Hey Everyone!

This will be my first blog post featured on my new Facebook page. Be sure to drop by and “like” it: www.facebook.com/jvlphotographyofnova

I want to thank Sana and Aamir for trusting me to take their newborn photos with precious, little Aizah.  It was the requests to  “hire” me from friends like Sana that helped encourage me to get this photo business up and running.  Sana has always been special to Irum and I, as we trusted her to watch over Cooper and Ezra for the first years of their lives. 

I’m not going to lie, newborn photography is hard!  And, it requires lots of stuff: softboxes, Alien Bee lights, backdrop frames, beanbags, flash remotes, blankets, wraps, bonnets and all sorts of props.  Here’s a really bad pic of some of that stuff from the first time I tried setting it all up in my living room.

Most importantly, newborn photography requires patience!  These types of shoots can last several hours, especially for a newbie like me.  There are lots of variables like setup time, feedings, diapers, wardrobe changes, and the time that it takes to pose the baby, which has to be done, preferably, without waking the baby; it’s always easiest to pose a newborn when they are fast asleep.  Aizah was super cute and very well behaved, but she wasn’t very sleepy (until right after we wrapped up, of course).  We were able to get her to sleep eventually and take some shots but I wasn’t really sure that we were getting the shots we needed.  Honestly, when I left Sana’s I was thinking that newborn photography might not be for me.

When we got home, I had to download the photos immediately to see what I had.  Once I saw the images on my desktop, I felt much better and got excited to get into the editing phase.  The editing for these shots was very involved as well.  The shoot itself took about three hours, counting setup and packing up afterward.  The editing was probably nine to twelve hours.  Typically, most of my editing involves adjusting tone, brightness and cropping the images, which I do in Abobe Lightroom.  I rarely need to wade into Adobe Photoshop.  This wasn’t the case for Aizah’s photos as the fine details are so important in newborn photography.  The healing brush in Photoshop became my new best friend and I think it made a huge difference in these photos.  Here are some of my favorites:

And here are some of my favorite family shots:

Thanks again to Sana and Aamir for giving me this opportunity!  It was a great learning experience for me and I was really happy with the shots that I got.  I hope that they love them too!  If you, or someone that you know is looking for a newborn photographer in Loudoun, Fairfax or anywhere in the Northern Virginia area, please share this page with them and have them contact me.  From now through the end of the year, I’ll be offering newborn photography for $250, which is a steal.  You get all of your fully edited, high resolution images to keep and print/share as you like.

As far as I can tell, my love for photography started with
this book.  Back on Mother’s day I first announced
on Facebook (because it’s not official until it’s on Facebook) that I was
starting my own photography business.  In
that moment, I couldn’t help but think of this book.  You see, my mom made this book.  In my mind, she made it for me.  It’s “my” photo album. That’s what I’ve
always called it. 

The book begins with pictures of me in the house that we
lived in when I was first born.  It’s a
house that I only know because of the photographs in this book.  Back then, my dad worked for the Marucci
family (the father of Jack Marucci of maruccisporst.com) as a chef for Shadyside
Restaurant in Uniontown.  He was also the
live-in caretaker for the Rockwell family at Five-Gates Farms in Farmington, PA.  Based on the
photographs in this book, Five-Gates looked like a pretty awesome place.  There are pictures of me and my dad in the
swimming pool and of me on the tennis court. 
There are pictures of my mom dragging me away from the cows that lived
on the property.  According to my mom, I
was simultaneously fascinated with, and terrified of those cows.  So much so that, also according to my mom, I decided that I wanted to be
a cow when I grew up. 

Later, there are photographs of me in the home that I grew
up in.  There are pictures of me and my
sister with Easter baskets, and pictures of us in our pajamas in front of the
Christmas tree.  There are pictures of me
learning to play football and baseball, of firewood sword fights with my dad and
of me learning to ride my bike.  There
are also photos of that time that I wouldn’t stop crying until my
mom dressed me up in my dad’s work pants. 

As you can probably tell from the condition it’s in, I’ve
spent a lot of time in this book.  When I was really young, we had one
television in our house and, when it worked, we got about 5
channels.  If the TV wasn’t working, we
had a shortwave radio that I could use to listen to my favorite television
shows.   When there was nothing good on
the tv (or the radio) I often found myself flipping through this book, reliving
the memories found on its pages.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many pictures of my mom in this
book.  You see, she was the one with the
camera always strapped to her wrist, working hard to capture the memories that
now fill its tattered pages.  These days,
it’s my hand in which the camera is always present, and I love it.  I love capturing the special moments that
will help my boys relive memories they’ve made together.  I love trying different compositions, and
angles, and lighting conditions.  To me,
photography is the pursuit of that ever-elusive “perfect picture.”   I know that I’ll never succeed in capturing
it, but that’s why I’m obsessed with it. 
I didn’t realize it until just recently, but that obsession began with this
book.

This is where I’ll try to keep you in the loop when I’m working on a project.  You’ll also learn more about me, my family and my dog.

Ps.  I hope you like bad jokes…