Semper Fi

I spent an afternoon with my friend Koreana and her husband who is home from Marine boot camp in California. On opposite sides of the country for the last 3.5 months and with only two short phone calls time finally passed and they are back together! Yay! It was wonderful getting to know my Ben, a man I had heard so many good things about. I was honored to capture this moment between the two of them. Too many favorites to choose from, but choose I did. :) Welcome home Ben (for a little bit at least) and happy holidays to the both of you!

Love this one. You are so cute Koreana!

Another favorite. :)

Senior Picture time!-Arlington, VA

I love my job so it should come as no surprise that I had a fun time at my Saturday session with Bethany. Bethany is a Senior in high school, preparing to graduate in 2011 and she contacted me to do some senior portraits amongst the gorgeous fall leaves. I have only done a handful of Senior sessions but after Saturday vowed to do more. I had such a fun time with Bethany, discovering her plans for after high school, catching up on the latest Glee episodes and walking around the beautiful Glen Carlyn park as we snapped away. I had the hardest time selecting which images to put up on the blog because they all turned out so beautiful! Bethany, you rocked it.

Thanks so much for a fun session! You've inspired me to seek out more Senior students because of the fun we had. Good luck with applications and enjoy your sneak peek. :)

One of my favorites. Bethany wanted a few with the family dog Coco. :)

Fall family session - Capitol building

When I had emailed Megan about our session the other day, I told her she may need to bring gloves and a hat because... you know, November weather in DC...it might be chilly. I ate my words yesterday as we basked in the beautiful low 60 degree weather and shot amongst crunchy yellow and red leaves which seemed to glow in the sunlight. I think we commented 5 times at least on how lovely the weather was, how we couldn't have asked for a better day. Thanks for a wonderful session Matt and Megan! Here's your sneak peek. :)

Fall shoot with a soccer ball-

I headed to Maryland Saturday to meet up with these guys whom I met and photographed last year. It's always fun shooting repeat clients and these three rocked it. The morning had started out windy but by the time I made it up to their home the wind had died down and though a tad cool (50 degrees or so) it was a beautiful fall evening. Their little boy was such a trooper too. Mom mentioned as we were walking to the park that he had woken up in the middle of the night with a fever. But you never would have guessed by his behavior: one of my best child models by far. :)

I had been wanting to work pretty exclusively with a lens that gets ignored in my bag quite frequently and left my "go-to" lens at home to force myself to use this little used lens. And I am so happy with the results. I of course was a bit worried that perhaps the images wouldn't look right, that I would be nervous or uneasy shooting but it didn't happen. These three were fantastic models and great friends. They're even coming over for dinner next Sunday. How great is that!

October 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge-Doughnuts

Did you know that secretly I would love to be a revered chef? Though I sometimes have a love/hate relationship with my kitchen I am beginning to sway more towards the "love" side and am thoroughly enjoying my rediscovery of cooking. I joined a "club" per se known as The Daring Kitchen. This online site unites bakers and cooks throughout the world giving them a spot of common ground each month by challenging them to try something new. October was my first month as a new participant and I chose to stick with the baking side of preparation. While I like cooking just as well I become a tad more excited when anything with dough or batter is involved.

I have made doughnuts once before. It was two years ago and I was living in a small Virginia town with my family. It was fall, leaves were changing, the air was feeling cooler and I decided I wanted to make doughnuts. Well, they were a flop. They were quite bland and tasted greasy. This month's challenge had me hoping that I could master (or at least improve upon) the art of doughnut creation and consumption.

While we were allowed to use any recipe we could find one was provided to us but I felt that simplicity was key and stuck with this Alton Brown recipe from Food Network. A few things that I changed or discovered along the way:

-I used butter instead of shortening
-The dough was extremely sticky and almost pourable. After it raised (and it took almost 1.5 hours before I saw any real raising going on) it was a bit more like bread dough and less like cake batter.
-Do not fry for one minute each side. I burned most of mine. :( I would say go for 20 seconds each side.

And that's it! If I were to make them one more time I would probably add a tiny bit more of flour and fry them more quickly.

My taste tester had no qualms with the treats being a tad overcooked.

Maybe next time I will also do a complete glaze instead of just the tops.

I know, not the fanciest of pictures but it was late at night and I wasn't up for styling my food. :)

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

Fall session Jefferson Memorial

Had the most energetic, beautiful evening this past weekend shooting this session. Two cute little boys:

And parents with the most lovely British accents.

What a treat to be shooting at one of DC's memorials with a bright fall sun and crisp autumn air. It was a great evening.

We had a fun time playing with Dad

And blowing bubbles

And giving kisses
Thank you Rob and Claire (and your cute boys!) for a great evening. Can't wait for you to see the rest! :)

Fall Session at the National Cathedral-Virginia Family Photographer

Can I just say that I love my job!? I do and it's because of families like this one who make my job so much fun. I've said it before in many posts that one part I love about what I do is that I am able to meet so many wonderful people and let me tell you, Beth and her family fit the bill. We met up an hour or so before sunset at that National Cathedral. Originally we had planned on shooting on the mall but when Beth emailed me a few days previous and asked if we could move the location I was ecstatic when she said "National Cathedral". I'm a sucker for anything European or, in the Cathedral's case, anything that looks European. The grounds are always beautifully kept and there are so many different nooks and crannies to photograph in that you have background choices galore.

When I arrived it was windy to say the least. But the sky was a gorgeous blue and the building was breathtaking.

And then these cute little faces came around the corner and I knew I was in for a treat:

And with a handsome dad and beautiful mom who liked hiding out in make-shift tent forts, how could we go wrong?

We took shelter on the south side of the Cathedral because, no joke, the wind was blowing like crazy but about 20 minutes into the session the winds calmed and it was like any other fall evening.

My favorite of Sean and his little girl

And one of my faves of these two. She was captivated at first my the clicking sound of my camera and would stare at it mesmerized. But that only lasted a few minutes and then she was off crawling and giggling again.

I try to make my sessions fun, not painful. And sometimes I'm sure I look or sound goofy but if I can get an image like this, it's all worth it.

And sometimes, if you've just celebrated your first birthday, there may be cupcakes involved. Thank you Curbside Cupcakes for our yummy treats. Sorry Beth that I stole yours. :(

All in all, we had a nice, relaxing time:

We had some hide and seek time:

And even some time for a little of this:

But when you look this good, my job is easy:

Beth, Sean, I loved spending the evening with you all! I am so glad you found me on google (thank you google!) and called me up so that we could capture how awesome your family is. I hope you enjoyed your sneak peek! :)