Beauty is Truth » photography

2011: year in review

beautyis — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:42:28 +0000

so everything takes me a while with the whole new baby and two kids instead of one thing… here, two weeks into the new year, is a selection of my favorite images from wedding and portrait sessions through 2011. at the very end down below, there’s an image my second shooter amber wilkie took of me (five and a half months preggo and looking a hot mess after eight hours of shooting) with some of my most awesome clients – osman and lubna, at their walima in july in DC. and the very last image, i just blogged prior to this – but it might be my most favorite image from all of 2011 :) thanks SO much to my family, all my clients and my amazing second shooters for taking this journey with me last year – can’t wait to get started on 2012!!

shout-out to the best photographers in the world

beautyis — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 08:13:02 +0000

so at the end of this incredible year… i wanted to say a little something about how i’ve gotten to where i am.
i joined yahoo’s flickr photo community several years ago, but never really thought much of it, until one day in the summer of 2008, when i came to the realization that i knew next to nothing about wedding photography and needed to find other photographers to talk to, to find out what i was doing wrong and how i could improve. about a week before a two-wedding weekend – the only ones i shot that summer – i remembered that flickr had groups, and went to see if i could find one that dealt with wedding photography. found “starting a wedding photography business.”

perfect!

flickr has a unique photo interface… a fluid “stream” of images you can upload, and organize into sets and collections, tag, promote in groups, etc. but flickr’s greatest strength by far is its community. i’ve done my share of deriding online interaction and social media as “fake”, but i actually can’t imagine my life without my flickr group – yes, mine! without a doubt, the single most important step i took in becoming a professional wedding photographer was joining this flickr group – more important than practicing, than learning software, than buying gear, anything else – because i wouldn’t have known what to do in any of those categories without them. (as an internet addict… i actually spend more time on flickr than on facebook, if that tells you anything).
they hail from every far-flung corner of the globe. they are full-time photographers and weekend warriors, college students and parents of college students, outliers and brilliant thinkers, writers, travelers, dreamers and realists, believers and atheists, political junkies and apathetics, honest and real and friends. with, of course, one thing (at least) in common… this incredible passion for and talent in photography. they are good people, the best: they support you when you’re struggling, cheer you when you’re winning, teach you when you’re being an idiot, defend you when you’re attacked, commiserate when you’re venting, pick you up when you’re down and knock you down if you need it – tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear – share your joys and sorrows that have nothing to do with photography, even. they make you laugh, cry, think twice, think differently, think outside the box. they constantly – every day – inspire me not only with their work, but with their experiences, too. they push boundaries in business and in photographic technique, and they go out of their way to share willingly and generously of their knowledge and expertise. i’ve heard comments from friends before about “the competition” in my industry… but it’s so obvious among us that it almost goes without saying, that we gain immeasurably more by sharing with each other.

i’m lucky enough to be in the d.c./baltimore area, where there is a wealth of absurdly talented photographers anyway; but i’ve had the opportunity to connect with many of the local members of our group, whom we rely on for second shooting, emergencies and other situations. and sometimes we meet in person and shoot together… our last meetup was in november, in baltimore on a sunny sunday afternoon. we’ve gained a few new members with moves and such, so i’m truly looking forward to the next meetup in the new year – till then, here are a few shots from our november meetup, where we tried to sneak shots of cute couples at the harbor and played around with freelensing.

SWPB… i love you guys. more than you’ll ever know. you are my rockstars. thank you for being who you are and for teaching me… i’m so incredibly proud to be a part of our group, and i can’t wait to see how we all grow in the coming year!

2010: year in review

beautyis — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 23:59:07 +0000

i’ve had the most amazing year… take a look!

posing practice, and much more

beautyis — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 04:25:49 +0000

so even though the summer season is picking up, i couldn’t resist the opportunity to meet up with some old photography friends for some practice shooting this past week… back in october of 2008, just a few months after i had first joined the most incredible photographic community in the world on flickr, i was able to travel up to frederick to join a bevy of photographers with much more experience (and more batteries, huh, bill?) than me, and had an amazing day trying to learn how to take better pictures of people… ideally, pretty brides in wedding dresses. i learned about reflectors, off-camera flash, composition, focusing and more – and particularly the importance of having back-up batteries, as mine ran out of juice just before the brides got into a stream to “trash the dress” – and made some good friends among a disparate group of people with one thing binding them closely together: geekhood. for cameras. i’m sure you guys are all cool in other respects!
anyway! so… i’ve missed many meetups since then, but found out that the fantastic folks at hopeland studios were putting together a meetup with some real-people models focusing on flow posing, and i thought it could be extremely helpful, as posing for portraits is an area i’ve been looking to work on. plus, as much as parenthood thrills me to the bottom of my heart, i have to admit that the luxury of an evening out, by myself, among other adults, indulging my creative side, was pretty darn tempting…
well, we absolutely lucked out, i must say: a generous and kind hostess, a dedicated and friendly group of photographers, gentle sunshine, clear skies and warm air through the evening, and – our models? two couples – one getting married in two weeks, the other having been married for 20 years – both classy, gorgeous, funny, patient, both absolutely radiating the love they felt for each other… the list goes on. kathlyn, rob, marcie and pedro – i mean, dan – i can’t thank you guys enough for letting us contort you around for hours while keeping smiles plastered on your faces :) it was SUCH a pleasure meeting you all and i truly hope you get as much joy out of our pictures as we did learning to take them properly :)
a note: the off-camera flash shots shown here of the two couples used a hotshoe flash inside a large softbox, triggered by alienbee cybersyncs, which was set up by my friend and sometimes-second-shooter, the amazing rehan bashir, and the photos of kathlyn in her gorgeous wedding dress at the end used a hotshoe flash firing through a shoot-through umbrella, triggered by pocket wizards, set up by bill millios of hopeland studios. me – i’m still working on being able to set up lights properly and get results like these… might be investing in a good softbox in the near future!

canon 85 1.8: new lens

beautyis — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:27:14 +0000

just a few shots from today, which i took soon after my new lens came in the mail! this is the canon 85mm 1.8, a portrait lens just a little more affordable than its “L” cousin, the 85 1.2, which i rented a couple of months ago and really, really enjoyed. if you know me, you know that my favorite lens for weddings is canon’s 35mm 1.4L, which is so versatile and reliable and gorgeous that i could easily just shoot a whole wedding with that alone… but for portraits, i wanted something a little closer, a little more intimate, but with similar qualities of color, clarity and background “bokeh”… if you know what i mean. so i had some fun with this today – on my everpresent subjects: musa, his toys and the flowers outside.
i also played around on a few of the images with some premade photoshop “actions” i’ve been meaning to try out for a while… i generally don’t process my pictures very heavily, but sometimes an image benefits from the effects added by a unique black-and-white conversion, or the timelessness evoked by nostalgic tinting and fading. i don’t trust myself to do it very often, but… like i said, just playing. hope you enjoy these!

cherry blossoms

beautyis — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:13:44 +0000

it’s a little late, but while i still had the 45mm 2.8 tilt-shift lens and my beloved 35mm 1.4L after yasmin and tyseer’s wedding, i had the chance to take it out to DC at the tail end of the peak of cherry blossom season, and used them to practice on one of my favorite subjects – a dear friend of mine. so, here are a few of the images i took that day – thanks, shaf, for climbing in that tree, and jumping out again :)

spring at the harbor

beautyis — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 06:56:19 +0000

i cannot tell you guys how thrilled i am that the season is finally turning… with a day like today, we couldn’t help but go up to baltimore harbor to spend the afternoon with family and friends, enjoying seafood and sunshine. i had rented the amazing canon 85mm 1.2L lens for a shoot this weekend and wanted to play around/practice with it, so this was the perfect opportunity. it also helped having a couple of extremely photogenic and photo-happy friends who really didn’t mind my experimenting ON them with the lens… as well as experimenting with them in photoshop… :) thanks humera and jawad! i really love you guys!

exciting announcements

beautyis — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:52:56 +0000

so i have a couple of exciting bits of news to share with you all… the first is a little old; i’ve been sitting on it for the blog, although i did tweet about it a while back! but, in january i received an award from one of the national wedding service websites i am associated with, WeddingWire, an endeavor that links brides and vendors to facilitate wedding planning across the country.
from their press release about the 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards:

The annual Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in quality and service within the wedding industry, as determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 500,000 newlyweds.
Ayesha Ahmad Photography is among the top five percent of all vendors in the WeddingWire community, which includes over 100,000 wedding professionals across the US and Canada. Awards were given to winners across 19 different service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers.

the other news is more recent – just this week i received my long-awaited acceptance email to the fantastic Wedding Photojournalist Association, an organization that celebrates and upholds the standard of true photojournalism in wedding photography – capturing moments, emotions and stories as they unfold during the event, without direction or interference. every wedding has a place for posed shots, formal or informal, but for me the thrill, challenge and beauty lie in the truth of the day itself – the honor that i’ve been chosen to capture it, the responsibility of capturing it purely. so i’m absolutely thrilled to be accepted into WPJA, and – as a sometimes-writing-journalist, still – proud to call myself a wedding photojournalist.
from WPJA’s press release:

[WPJA is] an International, membership-based organization representing professional photographers skilled in the documentation of weddings and events in a candid, unobtrusive style. As a WPJA member, Ayesha Ahmad joins the ranks of some of the most talented wedding photojournalists in the world as judged by their technical, creative and visual aptitude.
Ayesha Ahmad will be held to strict membership standards regarding image quality and content, technical and creative technique, website and marketing professionalism, business ethics and communication. In turn, she gains prestigious affiliation with one of the industry’s top professional organizations. Ayesha Ahmad can further gain admittance into quarterly competitions, where her work will be judged by some of the world’s most respected and accomplished award-winning photojournalists.

so, here are the little badges you’ll see going up on my site soon! i’m so excited about these – if you know me at all, you know how much of my heart is in this business, and i can’t help but be thankful for the opportunity to work toward joining so many others whose work i admire and am inspired by.

AND, because no post is complete without a photograph… and this is all about moments… here’s one of my favorite father-daughter moments from sarah and eddie’s wedding last year :)

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:

more tilt-shift: great falls, VA

beautyis — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:57:23 +0000

promise this is the last tilt-shift-only post!
but, i had a couple of hours to kill before i needed to return the lens to the fantastic folks at penn camera, and it was a beautiful day, and my friend saliha who lives not far from the place wasn’t working and loves hiking too… so we met up around midday at one of my most favorite parks in the world, great falls, on the virginia side of the potomac. with musa along, of course. i took only the 45mm ts-e lens so i could focus on trying it out a little more; found it was less of a struggle the next day, although that might have been because i was taking pictures of trees and a river, instead of people who had to wait for me :) i believe i might have begun to fall in love with this lens… but i still want the canon 35L first! someday!
a note: when i first began taking pictures in high school, i didn’t even like photographing people… it was always the outdoors, in the beginning, trying to capture beautiful landscapes or skyscapes or natural details, and i even hated having people IN the nature shots. so although my preference has changed quite a bit, this kind of exercise was a little bit of a return to myself…