Category Archives: little ones

fall family

Go ahead, tell me how absolutely adorable this family is! When Ashlee contacted me about doing some family portraits in October hoping to have fall colors in the background, I was expecting to be able to accomplish that fairly easily in the middle of October. So we scheduled a time to meet at Gulf Branch Nature Center in Arlington, but for some reason the leaves there haven’t changed colors yet! We’re all bright reds, oranges, and yellows out here in the Dulles area, but not so much at that park. No matter – Ashlee’s family came completely decked out in the colors we had hoped to find, so it was perfect! Here are a few of my favorites:


Jackson is at an age where he can follow directions really well and he was so good at giving me lots of smiles. So handsome!

Sweet Miss Kennedy is at the age where there is so much to discover about the world, and there were a lot of other fascinating things going on around the park other than me with my camera. But I love these expressions. And isn’t her outfit so cute?!

And this is Miss Lucy! She woke up from a nap to find me there with my big camera, but she was so good, too.

We were all making owl noises here, hence the “whooo whooo” faces.

I seriously couldn’t get over how cute their clothes were, right down to the socks!

A couple of sweet moments with Dad:





Towards the end of our session, Kennedy let me know that she wanted to “do it again” so it turns out she loves to model after all! We grabbed this last fun one just before we finished up.

love these faces!

I’m sorting through and editing the images from this family session, and I just came across this one that just cracked me up. I had asked the gang for their best funny faces and here’s what we came up with:

anika & amit

This is Anika.

When she’s not busy being an artist…

I’m pretty sure she wants to be a supermodel.

She couldn’t get enough of me taking her picture. And check out this couture pose (executed completely on her own with no coaching):

Again, expertly showing off the garment. She would make any designer proud.

This is Amit.

He really wasn’t interested at all in having his picture taken.

He’d rather be behind the camera. I get that, Amit. Trust me.

So together I think they make a great team!

casey & lawson

Of all my friends, Casey holds the record for the one I’ve known and kept in touch with the longest. She and I met and hit it off right away in Texas when we were in middle school. Our friendship was solidly formed over a common inclination for getting the giggles, a mutual love for a certain boy band, and gossip about pretty much anything found in Bop magazine. And even though we’ve both moved all over the place since then, we’ve remained dear friends. We even ended up living in the same state together again when she moved out here to Virginia. Alas, she’s moving again, but before she left she was able to visit last night with her baby Lawson, who makes me understand what it means to want to just squeeze and pinch someone’s little face all the live-long day. He also makes me realize what an insane amount of energy it takes to keep up with a 12 month-old. I have been dying to get him in front of my camera for months now, and finally had the chance, and whew! He wore me out. I slept so well last night! Casey explained to me what a challenge it is to photograph Lawson, and I admit to thinking gosh…he’s little and only started walking just recently, how fast can he be?

Yeah. He’s fast.

I chased and chased, and managed to snap a few shots when he’d topple over, or find something that held his interest for ten seconds. Meet Lawson and Casey (who looks amazing):



Lawson is such a typical boy…it only took him a few minutes to get into the dirt and bark:

This pause in action lasted, oh, about 30 seconds: 

That’s not a Photoshop trick, my friends, those are Lawson’s true baby blues:

I think Casey was keeping his interest for this one…

And then I managed to make a few interesting animal noises to catch his interest in this one. I usually like to let the kiddos do their own thing and I just work around them, but I can be pretty entertaining, too I think. I have no shame whatsoever in making a complete fool out of myself to get a shot. (Yeah, there was some droolage going on in this next one…it’s hard work getting new teeth!)


Oh that face! Those cheeks!

Casey, I’m going to miss you! I hope we get to visit each other often, and I already can’t wait to photograph your little munchkin again. Best of luck to you with the move and everything, and I know we’ll talk soon. Love to you both!

f a c e b o o k