Beauty is Truth

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!

rashad & sana: cherry blossom portraits

beautyis — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 02:59:39 +0000

i didn’t think it was possible to photograph a more adorably in-love couple than rashad and sana at their walima last june, until i photographed rashad and sana several months later – that is, a few weeks ago, under the cherry blossoms in D.C. on a beautiful sunday afternoon. these two are so incredibly photogenic already, it’s just icing on my photographer’s cake to be able to capture a bit of the love that’s so radiant between them – especially in afternoon light like this!
rashad and sana, thanks again for the idea of switching from the gardens to D.C., for all the great posing ideas, and for struggling through all the traffic and walking so far to meet me out there. i think it was worth it! :)

nadiya & khuram: wedding

beautyis — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:19:06 +0000

i can’t tell you how excited i was to start my new year off with nadiya and khuram’s wedding! i’ve known nadiya online for a little while now and we have a lot of friends in common – both “IRL” and on facebook :). she is herself an artist and photographer – a beautiful soul inside and out – so was truly honored that she asked me to take some pictures at her wedding! it turns out also that i only had a few degrees separation from khuram, too – he’s the cousin of a friend of mine, and knows my own family (previously unknown to me though!) anyway – held at the nur center in falls church, virginia, their ceremony was beautifully simple, bringing together nadiya and khuram’s families and closest friends to celebrate with them. thanks so much, both of you, for letting me be a part of this!

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 :)

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!!

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!

wajiha and awais: a dc love story

beautyis — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 06:19:04 +0000

we met at the gate to chinatown, and wajiha and awais were filled with stories about how each one had lived down the street that-a-way at one point, or used to study in that location. it was such a pleasure to do my first urban couple’s session with two people who knew this part of the city so well – and had such a clear emotional connection to the places we walked. plus – they are so much fun! and – stylish, gorgeous, smart… the list goes on. wajiha and awais, i had such a great time meeting you guys and photographing you too :) so here they are – chinatown, the national portrait gallery, and the streets in between…

rachel and reed: portrait session

beautyis — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 02:53:19 +0000

about a month after their wedding, rachel and reed joined me in all their wedding finery back at their lovely, rustic wedding venue, the lodge at little seneca creek, to take some bridal and couple portraits with more leisurely time. we traipsed back behind the lodge and across the long lawn to the woods – it was more “them”, rachel assured me, and it was quite “me” as well. the early afternoon light and autumn air were simply lovely – as was rachel, of course! here’s a few of the shots we took there. rachel and reed, thanks so much for meeting me out there again – for getting dolled up again – and for trusting me, again, to take your pictures :)

family portraits: great falls, va

beautyis — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 02:12:43 +0000

mehreen first contacted me last winter about doing some family portraits after i had shot her cousin’s wedding a few months before; with the cold weather and her little boy, the idea of outdoor portraits didn’t work out at the time. but we managed to get it together for this fall and i was delighted that mehreen liked the idea of shooting at great falls park in virginia – one of my all-time favorite haunts, a place i used to hike alone as a student when i first came to maryland over ten years ago. the colors were just starting to come out last weekend but the light and the falls were as lovely as ever – and mehreen’s adorable little boy had a blast watching the falls and the kayakers, pushing his stroller over the gravel walkways, and running rampant over the leaf-strewn grass.
thank you guys so much for meeting me out there and trusting me to photograph your beautiful family! i hope you enjoy these photos as much as i enjoyed visiting the park with you and capturing them :)