Northern Virginia Newborn and Baby Photographer

Here I am again, with a “my everyday” personal post with some amazing ladies from Light Inspired. For my “April” installment, I chose to share some photos from one of the many walk I took with my boys at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, VA (my absolute favorite spot for outdoor photos with clients as well). April’s weather was crazy – rain, snow, sunshine – you name it! We were lucky to catch some beautiful cherry blossoms in bloom at Meadowlark before crazy April weather blew them all down. Meadowlark is my absolute favorite outdoor spot in Northern Virginia, all year round, so if you haven’t yet been – do go, it’s gorgeous, relaxing and wonderful.

First off, there is a new “fairies” exhibit at Meadowlark, my boys love it (but, oh, so hard to keep them from grabbing all those amazing tiny houses and creatures!)

What you see on the ground are cherry blossom petals – when cherries are in peak bloom, it looks like it’s snowed pink and white! My little one seriously thought it was snow and told me his feet were getting coldNext stop – “let’s go scream in the pots!” I even managed to get a few shots with the boys using a remote shutter release (and a promise of candy and legos at home). Stump! The boys saw it and went right over to sit down (and I got in trouble with a Meadowlark associate who told me it was an exhibit and there was absolutely no stomping or sitting allowed among those flowers, and I totally understand… but they were so sweet there that I grabbed a few shots). Gorgeous cherry blossoms! Two boys running away is all I see when I take them on walks. 99% of my pictures are like that. They are running to the “lake with fishies” (a.k.a. giant orange and pink and white koi fish, turtles, and some other kinds of fish I don’t know – the highlight of every walk). The shots below cost me more legos, but so worth itThe last is probably getting printed as a large canvas for our home.

Thanks for checking out my everyday. Now proceed on around the circle to read about Karen Jacot’s  of Karen Jacot Photography every day.

I am so excited to continue the journey of documenting some of my personal photos on this blog, and even more so excited because I am doing it as part of a blog circle with some amazing ladies from Light Inspired focusing on glimpses into our every day lives.

I am going to show you some of our “snow” pictures I shot at the playground behind our house! This is the first year my boys really got to enjoy snow, which we’ve been getting plenty of this year, and (aside from dressing two little boys into thousands of layers) we had so much fun digging in the snow, building snowmen and getting our winter spirit on!
Maxi, my little one, is a lot more open to being photographed than his big brother, so I naturally got a ton more pictures of him.

I must admit to a parenting fail – gloves on Maxi didn’t work too well, it’s mittens from now on!

And, we were done, ready to go home, cold and happy 

Next, check out what everyday looks like for Laura of Shachmut Photography

All I want is to have more pictures of me with my boys. Doing what we usually do – playing, hanging out, going on walks – I want to be “in” those precious little moments that make up life.

I love fall, and it’s absolutely gorgeous in Northern Virginia. I love taking the kiddos out to beautiful paths and trails behind our community for some much-needed running, and playing, and nature-exploring. So, a couple of times I brought my camera along and got in the shots! I don’t ever bring a tripod, instead I just set the camera on whatever surface works – a bench, a bridge railing, or a playground structure. Eyeball exposure, double-check remote shutter release, set camera to burst mode, go! One of the best tricks for getting selfies with kids is give them the shutter control. They both LOVE pressing the button, and seeing the effect gets a big grin almost every time! Now, these pictures are not about me being a photographer and taking the ‘perfect’, wall-art-quality shot. These pictures real, imperfect, slightly out of focus – and I love them! Because in them – I am not a photographer, I am a mommy.

My little boys have been super busy the last couple of months, and between our Caribbean family vacation in August, start of preschool for both of them, Ryan’s birthday last week, and the whole end of summer / start of fall ordeal, I’ve got a good few gigabytes of pictures to go through some day. (I must say, I’ve been diligently editing away our family photos and just finished 2012… woohoo! So, hopefully, I’ll actually catch up on pictures from 2013 by the end of 2013). In the meantime, I’ll show our “apple picking” trip a couple of weekends ago! We went to our “usual” apple picking spot, Crooked Run Orchard in Purcellville. Love the scenic path to the apple orchard.

My little one did not want to walk (thanks, daddy, for doing all the carrying!), but once we got to the apple trees he felt right at home and started picking (and eating!).

Drum roll here, please! Both of them agreed to stand in one spot for a minute so mommy could get some pictures! Oh, thank you, photography gods!

Hope you enjoyed our little apple picking outing (if you are ever in Northern Virginia in the fall – don’t miss all the amazing u-pick farms and orchards!). And now, head on over to Cara Walen Photography and check out pictures from an a totally awesome birthday party for her 4 year old pirate!

Some of you may know that this year I am leading a World Wide Photo Walk (WWPW) at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens on October 13. Join the photo walk here and mark your calendars for Sunday, October 13, at 8am (2 hours  BEFORE regular public admission to the gardens).

WWPW is a global social photography event when people with a shared love of photography all around the world gather for two hours to walk together and capture photos of their “corner of the world” and to share them with fellow walkers, to get to know other local photographers and to enjoy taking pictures. WWPW was created by Scott Kelby (one of the world’s top photoshop gurus) five years ago and has since generated more publicity and participation each year. I took part in the 2009 photowalk in Georgetown in Washington DC as a “walker” and in 2010 organized a photo walk at the Arlington National Cemetery as a photo walk “leader”. Having taken a break in 2011 (I had a good reason, I was eight and a half months pregnant with my second son), I am excited to re-join walkers world wide and to serve as a walk “leader”. This year I chose one of my most favorite local photography spots – the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, VA.

Today, thanks to the help and the wonderful company of William B. Folsom – a local photographer and a long time “resident photographer” and photography instructor at Meadowlark,  I was privileged to get to photograph at Meadowlark during early morning hours, before public access at 10am. What can I say? It was absolutely magical!

Here is a glimpse of what type of photos walkers can expect on October 13 – a few of my favorite images from this morning! I can’t wait for the walk in October!

Early morning photography is amazing for many reasons, but mainly for the gorgeous “golden hour” lighting when the sun is just beginning to rise and one can get backlit photos with a lot of contrast. Also, dew is incredible to photograph!

Can’t decide if I like this photo of the lake in color or black and white.

Okay, did I mention “dew” earlier? I mean – it was everywhere! Grass, flowers, leaves, bugs, catepillars. I went overboard photographing a fairly big spiderweb at the “experimental meadow” – these dew drops look like pearls, or beads or “planets” (this astronomical comparison belongs to my 3-year old).

Here I photographed a very outer age of the spider web with a very fast shutter to darken ambient light and focus on the pattern of dew drops.

The best part of photographing in the morning is birds! Now, I am not a bird photographer, I am not even good at spotting birds, but Bill gave me a few tips about where and how to photograph some of the avian residents of Meadowlark and voi-la – I got this really nice photo of a hummingbird (granted this is one of several dozen “missed” shots : ) .