!

Mindy’s Profile post

Joriana’s Profile post

Family Photographer, Photography

Why would you rather be a portrait photographer rather than a photojournalist? | Northern VA Family Photographer

As a leading portrait photography studio in the Tysons Corner, VA & McLean, VA area, we don’t just do portraits. We build relationships with our photography clients. Getting to know them in the process of doing their portraits is important to us as family photographers who care about our clients.

It’s important that you feel comfortable with us during your portrait session so that we can capture your candid emotions and expressions. Great fine art photography captures what is real and true about its subject. We strive for great every time!

Today, however, we thought we would focus on us just a bit so you can get to know us as well!

Rather than just talk about ourselves, we thought one of us would answer an interesting question:

“Why would you rather be a portrait photographer than a photojournalist?”

In Mindy’s own words:
“In a sense, I feel that I am a little of both – a portrait photographer and a photojournalist – because the emotions and candid expressions that naturally happen as we photograph our clients are very real. It happens right in front of our eyes just as it happens for a photojournalist. In portrait photography, there is a little magic to making people forget that you are there and to feel so at ease that they can express their true emotions. It’s such a privilege and honor to be able to capture those moments for the clients that we love. For instance, during one of my recent sessions, a family of four came in: Molly and Dave with their darling kids Orion and Freya. How sweet it was to watch Orion being such a great big brother and just leaning over and hugging and kiss Freya! Moments like that are priceless! Molly and Dave had the proudest look on their faces because this was spontaneous and showed the loving relationship that their kids had at this young age.”

If you live in the Tysons Corner, VA & McLean, VA area and would like to work with a family-owned, mother-daughter portrait photography studio, call us! You’ve come to the right studio!

Family Photographer, Portrait Photography Studio

Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Tysons Corner, VA and McLean, 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 Core Values in Business and in Life | Northern VA Family Photographer

We went back to school recently by attending a fantastic seminar on the topic of core values. Have you given thought to what your core values are, personally or professionally? We thought we had, and this workshop really pulled it all together very well for us! It reaffirmed our longstanding commitment to remain true to ourselves, our clients, and to our family photography business across Northern Virginia, including Lowes Island, VA and the surrounding communities. Our blog is one way we serve and connect with our customers and community, so it makes sense that we do a blog post or two about our core values.

CORE VALUES

Trust & Respect

A business owner needs to build trust with their clients by treating them with respect. If we don’t show you respect, how can we earn your confidence in us or our work?! We are committed to working hard to earn your trust by being respectful, honest, transparent and fair with regard to our family photography and our pricing.

Relationships

To do great family photos, we need to build relationships with our clients. We want to get to connect with you, and have you connect with us! If you’re not comfortable with us during a portrait session, it could affect your pictures. This is why we do a pre-session consult with all of our clients, and we make ourselves available to answer any questions before your session. Our ultimate goal is your satisfaction and you returning to us as a client in the future.

Excellence & Quality

We believe that excellence and quality are both tangible and achievable if one works hard enough! We will always work very hard on your behalf. We take great pride in creating excellent photography and having excellent customer service. We source the highest-quality products we can for our clients. We haven’t built an excellent reputation as a top photographer in Northern Virginia by doing mediocre work, offering substandard customer service, and poor-quality products!

Artistry & Craftsmanship

We are fine art photographers, meaning that we create photographic art. That means that a point-and-shoot photo session won’t cut it for us! We put a lot of time into the artistry and craftsmanship of all the portraits we do for you, and we’re always confident in offering great quality products such as our handcrafted frames. We know that a lot of training and skill results in superior quality, great achievement, and artistry.

Crafting Emotional Artwork

We believe that great photography is the equivalent of emotional artwork, and we are committed to crafting for our clients the best possible photographic artwork. We strive to create portraits that both capture and evoke emotion. We want you to see the emotion we captured in your family portraits, and we want you to feel emotion when you see them displayed on the walls of your home.

Giving Back

Giving back to the community which has supported our small business is important to us. Honestly, we’ve been working night and day for close to two decades to build our business and brand. Now that we’re past the days of wondering if we could create and sustain a successful business, we will be giving more attention to giving back to our community in a sustained and thoughtful manner. It’s part of who we are as business owners and as women! Stay tuned!

If you would like to work with a Lowes Island, VA family photography business that believes in remaining true to its core values of excellence and integrity, you’ve come to the right place! Contact us to discuss your photography needs and how we can help you.

Family Photographer, Family Photography

Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter family 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

Photographer Profile, Joriana | Northern VA Family Photographer

In April, we wrote a profile of Mindy and wanted to follow-up with one of her photographer daughter, Joriana (a/k/a the other half of Ever After Portraits, the family photography studio located near Brambleton, VA). Our blog is usually one-hundred percent client centered. However, as we said with Mindy’s profile, we realize that clients often want to know more about their photographer behind the camera taking their picture! So, today we are providing a glimpse of Joriana. We hope you’ll enjoy getting to know us a little better because we certainly love getting to know our family photography clients!

JORIANA BELCHER ANDERSON, Family Photographer, Ever After Portraits

While Mindy is a Southern Gal born in an Eastern Tennessee small town, Joriana was born right here in Bethesda, Maryland. She grew up in Sterling, VA as an only child. Her grandparents have always lived with her and her parents, and her great-aunt also did for many years. She’s been surrounded with family all of her life.

Joriana’s Photography Career

Joriana got her start in a photography studio the old-fashioned way: assisting her mom when she graduated from high school! She’s never looked back!

“I always appreciated the fact that photography stops moments that would otherwise be forgotten,” she says. “The ability to capture really emotional moments was a big draw for me.”

She received her first camera at the age of 16 years old and later used that same camera to shoot her first wedding.

“I thought the pictures were awful but my mom, Mindy, really loved them and encouraged me to practice more,” she adds.

Joriana had fallen in love with photography, but she admits that she didn’t become a professional photographer until she had built up more confidence in her skills through lots of practice. “I was finally able to see myself as someone who was a photographer as her profession.”

Greatest Influences

Photographers Jerry Ghionis and Yervant have been her greatest influences. “I was always in awe of how easy they made their images look like works of art,” she adds.

As for photography disasters (because every photographer has them!), she admits she had a few in her early years, usually related to forgetting to carry certain equipment. She now organizes herself by using a list of equipment for each shoot!

Those early days are now long gone. With more than ten years as a photographer under her belt, and now a wife who got to be on the other side of the camera for her own wedding, Joriana has honed her craft into a valuable skill: like mother, like daughter! Now her focus is on family photography, and finds that even more enjoyable (and much less stressful) than weddings.

This mother-daughter team loves working with other families and helping them to capture their memories and their moments in time through family photography. Ever After Portraits in the Northern Virginia area, near Brambleton, VA, will gladly work with you to capture your memories!

Family Photographer, Family Photography

Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy and Joriana, a mother-daughter portrait photography team with a studio located near Brambleton, 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

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