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“I have no idea how to display my portraits in my home!” | Northern VA Family Photographer
“I have no idea how to display my portraits in my home!” | Northern VA Family Photographer
Running a busy photography studio in the Dulles and Brambleton, VA areas has allowed us to build a broad client base. Most of the individuals we work with are savvy professionals who love their families and want to document their lives through family pictures. They understand the importance of portraits. However, we often hear from a new client: “I want professional portraits, but I have no idea how to display my portraits in my home!” We can help with that!
As a custom and full-service photographer, we use special design software to assist our clients with interior design and their professional portraits. In a few easy steps, you’ll be able to see what a portrait will look like on a wall without actually putting it up.
• As a client, you will receive a “Let’s Decorate” ruler from us. You will tape that on any wall you think you’d like to display your family portraits.
• Using your phone, you then snap a photo of that wall with the ruler in place.
• You’ll send/text us those pictures.
• We then upload your pictures into our design software and can create various custom wall concepts sized specifically for that wall.
The result is that you get to see EXACTLY what the finished product will look like on your wall! It makes it so much easier for you to decide which portrait or portraits you’d like to order. The design software not only simplifies the process; it takes the guessing out of the selection process. You can order your portraits and feel comfortable knowing exactly what it will look like when you hang it up in your home!
We’ve been doing this a long time, and we will work with our clients’ design tastes, styles, and preferences. As a photography studio, our clients come to us throughout the Dulles and Brambleton, VA areas, all across Northern Virginia. We believe in working closely with our clients and fostering relationships. This makes us better photographers and better business owners. Please contact us if you would like to learn more about our work.
Photography Studio, Family Photographer
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter family photography team located in Northern Virginia, in Dulles, 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
Why Printed Products are better than a DVD | Northern VA Family Photographer
Why Printed Products are better than a DVD | Northern VA Family Photographer
We cringe when we hear someone say that they only want their professional pictures on a DVD or CD rather than as a printed mounted portrait! Our technologically-sophisticated clients in the Dulles, VA area sometimes ask us if it’s cheaper and easier for them to order their portraits on a DVD instead of printing. No, it’s not easier, and it’s not cheaper. And it’s not better either. We can explain why.
Prints Versus DVD
• Whether we are going to print or transfer your portraits, there’s still a great deal of time spent on preparing for your portrait session. Part of the reason they come out so well is that we put a lot of thought and pre-planning into each and every photo session.
• Once your photo session is over, we have to edit your photos no matter where they end up. That takes time. A lot of time.
• Technology changes, often and a lot. Just think of where technology was a decade ago compared to today. Now how about two decades ago? We have no idea what technology will look in 50 years, let alone in 10 years! Remember those video tapes you spent a fortune having converted to DVD or CD? What constitutes cutting-edge technology today is tomorrow’s antique.
• Technology can and does fail. Everyone knows of a corrupted DVD or CD where files were suddenly irretrievable. It happens all too frequently. Even hard drives crash and burn. We’ve worked long enough that we either know of, or have experienced, digital media disasters.
On the aesthetic side, viewing portraits on a small screen, such as your family and children’s photography, just isn’t comparable to viewing them on wall portraits and in albums of archival quality. Albums can sit on shelves to be easily retrieved, and portraits properly printed can be displayed for decades and decades.
Our best advice to our clients and friends is: Do both – display your favorite portraits as wall art, tell the rest of the story with an album, and then archive those professional pictures on digital media storage. Why? It’s insurance. If you lose one, you have the other! You can enjoy both mediums in different ways.
Wall Art Collections
We often have potential clients contact us saying they only want digital media of their photos, but once they see the final, stunning results of their portraits they fall in love. We offer museum-quality printing, framing, and albums to protect and properly present your portraits. We also offer a wide variety of style options for each. Suddenly, those clients who first wanted only digital media of their professional pictures end up walking out with our artwork wall products instead. And for those clients who’d still like a digital version of their portraits, we work with them to offer them files. The main reason people want digital files is for social sharing. We get that, and we can help do that while still offering quality print portraits.
Most of our clients are busy professionals and would rather work with skilled artisans such as the ones we use to frame and preserve their portraits rather than spend time researching, finding, and ordering portraits from retailers they don’t know.
We don’t offer printed mounted portraits and albums because we make more money off of them. (Albums actually take photographers an enormous amount of time to create and organize.) We encourage printed products because we know that in the long term, it’s in your best interests to, at minimum, have prints of your cherished portraits.
If you have any questions about digital versus print portraits, please call us. We are happy to discuss the difference and explain our pricing structure. We believe in a full-service, high-quality customer experience. We are a Dulles, VA area small business centered around our clients’ professional picture needs.
Professional Pictures, Family Photographer
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter family photography team located in Northern Virginia, in Dulles, 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!
Can I afford Custom Family Portraits? | Northern VA Family Photographer | Ever After Portraits
Can I afford Custom Family Portraits? | Northern VA Family Photographer | Ever After Portraits
Like most people, we rely on our work to pay our bills. However, we also believe that our work is so much more than just a paycheck! We are a small woman-owned photography business working with clients in and around the Broad Run, VA area, and all throughout the DMV. Our work allows us the opportunity to help clients document their loving families and relationships through fine art portraits. We also understand that not everyone can afford to just write a check and pay for custom portraiture, so we offer a plan for them.
A custom experience at Ever After means that our clients get nothing but the best from us and our portraits. As professional family photographers, we invest significant time and skills into each client – and we are happy to do it. The results are quality and highly-customized portraits. And, yes, that is more expensive than a big-box studio’s quick portrait. The quality difference between the two is significant, though.
We customize our portrait sessions and our wall art to each family, creating wall art uniquely for you. Every single product we offer is printed on archival paper with archival inks. Protective sprays are applied to our wall art products as well. These high quality products are rated to last for at least 150 years — outliving us all but becoming a legacy to future generations. Custom portraits are considered to be heirlooms and an investment.
We would love for everyone to have at least one beautiful, custom family portrait in their lifetime. They are gifts that you give to yourself, your family, and your next generation. This is why we offer an interest-free layaway plan with a 25% deposit. You will be able to make monthly payments until your order is paid in full. You will receive your portraits at that time.
We believe in the importance of our work and in the importance of professional family photography. We urge you to contact us about your portraits. We are one of the leading family photographers in the Broad Run, VA area.
Photography, Family Photographers
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter photography team located near Broad Run, 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
Natural Portraits in our Outdoor Studio | Northern VA Family Photographer
Natural Portraits in our Outdoor Studio | Northern VA Family Photographer
Ever After is able to offer our clients one of the most scenic and tranquil “studios” available for professional pictures: A private portrait park! This outdoor garden space glimmers with natural light, seasonal colors and rustic textures. It is the perfect setting for a relaxing and beautiful family portrait session in Dulles, VA, Northern Virginia.
Do you remember that childhood sense of freedom and rush of open air as you bolted outdoors when finally allowed outside to play? Our beautiful and private portrait park offers our clients that same sense of freedom and fresh air. It is an idyllic place for a portrait.
Ever After’s portrait park sessions take place in the midst of a bucolic and picturesque setting! We own the space and have cultivated it with our clients and their portraits in mind. It is private and only open to our clients.
Wooden Bridge and Pier
Our tree-lined pond with its wooden bridge and pier offer a picture-perfect spot. Many of our clients are drawn to there for its perfect combination of water and woods.
However, that’s not all there is! Our iconic red truck is another favorite, particularly for little boys – well, and fathers, too! Portraits incorporating the truck recall a Norman Rockwell painting.
A long-poled fence is a wonderful setting for the whole family. And our swing is a kid favorite!
If a more glamorous look is what you’re looking for, our elegant sofas placed just right can add a bit of bling and interest to your portrait. The contrast between an elegantly-crafted piece of furniture and the rustic nature of a forest can mean an interesting composition for any portrait! We can set the sofa anywhere you want in our portrait park – by the truck, the bridge or even the pier or pond’s edge!!
The trend in recent years has been toward outdoor portraits, and our private portrait park near Sterling, VA and Dulles, VA offers our clients a magical location for their outdoor professional pictures. We are happy to show you the space and answer any questions you might have about your outdoor portrait set in our magical outdoor park.
Sofa Portraits
Family Photographer, Professional Pictures
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter family 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 never had family portraits taken growing up. Do we really need to take them today? | Northern VA Family Photographer
We never had family portraits taken growing up. Do we really need to take them today? | Northern VA Family Photographer
We are never surprised, but always saddened, to hear from friends and clients that, while growing up, their families rarely or never had professional family portraits taken. Sometimes, they even go on to say they’re not certain they need to do portraits of their own families today with a photography studio.
We get it. People in the Dulles, VA and Northern Virginia areas are busy, and it’s difficult to make the time for other activities. Professional family portraits are often (and sadly) not prioritized.
This often means that you have no family photographs with your parents and grandparents, not to mention your great-grandparents. This moves us on the next question, one that may sound a little morbid, but it’s just realistic: If something happens to you and you’re no longer around when your children have children, what photographs will they have to show your grandchildren who you were? And what about your great-grandchildren?
Family portraits fill a vital role in passing down a family’s heritage. A beautiful family portrait will be treasured and passed down as a family heirloom. Maybe you didn’t have family portraits growing up, but it’s time to start a new tradition, one that will continue to grow in value for your children!
Here are a few thoughts we usually share when we’re asked about professional portraits today versus when they (and we) were young:
• Scheduling with a professional family photographer in the 1960’s, 70’s, or even 80’s was an expense of time and money many of our own parents simply couldn’t afford.
• Studio photography was either inexpensive department store pictures with a generic background (usually with a quality reflective of both) or formal, pricey portraits for those who could afford such a luxury.
• Some of the family portraits or pictures remaining from our childhoods are spontaneous snapshots or Polaroids often with one or more family member not in the picture, and now yellowed and frayed in a sticky, cellophane album. (Do you remember those?!)
• More formal portrait photography was probably more sought after during our grandparents’ and great grandparents’ generation – irrespective of socio-economics.
• Those were the “war years” when people appreciated the value of portraits. Wars and the Depression often separated families and loved ones for good. Portraits became treasured family heirlooms to be carried with them as they left their loved ones behind. How many soldiers departed for war with their sweethearts’ tiny portraits in their wallets?
• American society began to change after World War II. Many families eventually became dual-income and were busy rebuilding their families and the country. Professional portraits were viewed by many as an extravagance of either time or money or both.
• Digital photography, however, has changed photography – for the better – and made all forms of photography more accessible.
• While fine art photography is not inexpensive, it’s certainly more accessible to families today.
• And as our society has continued to change with more young adults than ever before enrolling in college and moving away, Americans are more socially and geographically mobile.
• Professional portraits of loved ones have once again become valued and more desirable – as well as accessible.
• Families today understand that portraits perform a vital role in documenting our heritage. And, they understand this in great part because they have the beautiful, sepia-toned portraits left to them by their grandparents and great grandparents.
Start a new family tradition, one that includes portraits of your beloved family members.
Contact Ever After Portraits, our photography studio near Dulles, VA to discuss documenting your family’s heritage through portrait photography. You can indeed have professional portraits to enjoy today and leave for your children and grandchildren to one day enjoy and appreciate – just as you have with your grandparents’ portraits.
Photography Studio, Family Photographer
Ever After is comprised of Mindy Belcher and daughter Joriana Belcher Anderson, a family photography team 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!
Professional Photographer
International Eats in the DMV! | Northern VA Family Photographer
International Eats in the DMV! | Northern VA Family Photographer
Our business may be focused on providing professional pictures for families throughout Northern VA, including Dulles, VA and Brambleton, VA, BUT we also love to eat!! We wanted to share this amazing list with you from Thrillist, “The Best International Eats in the DMV.”
These restaurants are the real thing, truly authentic.
Here a couple from the list that we’re thinking about visiting:
Los Hermanos, Dominican, in Columbia Heights, D.C.: I might be brave and try the oxtail!
El Chalan, Peruvian, in Foggy Bottom/Arlington, VA: Can you say ceviche? Yum!
Huong Viet, Vietnamese, in Fairfax, VA: Pho all around, please!
Get the full list here on Thrillist, The Best International Eats in the DMV.
Professional Photographer, Professional Pictures
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team located in Dulles, VA, 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!
Family Wall Collections | Northern VA Family Photographer
Family Wall Collections | Northern VA Family Photographer
As a portrait photography studio in Dulles, VA, we specialize in capturing the perfect family portraits for our clients. This starts from the first time we speak to you all the way through to when you display your portraits on the walls of your home.
In our consult with you, we discuss your family, including ages and personalities. We want to get to know you before your session with us.
We also talk about styling your session to suit your family “vibe” (such as relaxed or formal), as well as your clothing for the session. We want every member of the family to look their best. We also discuss your home decor; this assists us in the styling, too. For example, if you plan to display your family portrait on a wall of your home which is red and that color won’t be changing any time soon, we will not recommend that you wear red clothing for your session!
Included in customizing your session to you and your family is having you take quick iPhone photos of any walls in your home upon which you want to display your portraits. After you text those photos to us, we import them into our design software. We can then design a collection for that wall, in the perfect size! After your portrait session, we can show you exactly how your portraits will look on that wall.
No matter the size of the wall, we can custom design the right collection for that wall.
You decide what you want, whether you want one large image on your wall or a collection of images. I’ll tell you that most families choose a collection because they want their walls to tell the story of their family.
Whatever your choice, we will ensure that it is the perfect one for you.
Tell your family’s story with beautiful portraits which will be treasured for generations.
Portrait Photography Studio, Family Photographer
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter family photography team located in Dulles, VA in Northern Virginia, and serving the Washington Metropolitan area. 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
Family Portraits, The Turner Family | Northern VA Family Photographer
Family Portraits, The Turner Family | Northern VA Family Photographer
When The Turner Family contacted us, it was because they were interested in continuing their annual tradition of professional pictures. This year, however, rather than do their usual studio portrait, the family wanted to take it outside. Our Dulles, VA portrait park was the perfect option for them!
This sweet family of four, Willie, Jante, little Willow, and grandmother Katherine, was excited for their portraits – well, almost all of them were excited! Adorable little Willow was a bit more skeptical, but who can blame her? She didn’t know us. However, with our years of experience with family photography, we consider ourselves experts at working with children and at putting them at ease. We know that our equipment can be just a bit scary for the little ones, so we go out of our way to make this a fun and exciting experience for them. We’re usually pretty successful!
Multigenerational Portrait Session
By the time our portrait photography session with The Turners’ was complete, we think Willow had opened up to us a bit. It didn’t matter so much, though, whether we won her over; with her big brown eyes, she’d won US over from the moment we saw her! Willow is one beautiful little girl!
It was fun to photograph this tight-knit family in a way we knew they’d love to see in a photo – warm smiles all around.
We really love it when our clients bring along multiple generations for their family portraits. Including grandparents in portraits with their grandchildren, as Katherine was included, is a wonderful way of showing the love sown between generations.
Outdoor Portrait Park
Jante and Willie had asked for a few shots of just him and his precious little girl which we were more than happy to take for them. Of course, we did the same for Jante! Usually, one parent is the photographer while the other the subject along with the children. This means that in every family there is usually far more pictures of one parent than the other. That alone is a great reason to do professional portrait photography. Professional portraits are a great opportunity to capture everyone in the family together in a portrait!
If you and your family live in the Dulles, VA area, or plan to be in the Northern VA area, and are interested in professional pictures, please contact us to discuss our services. With our expertise in working with families and children, as well as our beautiful outdoor portrait park, we will create a portrait of family you will be proud to display for decades.
Family Photographer, Professional Pictures
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!
Tip 10, Understand Your Photographer: Your photos are only as good as your photographer | Northern VA Family Photographer
Tip 10, Understand Your Photographer: Your photos are only as good as your photographer | Northern VA Family Photographer
“No wonder you took such a great family photo with all that fancy equipment you have!” Ouch! That is not what any photographer, hobby or professional, wants to hear. As professional photographers in the Brambleton, VA area, who’ve spent years developing our skills and our business, we definitely wouldn’t want to hear that. We are more than our equipment!
The final tip in our series “How to Understand and Work With Your Photographer Friends” is: Your photos are as good as your photographer, not their equipment!
Expensive equipment does not automatically mean a beautiful portrait.
Our great photography isn’t only a result of our professional equipment (although it certainly helps). It is our years of training, skill development, experience, and passion that account for the great family portraits we provide to our clients. It’s our heart and soul!
Great photography is actually a complex combination of factors. Portraits are only as good as the photographer taking them. As we mentioned in a previous blog post, if your photos are important to you, then select the right photographer.
If you are looking for the best photography, look through a photographer’s website to review their portfolio or gallery of pictures. Visit their studio and ask to see more photos if you’re not convinced.
However, whether a photographer uses a Canon or a Nikon can’t help them if they don’t know how to:
• Use the equipment
• How to play with light
• Work with their subject to put them at ease
• Make the most of the composition as it relates to the subject.
Whew! That was a mouthful, but that’s only part of what it takes to create great photography. It all comes together with years of training and experience! Listening to our clients before we begin their session contributes more toward a great portrait than our equipment.
Our portrait studio and outdoor portrait park are easily accessible from anywhere in the Brambleton, VA area and our clients hail from all across Northern Virginia and the Washington Metropolitan area. We hope you’ll let us put everything we’ve got toward your next family photo. You won’t be disappointed!
Other tips in this series:
Tip #1, Understanding the Process
Tip #2, Don’t ask for more photos than the ones we present to you
Tip #3, Don’t Expect Free Photography
Tip #4, Don’t Crop Out the Watermark
Tip #5, Don’t Edit a Photographer’s Images
Tip #6, Think Twice When Hiring Friends!
Tip #7, Don’t Ask Them to Change Their Style
Tip #8, Give Credit Where Credit is Due
Tip #9, Don’t Invite Them (as a Guest) Expecting Free Photos
Family Photographer, Family Photo
Ever After Portraits is comprised of Mindy Belcher and Joriana Belcher Anderson, a mother-daughter portrait photography team 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
Photographer Profile, Joriana | Northern VA Family 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