Beauty is Truth » baby

salina: one year old

beautyis — Thu, 03 May 2012 05:27:46 +0000

i had the pleasure of meeting little salina and her family a few weeks ago to take some portraits at one of my favorite spots, brookside gardens in wheaton, maryland. i’m all about babies these days, myself, with my newest hitting six months this weekend (!!!) so i had a blast watching this sweet baby girl exploring the beautiful gardens and interacting with people and plants in her own curious way. thanks so much to salina and her family for giving me the opportunity to capture these memories for you!

aamina & ibrahim: aqiqa

beautyis — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:53:34 +0000

sara and i go about ten years back, to when we were both students at college park. we still live close by each other, but after marriage and first kids, have found it harder to keep in touch face-to-face. so it was a crazy surprise when she facebook chatted me one day late last summer (2011) and each of us suddenly found out the other was pregnant – both due in november!
however, sara was actually expecting twins! as twins often do, they came a little early – aamina and ibrahim, welcomed home by their insanely adorable two-year-old sister mariam. by the time the twins’ aqiqah (traditional islamic head-shaving ceremony) was planned for january, i was so excited to have recovered enough from my own childbirth to be able to photograph the event. in fact, the aqiqah was the first night i had taken zayd out of the home to someone’s house for an evening – and he didn’t cry once! at three months, the twins already had such distinct personalities – hope these come through in the pictures!
so – hooray for babies, and for picking up the camera professionally again seven weeks postpartum :)

all the reasons i’m a wedding photographer…

beautyis — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:32:40 +0000

…all come down to this. meet my newest, born at 4:19 a.m. sunday, november 6, 2011. born just before dawn on a time-change sunday morning, just like his brother five years ago. born a week and a half early, before i could finish all my editing work for the year! born on the day muslims around the world celebrated eid al-adha, the festival of sacrifice, as over two million pilgrims completed the annual hajj pilgrimage in saudi arabia. we have two eids every year, and give gifts to each other on those days, just like christmas. i can’t help feeling blessed to think that god gave me this gift on eid day… not just baby zayd, but the new brotherhood with my firstborn, musa. there is nothing more beautiful in this world to me.

i do also want to say thank you to all of my 2011 clients who waited patiently for their pictures throughout my crazy last trimester and after the birth! i am of course taking a little break from shooting, but should be back in business early in the new year – so yes, i’m taking 2012 bookings :)

in case you’re interested… the first few pics are from the hospital/ride home; i did a little shoot with both boys when zayd was six days old. at about two weeks we shaved his head – an islamic tradition for newborns – and those images were not taken by me but by my wonderful friend ayaka, who happened to spend the night when i went into labor and stayed home with musa while we went to the hospital; the later images are from around the one and one-and-a-half month marks.

little pumpkin: baby and family portraits

beautyis — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:14:55 +0000

for my last official photography commission of 2011, i had the pleasure of working with amna, the sister of one of my brides from last year, and her beautiful family. i absolutely fell in love at first sight with baby ayah… she smiled when she first saw me and i was hooked!! amna and amer wanted some shots in a pumpkin patch, so we met up at clark’s elioak farm to take advantage of a gorgeous, sunny fall afternoon among the pumpkins and fanciful sculptures there. amna and amer were incredibly patient with their 9-months-pregnant photographer – thank you guys so much for that, and for your patience in waiting for these pictures since my own baby decided to show up a little bit earlier than expected!! it was such a pleasure to see you guys again and i hope you enjoy the pictures!

baby elyas

beautyis — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:08:22 +0000

elyas’ mom was the first of all my childhood friends still living close to me to start having kids, seven years ago; as of march 2, she is now the mother of three beautiful, blessed and happy boys, mashallah. elyas was a bit of a surprise – up until delivery, all sonograms and testing had led them to believe they were having a girl! i think elyas just wanted to keep his parents guessing :)
so i got to visit my friend’s house when he was just four days old, and was amazed to see how alert he already was. most of all, though, i adored how much he smiled in his sleep! in islamic tradition, infants smiling in their sleep indicate the presence of angels – babies, after all, are closer to God than the rest of us! can’t wait to visit elyas again, with or without camera :)

maryam: four months old!

beautyis — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:45:50 +0000

i haven’t had a chance to blog about baby maryam in a while, but her monthly portrait sessions are going great and as you can see she’s QUITE the happy camper for the most part! it’s so exciting to watch her grow like this, and such an honor to be the one to capture the first year of her life this way. all the smiles you see here are thanks to grandma, who managed to get some fantastic giggles out of maryam while i was snapping away! towards the end of the session, though, she discovered her lower lip was more fun to suck on than to smile with :) maryam, auntie ayesha loves you lots!

children, everywhere…

beautyis — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:45:22 +0000

in the first part of december, my house was a wilderness of children… okay maybe just three, and maybe it’s a bit of a wilderness even with my one kid! but i spent a couple of weeks babysitting my one-year-old niece, and also had a wonderful visit from my beloved cousin, who used to live close by when we had our babies within five hours of each other, but has long since moved plane-flight distance away. it was the first time our kids had been together since they were one and a half, and booooy did they keep us on our toes! one night we managed to visit my brother, too, and so had all three cousins together – (this was only two days before the newest cousin – see the post below – made her appearance!) – and so of course i took pictures!
this is just a random collection i have been wanting to share, of my niece with possibly the most adorable hair ever seen on a baby, of my son playing in the season’s first snow (early december) and of my nephew and my cousin’s daughter, all posing together for us. if you like kids… enjoy! :)

maryam: two months old!

beautyis — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:26:18 +0000

wow… i think maryam is actually almost three months old at this point! it’s taken me a while to get these pics up; my family visited canada last week (niagara falls and toronto), and i haven’t even been through those pics yet!
but i did want to share these few at least! maryam grows more adorable each time, mashallah, and i absolutely loved the green shalwar kameez that her grandmother made for her this time! any smiles you see in these pictures (we had to work hard on them!) are mainly the result of her two uncles telling her crazy stories and trying to make her laugh :) i can’t wait for the next session!

baby teaser

beautyis — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:01:25 +0000

i have a bit of a backlog and am still working on the last wedding i shot, but i did take maryam’s two-month-old baby pics yesterday and wanted to share at least one favorite i picked out to play with when i should have been doing something else!! she is sooooooooo cute, mashallah! and we had a little conversation this time, yes we did :)
much more to come…

maryam: one month old

beautyis — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:42:50 +0000

when sara contacted me about taking maryam’s one-month-old pictures, i couldn’t believe it had already been a month since i shot her aqeeqa! it was so amazing to see how much she had changed already! she started off with plenty of smiles and she really seemed to like the camera… at first, at least. we had a great time, but we wore her out – as you’ll see at the bottom of the post. i had forgotten how expressive and curious even such young babies can be – and i finally got to hold her this time! i’m so excited to be able to not only see, but to capture the changes as maryam goes through the incredible journey of a baby’s first year of life. plus, i get to hang out with her mom at least once a month!
since we did this shoot at my house, because i’m currently carless, we did have to negotiate around my son and his toys; in the end i tried to have musa lie down for a few portraits too – so… i’m just gonna throw a couple of those in at the bottom, too :)
here she is: