Ezra’s travel team, the 15U Potomac Riverdogs, was approached to represent the US in a goodwill tour of Germany, and I’m excited to say the team has accepted! The purpose of the trip is to help grow the game of baseball internationally and give young, American players the opportunity to learn about and experience life and history outside of the US. They will spend a little over a week in Germany and play 5 games against German baseball academy teams. Obviously, a trip like this comes with a number of expenses and we’re hoping you can support him and his team in this opportunity. Our 2nd official fundraiser is a Super Bowl squares pool.

The squares are $25 each. If you have the RYP (Run Your Pool) app like me, it shows up in there already as "Riverdogs Super Bowl Squares (15U Fundraiser)", and it's all set to pick the number of squares you want to buy.

Winner Prizes:

1st Quarter, 2nd Quarter, 3rd Quarter: $275

Final Score: $425

If you have not participated before Click Here
Returning contestants should Click Here

PAYMENT:
Please send your entry payment online to our team treasurer by Feb 7th by Clicking Here (select payment as “send money to a friend” as opposed to send for goods/services). Reference your name in the comments.

I’d hoped to make blogging a regular thing on my site, but the last three and a half months have been crazy busy.

We had family vacation in Oak Island, NC for a week:

Then, I spent two weeks with my Dad in Vietnam:

When I came home, baseball season was in full swing.  I coach both of my sons’ teams, so it’s baseball six days a week.  That doesn’t leave much time for blogging.  Now that my younger son’s season has wrapped up, and my older son will be done after next weekend, I should have more time to add some more posts.  Hopefully, over the next couple of months, and in between working on client photos, I hope to share some more photos from my trips this summer and blog about my experience meeting my family in Vietnam for the first time.  My next post will be about my most recent family session and I’ll share some of my favorite shots from that evening.

Last week, I had the opportunity to shoot another family session over in Brambleton.  Now that I have two DSLR’s, on a whim, I asked my wife, Irum, if she wanted to use my D5300 to catch some of the action and get some more candid shots while I used my D610 to capture the primary images.  I’m so glad that I did.

It was great having a second shooter in a photo session where young children were a key component.  If you have kids, then you know that getting them to smile and look at the camera at the same time often feels (and looks) like a hostage negotiation.  Here’s a great shot of my own kids letting me know that they share my passion for photography.

Raghav and Shivz were absolutely adorable, but there was probably a whole list of things that they’d rather be doing on a sunny, Summer afternoon instead of sitting still and smiling for some stranger.  Sometimes outtakes like this one are  too cute not to share.

However, as a second shooter, the children, and the rest of the family, weren’t focused on Irum, which gave her the freedom to capture moments more organically.  Even better, the angles from which she was able to capture her images resulted in some really cool compositions, with great shadows and lighting.

The one drawback, I guess you could say, was that we both shoot lots of images.  By the end of the session, which lasted about an hour, I had over 600 images to sort through and edit.  It was definitely worth it, though, as we were able to capture some great shots.  From the original 600+ files, I delivered 100 fully edited photos to our client, Deepa. 

It was great to be able to capture a family session involving three generations.  I’m so glad that we were able to work out a time slot that allowed Deepa’s parents to be involved before they head back to India later this month.  Here are some of my favorites from our session.

If you, or someone you know in the Washington DC metropolitan area, is interested in having a family photo session, please let them know about us!  If you book with us by the end of the year, your family photo session is only $125.00.  You get all of the fully edited, high resolution images to keep and use as you please.  There are lots of beautiful and interesting places across the DMV where I would love to shoot a session. Contact me and we talk about the kind of session and location that you are interested in. We can come to you, or you can meet us in Ashburn at some of the locations that I’ve already scouted out.  I hope to hear from you soon!

**In the coming weeks, I’ll be shooting a couple of High School senior portrait sessions and a family session here in Ashburn.   I’ll be posting my experiences and some of my favorite captures from those sessions on the blog. Also, this time next month, I’ll be traveling with my dad across southern Vietnam and meeting my dad’s side of the family for the first time.  It’s going to be an awesome trip!  My plan is to share images and insights on the blog during our travels, internet access permitting.  Stay tuned!!