Beauty is Truth » family photos

carnival!

beautyis — Fri, 21 May 2010 10:38:37 +0000

can’t believe i didn’t blog these before! actually found them by accident last night, and realized i hadn’t put them up yet. last month, pennwood shows brought their annual carnival to the sarem farm market just around a couple of corners from our house. we went for the first time last year (musa’s first carnival experience) and i found what so many aging parents like myself have found – that it really is possible to go to a carnival and not enjoy any of the rides yourself, but to go purely for the sake of the smile on your child’s face, and for the funnel cakes (for yourself). oh, and to take pictures, of course, challenging yourself to use only one slightly dinky prime lens (my 50mm 1.8), always shooting wide open, to try to get the best shots you can.
we had ben repeatedly driving past the carnival over its few-week stint at sarem – always by mistake, unless i WANTED to hear the endless, “mama! let’s go right now! i wanna go right now! it’s not fair!” – until we finally chose a warmish, rain-free friday evening to visit (turned out to be the carnival’s last weekend there!). i spread the word and some of our friends came to enjoy the carnival with us, and i daresay a fun time was had by all…

DC auto show

beautyis — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:11:09 +0000

this is what you get when an utterly non-car person takes pictures at a car show… the only thing i could really get out of it was the smile on my son’s face, which of course made every minute worth it! anyway, this was, obviously, just a personal visit with my family, during the last hour of the last day of the washington, d.c. annual auto show… musa couldn’t get enough of getting into every car he could. i figured taking my camera was the best way for me to spend my time there…

wintergreen, va

beautyis — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:32:20 +0000

our family took a trip this past weekend with a group of other young families to one of our favorite spots – wintergreen, a ski resort located in the virginia mountains about three hours’ drive from the DC area. i’ve been there twice before – once with my husband, before we had musa, and once last summer, to shoot this wedding. we had a wonderful time – most of all, watching our children enjoy themselves, but also enjoying some winter sports, good company, good food and lasting memories. naturally i took my camera along… though here i am sharing just a few images of my own family (like musa on the bungee-trampoline!), and mostly some of the breathtaking scenery at wintergreen – utterly magical in the snow and fog, and exhilarating in the winter sunlight under a blue sky.

tilt-shift musa

beautyis — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:15:53 +0000

played around with my tilt-shift lens the morning i had to return it. i still have a lot to learn with this lens, but it sure is fun….

(this first shot is actually with the 35L, not the tilt-shift…)

now, the tilt-shift pictures…

i don’t normally include two versions of the same shot, but i couldn’t decide which one i liked better…

and this one is musa’s favorite picture:

happy new year!

beautyis — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 08:50:13 +0000

okay, so i’m not much of a new year’s person, to be honest. BUT, i do love good times with good friends, and i happen to have a bunch of gorgeous, unbelievably photogenic friends who are really good sports with me and my camera… so i took my equipment over to my friend humera’s house tonight to get some portraits of the people i love. my plan was to practice doing some off-camera lighting… but i’ve only succeeded in realizing even more how much i have to learn about it, so there’s only, like, one shot in here with flash. otherwise… i mean, i was shooting with a canon 35mm 1.4L wide open on a 5D at ISO 1000… why even bother with the flash?? have i mentioned before how much i love this lens?!
humera, jawad, aatif, rubina, shaf, imran, and my growing family hassan, rabiah, issa baba and baby imani – thanks so much for a wonderful evening!

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!

niagara/finger lakes trip

beautyis — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:50:03 +0000

here is a selection from the almost 700 images we shot on our four-night trip to niagara falls, toronto and the finger lakes… yeah, that’s why it’s taken me so long to get these up!
so, here’s what we did! we drove up through upstate new york on sunday, oct. 18; just hitting peak foliage color, on the way, and it was a gorgeous drive! the first night in niagara falls was very cold, but the weather warmed up for the next few days. monday we started off at the bird & reptile kingdom, for the kid, but then we “did” the falls – walking along the cliff, taking the maid of the mist, going “behind the falls,” etc., underneath such a lovely blue sky with sunlit white clouds… the next day we drove into toronto, saw the city and the CN tower, tried a few different restaurants (specifically, my husband had three different shawarmas for dinner!) then came back to niagara falls; that night we also got some shots along the cliff with the colored floodlights glowing through the mist. the next day we drove downstream to see a little more of what the falls region had to offer – niagara-on-the-lake, etc – then crossed back over the border and drove down to ithaca for the night.
the following day, we spent the morning and early afternoon sightseeing along cayuga lake and seneca lake, with all their wooded banks aflame in autumn colors and the local vineyards laden with grapes… this was our only family vacation this year, and i’m glad to say even the little one quite enjoyed himself, for the most part! we stayed at the skyline inn and we were quite happy with the experience there. but more than anything, it was just a much-needed break, to have the time to ourselves, witness something as awe-inspiring as the falls, and – for me – to take pictures for myself…

just in case you’re wondering, this one’s from the bird kingdom’s reptile room…

and this is an actual “java house” with each wall carved painstakingly from a single piece of wood… they have this kind of randomly located in the bird kingdom…

my son, on the maid of the mist…

“behind” the horseshoe falls

here we were by the water in toronto…

and this is one of the views from the CN tower

back in niagara falls, at night…

this is the “whirlpool” in the niagara river, downstream from the falls

ithaca falls, by cornell university…

a park we stopped by near taughannock falls

and, taughannock falls! they said this is three stories higher than niagara falls…

one of the rural, unpaved cross-roads between cayuga and seneca lakes:

a glimpse from my canada trip

beautyis — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:32:50 +0000

i already facebooked this image so i assume most people have seen it but thought i would share it here as well: my favorite shot from the canada trip (my husband, son and i visited niagara falls and toronto from october 18-22, stopping a night in upstate NY on the way home). here, my husband had dropped me off along the cliffside to take nighttime shots of the colored lights on the falls; after i had taken more than enough, just when i was starting to wonder if he had left me there and gone back to the hotel he popped up behind me with our son on his shoulders, to scare me! on our walk back upstream to the car, i got this shot of them with the floodlit falls behind them…

eid mubarak!

beautyis — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:45:20 +0000

sunday was eid al-fitr for most of the muslim community in america, and much of the rest of the world as well – a remarkable occurrence of unity not unnoticed on the day of! perhaps that was just one of the signs of how blessed a day it was – it certainly felt blessed! could not have been a more perfect day – that blue in the sky in the images below? for real. smiles, bright sunlight, crisp-but-warm weather… a joyful communal prayer with a meaningful sermon, then lots of presents for the kids and plenty of excellent food… especially sweets! the only thing missing from my perfect eid was the chance to put some henna (mehndi) on myself… but at least i snapped a shot of a friend’s decorated hands.
so, this is entirely a personal post, but if you’re visiting and don’t know much about eid in america, i hope this helps… we had the prayer in the morning at the muslim community center in silver spring, md., then went home for the first round of the kids’ eid gifts with my husband’s side of the family (my adorable nieces, five years old (almost six!) and eight months old); we then went to lunch with family and friends, and then drove to my brother’s house in virginia to hang out with my nephew and do some more gifting. i think i had a nap somewhere in there too – a perfect day, subhanallah!
all the pictures are taken with the tamron 28-75 2.8… proving that in the right lighting situation, this lens can totally rock the clarity and colors!!

family time: “wings of fancy” with the boys

beautyis — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:37:27 +0000

last week my parents were here, and we took my son and nephew to “the butterfly house” – actually known as the wings of fancy exhibit at brookside gardens in wheaton, md., where i’ve done a few photoshoots, too. my nephew wanted to go so badly, but he ended up being not so happy with all these bugs – for bugs they are! – flying about him! still, it’s a magical place, with the bright flowers, the scent of overripe fruit and the still, humid air, and jeweled wings fluttering all around you. i hadn’t taken personal pictures in so long… but i do try to take pictures of these two boys when they’re together, for my parents. i didn’t have my long lens with me, so no real closeups of the butterflies… but a few shots i liked! after the exhibit we just sat on benches in the gardens to feed the flushed, sweaty boys their snacks (well, at least my nephew… mine doesn’t like to eat, and yes, he’s said so himself), and then went home. it was a beautiful day, so i just wanted to share some of these pictures here…

what happens when i ask issa to “make funny faces for the camera”…