Beauty is Truth

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

happy anniversary, saad and mahroo!

beautyis — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 10:25:04 +0000

may the laughs keep coming and may Allah bless you with countless more years of joy, strength, and blessed prosperity!

engagement shoot: nafeez & jessica

beautyis — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:01:30 +0000

nafeez and jessica are getting married!! in october this year. in gettysburg!! so, in honor of that, we had been planning to shoot some pretty historic-type pictures – more to come on that later – but since that didn’t work out, we settled on a historic location – the beautiful landon house in frederick, md., where anyone with a penchant for civil war history – or just a love of beautiful historic homes – can set up a memorable wedding experience.
be that as it may, we had to make our photo shoot memorable by having to plunge through the foot or so of snow still remaining on the ground there – not to mention the squelching mud left over in the plowed patches. the great thing about engagement shoots is that they give the photographer a chance to get to know the couple a little bit as a photographer, and i had a blast getting to know nafeez and jessica! after seeing how intrepid jessica was about tackling the snow in flats without socks, i’m sure the wedding day will be as smooth as silk! seriously, though – or not – nafeez and jessica, i loved seeing the way you two laughed together, and i can’t wait to meet the rest of your families and work with you both again! congratulations again, and see you very soon

wintry portraits

beautyis — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:22:35 +0000

i had an unexpected chance to meet these three lovely sisters today in gaithersburg, in the kentlands area, and take their pictures on the one day of gorgeous sunlight, just-above-freezing weather, and just-barely-passable road conditions that could have made a portrait session possible. yesterday, no roads, tomorrow, more snow – but today? beautiful! thanks so much for contacting me, ladies; it was my pleasure to work with you, and hopefully you’ll get to see the rest of the shoot very soon!

snow!

beautyis — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:35:52 +0000

just had to share a few shots from trying to deal with the craziest snowstorm in about a century this weekend! i took some shots early saturday morning (feb. 6), then once we (all three of us!) went out to shovel the driveway, which was… for me at least… a herculean effort. it’s been such a long time since i’ve had such a physical job to do, which i wanted so badly to stop but had to go on the sudden clearing of the sky just in time for sunset was magical, and today (sunday) of course it was bright and sunny, and not frightfully cold while the sun was out. in order to make the snowman, i waded to the middle of our front yard, dug up the head of the completely buried snowman from last week’s snow, and gave it to my husband to construct snowman number two. i’m dreading the shoveling that might be necessary with the storm expected tuesday and wednesday… but i still love the snow!

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:

a little bit more…

beautyis — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 06:30:11 +0000

i’ve been finishing up the processing for sam and sanjana’s two events and just wanted to share a random selection of a few more favorites from both events!
one of these images – the horizontal of the chandelier, was taken by my assistant-for-the-day, fasiha khan – loved the image, thought i would share it here too! thanks so much, fasiha, for all your help

sam & sanjana II

beautyis — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 06:48:55 +0000

samjana’s walima (reception given by the groom’s side) was held on a blustery, bright yet bitterly cold day at the gorgeous westfields marriott in chantilly, virginia at the start of the new year, a week after the rukhsathi, or bride’s-side reception, held in sanjana’s hometown of knoxville, tennessee.
i’ll say again how excited i was to be able to photograph both of sam and sanjana’s events; it was so much fun to see so many familiar faces at the walima, and to realize how many connections we had in common! but the most memorable aspect of the day, for me, was the diversity and the unity altogether of the guests, and how much that clearly meant to both the bride and groom. watching and listening to those of varying religious traditions who have all known and loved sam on his spiritual journey was beautifully moving – to know that the witnessing guests were comprised of muslims, christians, jews, hindus and more, all unified in their embrace of this passionately muslim boy and his bride. i truly hope some of that comes through in the pictures, because it certainly is part of what i tried to capture!
sam and sanjana, thank you once again for allowing me to take and share these images, and thanks so much for your patience with my portrait experiments i’m publishing this on jan. 10 which is the date you are supposed to be leaving – so i hope you guys do get to see this soon, inshallah! all my prayers and best wishes for a safe journey and a fruitful, blessed experience… ameen