attending weddings as a guest

July 2, 2009 | Filed Under family photos, friends | 6 Comments 

last weekend i got a chance to attend the wedding of another girl i knew growing up – the oldest of three daughters of one fabulous woman who has always been an inspiration to me, in my home community of raleigh, NC. i am not always in the loop with the raleigh community, and especially with the younger generation now graduating from college and moving on with their lives, it blows me away to see how they are taking the helms of their own lives and accomplishing amazing things in pursuit of their own dreams, like nadia and her sisters. nadia married a young man whose involvement in the washington, d.c.-area muslim community brought many other familiar faces to this wedding; even my husband realized he knew the groom’s family from long ago.
so i had a wonderful time, seeing old and new friends, and faces i couldn’t put a name to but i’ve known for years, at this wedding held at a simply beautiful waterfront venue on the chesapeake bay.
of course… that was only in the moments in between running around after two three-year-olds, my son and my nephew, who really had a fabulous time themselves, i’m sure! (i should add that my husband did a terrific job of watching him most of the time so that i could chat a little with my friends…)
so – just clarifying that i did NOT shoot this wedding, but i did take my camera along (and if i can find the link to the official photographer’s site i will post it here!) – just to capture a little bit of what i could get while being a guest and a mama and an aunt at a wedding!

AND, before i forget – i wanted to let you all know my blog was featured on a fantastic site, blogs of photogs, several days ago. thanks so much, mary! this site features plenty of talent in photography as well as links to related business, like wedding vendors and graphic designers, etc. be sure to check it out!

my son, enjoying the breeze from the open window on the drive to the venue:

the fantastically gorgeous bride, nadia, making her entrance with her husband!

my brother, sis-in-law and nephew as the couple walked in:

the kids, sitting down for the few minutes at the beginning when they did sit down:

i put on the long lens for a few minutes to get some shots at the beginning, while this young boy was reciting qur’an – traditional at the start of any major muslim event:

aaaand… they were off in search of adventure, or at least some strawberries and grapes…

i followed them down to the gazebo where they looked out at the water for a bit:

i couldn’t resist processing this shot like this… they looked so don’t-mess-with-us cool :)

but i also loved this image of the two of them looking out to sea… er, bay…

so then my husband took over and i went back to the wedding activities. here, the groom is shaking hands with his teacher, the extraordinary calligrapher mohamed zakariya, after receiving a handmade gift from him.

groom’s brother, speaking…

two of my lovely friends, who came up from NC to stay with us for the wedding (do you like how i fixed the hijab issue, hana?? :) ) :

this one’s just for you, taiyyaba! one of my best friends’ parents, who have known me since childhood:

so then nadia and aasil came around to mingle with their guests, and we oohed and aahed over her dress and jewelry…

and finally, i got a friend to take a shot of me (left) with my beautiful sister-in-law, who i am thrilled to share is expecting my second nephew or niece in about six months, God willing! yay for babies!

after that we went into the reception tent for lunch, and things rapidly degenerated as my unnapped son’s mood went downhill, so the camera stayed in the bag and i’m not really sure what went on in terms of wedding festivities… but such is parenthood’s blessing!

a visit with the NC grandparents

June 18, 2009 | Filed Under family photos, nature | 4 Comments 

so, i haven’t had any shoots for a while, but i did take my camera to raleigh in may and june when we went down for weddings and baby showers and whatnot. so of course i have some pictures of my son and nephew to share… it’s taken me a while to get my act together for a blog post, but here are some images from the personal side of our trips down to NC! the first few shots are from a quick walk in our neighborhood down to silver lake right by our neighborhood, where a resident swan came to see us.
also, i messed up my watermark file and while it would have been simple to recreate it, i thought i would try something a little different…

springtime with my budding photographer

April 10, 2009 | Filed Under family photos | 4 Comments 

i guess every child goes through this imitation phase as a toddler – but i can’t help being thrilled with musa’s interest in holding my old film SLR properly, looking through the viewfinder properly, and taking pictures of everything just like his mama!
just had to share these for now – i’ll be posting more from drew and syd’s wedding very soon! the first post from their wedding is just below.

this last series is one that makes me SO happy: we had been practicing writing the letter “H” a couple of days before; he hasn’t shown much skill with deliberate writing or drawing yet, so i was really just playing around with him. this day, he just sat down in the playroom with his magna-doodle-thing, made this gigantic, lopsided “H” and said, “mama, look! i made an ‘H’!” after that, he erased it and made a smaller one – then “took a picture” of it, since that’s what i was doing!

warming up!

March 30, 2009 | Filed Under family photos, photography | 1 Comment 

so i had some shots to blog of the snowy weather and never got around to it; now the weather is getting warmer! i’ve been practicing on my ever-present subject, of course; so, before my next wedding, i wanted to share some of the images i’ve been taking of my son and the weather… the “warm weather” playground and lake/geese shots are from centennial park in columbia, maryland – one of my favorite parks when i lived in columbia! and a great opportunity to work on composition and lighting… these shots are also edited using lightroom, which i finally have installed on my computer. the workflow is sooo much smoother now and i can’t wait to use this to process my next wedding… coming up this weekend!

anyway, this image below is the first time i’ve used a texture on an image of my son… just thought the mood of the picture merited it. i’m not big on textures, to be honest, but when they’re done well they’re amazing, so i do like to experiment…

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