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Bridge, Pier and Ponds in our Outdoor Portrait Park | Northern VA Family Photographer
Bridge, Pier and Ponds in our Outdoor Portrait Park | Northern VA Family Photographer
As a professional photographer, we want to offer our clients the very best we can including a private, outdoor portrait park for their portraits. No other portrait studio in the Great Falls, VA area offers their clients the exclusive use of an outdoor portrait park. We do, and it is there exclusively for your beautiful portraits.
Into the woods we go!
Composition and setting of a portrait are inherently important to most portraits. They can set the tenor for a portrait, making it more formal or more casual. Our portrait park and its woods provide us with tremendous flexibility! It also provides our clients with a lovely bridge, pier, and ponds!
Outdoor portraits have also become increasingly popular in the last decade. We have groomed and developed our portrait park with portraits in mind. In its bucolic setting, you will find a lovely wooden bridge, two ponds, a pier, and other great props. All of these provide our clients with a great variety of options for their setting and, as a photographer, we know how important it is to have options for clients.
Settings and props!
Some of our families have chosen to sit on the bridge for their portraits and then move to the pier for “over water” shots which can be striking with the water’s reflection!
Do you have a little boy who loves to fish? Why not a barefoot child standing or sitting on the pier with his feet dangling over the water and holding a fishing rod? Maybe Dad could join him on the pier – also barefoot and also dangling his feet over the pier?
You can see some of our outdoor portraits here and get ideas on what others have done in our scenic portrait park. There are many possibilities! You can’t go wrong!
And we will discuss your ideas with you prior to the session. We believe in partnering with each client, fostering candid communication, and knowing a little about them to best reflect them in their portraits. Your family portraits are all about you and we want you to shine in them!
Are you interested in gorgeous outdoor portraits of your family taken by a leading professional photographer in the Great Falls, VA area? Contact us today to discuss your session in our outdoor portrait park!
Family Photographer, Professional Photographer
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter team of professional family photographers, located near Great 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
“Portraits?! I’m afraid my family will look awkward!” | Northern VA Family Photographer
“Portraits?! I’m afraid my family will look awkward!” | Northern VA Family Photographer
We have had clients in the Cascades, VA area who would have preferred to do almost anything else except step inside a portrait photography studio! That’s how convinced or concerned they were that they or their families would look awkward in their portraits. But there’s no need to worry. We can help you with this!
Unless you are a professional model, you will likely feel a little (or a lot) awkward in front of a camera. It’s perfectly reasonable. But that’s where we come in as experienced professionals.
Getting to know the photographer!
Each session is well thought out and planned in advance. Often the awkwardness families feel when they go to have a professional portrait done is caused because they just aren’t comfortable with the photographer. At Ever After, we will speak with you and get to know a bit about you and your family before your portrait session even occurs. It’s important that you feel comfortable with us during your family portrait session and trust us as an experienced photography studio and photographer. Trusting that your family photographer wants to make you all look your very best will go a long way in reducing any awkwardness you might feel.
We want you to look your very best in your portrait. We will always have your best interests at heart, and we have years of experience in putting people at ease in front of our cameras. In fact, we’re experts at it!
We do everything we can to help you feel comfortable with us during your session, especially when there are children involved. We want you to be yourself/yourselves in front of our cameras because that will help us produce the best possible portrait of you! Before you know it, the session is over, and you’ll be surprised at how easy it all was.
Making it a fun experience!
Clients often tell us how much fun they had during their photo session even though they’d gone into it nervous. Most of our clients will eventually look back on their session with fond memories and feelings. Each time they look at their portraits in the years to come, they will remember how much fun it was to do this as a family! It’s a bonding family experience.
If you would like to work with a Cascades, VA area portrait photography studio which will put you at ease during your portrait session, who will get to know you before the session, and who has experience with family portraits, call our studio! You actually will have fun during one of our family portrait sessions!
Portrait Photography Studio, Family Photographer
Ever After Portraits is a mother-daughter portrait photography team comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, located in Northern Virginia, near Cascades, VA. 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
Make a Statement with Family Wall Art! | Northern VA Family Photographer
Make a Statement with Family Wall Art! | Northern VA Family Photographer
There are many beautiful homes in the Cascades, VA area. Although most of them are built in a more traditional design, that does not have to dictate the inside of your home! Many of our clients have a more eclectic style on the inside of their homes and often ask us how they can make a statement with their portraits. With a little thought, portrait photography can both coordinate with your interior decor and make a statement. It’s actually a lot of fun to think about how you can add wall art to your home in a way that’s beautiful and is a showstopper!
Our professional design software will let you see exactly what your portrait will look like on any given wall in your home. You’ll be able to see the various ways you can make a statement with your beautiful professional pictures.
Creative Wall Art Ideas:
• Foyer: It can be a high drama space depending on its size and layout. A large portrait displayed in a foyer can be powerful. A collection of portraits can work in a larger foyer. In a small foyer, a large collection might make the space look cluttered, but a smaller collection could be perfect. You’ll need to be careful with placement, size and composition of a collection of portraits displayed in a foyer. This is where our design software comes in handy!
• Staircase: A staircase provides a wonderful wall for a collection of family portrait art. A dramatic sweep of beautiful portraits will definitely make an impact!
• Dining room: Today, this is considered a more unique space to decorate with fine art portraits but that’s why it could be beautiful. Remember that for hundreds of years the wealthier families lined their dining spaces with oil portraits of relatives.
• Living room: In a formal living, a dramatic portrait can add elegance. Placing a large almost over-sized portrait can be stunning. You would need to consider the framing options available to ensure compatibility to your style.
• Playroom or family room: These rooms generally call for a more casual portrait and these tend to be great spaces to display a collection of wall art or create a gallery of portraits!
• Powder Rooms: Yes, we actually think powder rooms can be a great space to display pictures. We’ve seen old, black and white portraits in smaller sizes displayed in a powder room for a powerful effect.
• Hallways: Either a collection of wall art or several larger pieces can make quite a statement in a hallway depending on the hallway’s dimensions including width and length. Longer, more narrow hallway? A collection or two of portraits add interest. A shorter hallway? One to three larger portraits might be better.
As you can see, there are numerous ways to make a statement with wall art. Using our design software, we can help you decide where and how your portrait photography will make a statement in your home. Contact our studio in the Cascades, VA area to make an appointment to view some further examples of wall art statements. We’d love to work with you.
Family Photographer, Portrait Photography
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located near Cascades, 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!
The Gorgeous Bennett Family of Three | Northern VA Family Photographer
The Gorgeous Bennett Family of Three | Northern VA Family Photographer
The Bennett Family, a family of three, is outdoorsy and loves farms and nature. Mom Jessica grew up on her family’s farm in Missouri and now her daughter, Emma Claire, loves farms as well – although we think it might be all of those animals she loves the most! The Bennetts had only ever taken professional pictures in a big-box studio. Jessica contacted us for special family portraits in a more custom setting. A bonus was our portrait photography studio and outdoor portrait park’s central location in the Northern VA area, near Cascades, VA and Dulles, VA.
Outdoor Portrait Park Session
The Bennetts wanted outdoor, casual portraits just as Emma Claire gets ready to head off to kindergarten!
Dad Rod and the vivacious and beautiful Emma Claire arrived in almost-matching cowboy boots ready for their family photo session! Jessica’s warm smile and nature was always front and center. It was a hoot and so wonderful to photograph them and their obviously close relationship! The little girl with the big round eyes wore a dress with a giant heart in front which struck us as so reflective of this family’s bond.
Their previous family photos of the three had been taken mostly on the family farm in Missouri, so this was definitely a departure from that, and the big-box studios. With a natural and easy-going way about them, the Bennetts were so fun to photograph. No one was particularly camera shy. We tried various settings throughout our scenic outdoor portrait park. It wasn’t difficult to find a spot because this family is so naturally photogenic and pleasant.
Special clothing can add meaning to portraits!
One of our favorite picks, seen above in this post, is the loving parents on either side of their precious daughter – with that giant heart on the dress acting almost as an “equal sign” between the parents and child in the photo’s center! Sometimes patterned clothing in family photos can be distracting or clash with surroundings. In this case, we thought it was so reflective of the family and actually enhanced the portrait’s meaning and symbolism.
If you’d like to step outside of a traditional, big-box portrait photography studio and into our idyllic and scenic outdoor portrait park in the Cascades, VA and Dulles, VA area, contact us today! We will both have a lot of fun doing your portraits.
Family Photographer, Portrait Photography Studio
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography studio located in Dulles, VA, Cascades, 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!
Upcoming Limited Edition Session, Bubblegum Princess! July 22, 2016 | Northern VA Family Photographer
Upcoming Limited Edition Session, Bubblegum Princess! July 22, 2016 | Northern VA Family Photographer
Your wannabe princess and royal follower will transform herself into the Bubblegum Princess during this very special, Limited Edition Bubblegum Princess portrait photography session! This Limited Edition Session is based on the book: “Bubblegum Princess” book written by Julie Gribble. The story was inspired by Lady Kate Middleton’s very own princess story.
Your little darling will transform right before your eyes into a Bubblegum Princess in our outdoor portrait park near Cascades, VA. And, we will be there to photograph her!
You can see the portraits here from previous Bubblegum Princesses now ready to pass the crown down to the next princess – 12 of them to be exact as that’s how many session slots we have for this Limited Edition portrait!
A glorious tub of colorful gumballs await the next line of royals while their parents watch (parents aren’t royal, after all!) The opportunity to become a Bubblegum Princess will thrill the most pink of the pinkest princesses! And, the finished portraits will certainly please you as parents.
Although we are known for our candid family photography in the Cascades, VA area, we also enjoy offering these kinds of special sessions for children. It’s all about capturing your child in a fun and relaxed atmosphere while allowing the portrait to reflect their personality. It’s productive fun. It’s also a royal time for your little girl! The Bubblegum Princess Limited Edition sessions are perfect for the little princess who enjoys dressing up. You can see our Limited Edition calendar for more info on this session, as well as other Limited Edition themed sessions. But, hurry! These session sell out quickly!
Family Photographer, Portrait Photography
Ever After Portraits is the portrait photography team of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, located near Cascades, 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!
“I’m not photogenic. I hate how I look in photographs.” | Northern VA Family Photographer
“I’m not photogenic. I hate how I look in photographs.” | Northern VA Family Photographer
After more than a decade in the Cascades, VA area as a portrait photography studio, we have heard every imaginable reason for why a client has delayed or avoided professional portraits:
“I’m not photogenic. I hate how I look in photographs.”
“I need to lose weight first.”
“No one wants a photo of me and I always look tired!”
Making Lasting Memories
Sadly, we tend to hear these mostly from women. And, being women ourselves, we know we’ve all felt this way at some point in our lives! However, years from now, your children won’t be thinking any of those things about you. They will be looking at your portrait with love, emotion, and a tug at their heart. They will be so grateful to have a portrait of you – something that captures your image as they remember you. The value and importance of your portrait should outweigh any discomfort at taking a portrait.
Granted, there aren’t many of us who’d think they look beautiful in just any photograph. You aren’t the only one who feels a bit uncertain of themselves when they step in front of a camera. It’s all normal, as we’ve stated in previous posts.
As your professional photographer, and as an experienced portrait studio, we understand. However, we promise that you will look your very best in Ever After portraits! It’s not in any photographer’s best interests to poorly portray any clients. We wouldn’t have any clients left!
Schedule your portrait session today if not for yourself for your family!
We work hard to ensure your portraits become family heirlooms to be cherished for decades and well into the next generation. Consider the timelessness of a fine art portrait and its value to future generations in your family. We all feel some level of insecurity about ourselves. But waiting until you lose the extra weight or look less tired could be a mistake. You’ll look back one day and regret that you don’t have portraits from a certain period in your life. Those portraits, after all, aren’t just for you. They are also for your children and grandchildren.
If you are ready to visit your Cascades, VA portrait photography studio, please contact us! We understand your concerns because, at some point, we have had them as well. After all, a portrait is worth so much more than a little vanity.
If you’re still concerned, sign up for our newsletter to receive our free eBook “Top 5 Secrets to Look FABULOUS in Your Family Photographs!”
Family Photographer, Portrait Photography Studio
Ever After Portraits is a portrait photography studio comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter team located near Cascades, 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!
Wall Collections or Groupings | Northern VA Family Photographer
Wall Collections or Groupings | Northern VA Family Photographer
Some would say that portrait photography is all about faces. We agree, but we believe it’s more than that. It’s about the emotions and love a family feels. As a family photographer in Northern VA, near Cascades, VA, finding a unique way to capture and also display the love within a family is our specialty.
Wall Art Collections
A wall art collection is the perfect way to gather a grouping of family portraits and show through photographs the dynamics within a family. Through fine art photography, we collect special moments which show off the family bonds you share with each other. That collection of moments is then turned into a beautiful wall art collection or grouping for the walls of your home. Each day you walk by that collection, you’ll feel those emotions well up in you, the happiness you felt on the day of your portrait session, and the fun you had with just being with your family that day.
With our design software, we size your collection to your walls, so it’s never too small or too large, but the perfect fit for the area. Whether your wall space is large or small, we can custom design a collection for you.
For more on why size matters when choosing wall art, please have a look at this post: Why Size Matters for Wall Art
In it, you’ll find size comparisons of different sizes on the walls and get a true look at the difference between an 8×10 and a larger size. You won’t believe your eyes!
Family Photographer, Portrait Photography
Ever After Portraits is the mother-daughter portrait photography team or Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson. We are located near Cascades, VA in Northern Virginia, and 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!
Portraits, Davis Family | Northern VA Family Photographer
Portraits, Davis Family | Northern VA Family Photographer
Some people are naturally photogenic, and cameras love them. No matter what they do, they shine in print! The Davis Family with their identical, glorious smiles are three of those people as you can see in their portraits! The New York City transplants to the Northern VA area contacted us last year interested in taking family photos done with a portrait photography studio. As we’re located in Northern VA near Cascades, VA, it was a perfect fit!
As a hobby photographer, Detra takes many pictures of her children. However, she told us that looking back, she wishes she’d had more professional portraits taken of her children. We hear this often from our hobby photographer clients. Even great photographers find it difficult to take a picture and be in it!
Mother/Children Outdoor Portrait Session
This lovely mom with two children under the age of seven, born just a year apart, is kept very busy! After looking through other photography websites, she reached out to us. She wanted us to do outdoor portraits for them. Our outdoor portrait park was perfect for their family session!
Fun Family Portraits
During her pre-portrait session consult with us, Detra explained that what she most appreciates about portraits is the memories that they capture. She also liked the idea of using professional portraits as holiday pictures, collecting them through the years and enjoying years later. She has dotted her home with both her photos of the children and past professional portraits. She was looking forward to updating the family photos with her Ever After session. The Davises enjoy doing family activities together whether it’s indoors or outdoors. For them, it’s more about doing an activity together. That includes family portraits.
Jon and Adlyn were a joy to photograph. Their laughter made us laugh!
During our portrait consult, we always ask our clients to tell us a little about themselves and their children. The more we understand or know about a family, the better it is for composing their portrait sessions.
If you’re looking for a skilled and reputable portrait photography studio in the Cascades, VA area, contact us! We would be happy to work with your family!
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 Cascades, 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!
Image of the Week, Motherly Love | Northern VA Family Photographer
Image of the Week, Motherly Love | Northern VA Family Photographer
Portrait photography is our business, but it is so much more than that. Seeing the love that a family shares and capturing that through professional photography is a privilege for us. As family photographers in the Dulles, VA/Cascades, VA area, we specialize in showing those loving bonds in portraits you will treasure.
Mother and Daughter Time
This week’s Image of the Week is a series of three photographs. Virginia and her daughter Isabella, were so wonderful to photograph! The love they shared was simply a pleasure to capture. This amazing feeling of motherly love shines through in this series of three portraits, and so does the return of that love.
The bonds we all share with our families are often beyond words. With portrait photography, you don’t need words. You can see and feel those emotions just from what you see portrayed in a beautiful portrait.
Family Photographer, Portrait Photography
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located in Dulles, 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!
“We’re a busy family! We don’t have time for family portraits.” | Northern VA Family Photographer
“We’re a busy family! We don’t have time for family portraits.” | Northern VA Family Photographer
“We are a very busy family always running in different directions! I don’t think we have time to do family portraits!” As a Cascades, VA area portrait photography studio, this is something we hear so often. Time. It’s hard to make time for things outside the everyday schedule of work, school, play or sports. As family photographers, we have heard it all!
To tell you the truth, however, we can say that if something is important enough to you, you’ll make the time for it. Think of other things you make time for: A movie, a theater production, a concert, a professional sports event.
In our experience, what we find is that some people will put off scheduling photos of their cherished family until “some day,” usually when they realize they’re running out of time with their children or there’s a milestone such as a graduation. Now they find a way to make time!
Our lives are made of up hundreds, if not thousands, of precious moments. Those moments fill our lives to create memories we look back on – as long as we can remember them in the future! Portrait photography, however, records some of those moments for you. As humans, it’s impossible to recall every precious thing about our lives. As humans, we have become dependent on, first, oral history and now visual documenting to pass on our stories, traditions, and memories.
Family Portraits
A family portrait is valuable to you because, for the most part, your children will likely live with you as a family for 18 to 22 years. After that, they may move away, complicating the opportunity to schedule portraits together.
Your parents, their grandparents, will hopefully live long lives. A family portrait gathers all those loved ones precious to you, different generations, and captures them in a portrait. We know from our experience how coveted those portraits become later in our lives. No one lives forever, including us.
The photographer in the family is usually the one least captured in photos. Professional family portraits brings the family photographer out from behind the camera and into the photo with their beloved family. Professional portraits are a great opportunity to capture your entire family in a portrait.
It’s important to find the time to do a professional family portrait. Whether your children are still young or teenagers, prioritizing time to do that family portrait of all of you together will be time and money well spent!
If you live in the area of Cascades, VA or anywhere throughout the DMV and are searching for an experienced and talented portrait photography studio, Ever After can work with you to get that family portrait done and finished to perfection. We can discuss scheduling something that works for your family!
Family Photographer, Portrait Photography Studio
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, mother-daughter family photographers located in Cascades, VA/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