One of my favorites — trying to get Mommy and her two boys and baby — when who should appear but the adorable 4 year old cousin!

The expression on Baby’s face in this next picture makes me smile every time I see it!

We finished our session with some good ol’ dancing fun (for the kids who are old enough to dance, anyway).  This was some version of ring-around-the-rosie.  Or inspired by…or something….

Terrific way to spend a morning — so glad to meet you, K family!

All the best,
- Danie Smallwood

My daughter actually asked me to take this picture of her — she posed at the bottom, demonstrating how she’s learning to go down the pole.  Glen Echo Fire Station, get ready for a new volunteer.  Meanwhile, my son, who LOVES sandboxes, was sporting the awesome new sweatshirt his uncle and soon-to-be aunt sent him from Maui!Now that he’s five, my son is full of cool tricks.  He was actually just pretending he didn’t want his picture taken here.  As in “Hey Mommy, take a picture of me not wanting you to take my picture, okay?”What you can’t actually see in this picture is that my daughter is holding her shoe in her hand.  The shoe that fell off when I pulled her out of the swing, but that she insisted she could put back on herself.  This is about 10 minutes into that effort.Watched my son jumping off this post, saw the backlighting on his hair, and begged him to do it again!  You can probably guess where this is headed.  A five year old with a stick, promising not to hit anyone with it?!Yep, right there on the cheek. Somehow made her smile — but see the tears???

Comforting her brother, who was tired, hungry, and upset that he got in trouble for hitting his sister “on accident!!!!!”

With that, we headed home.  So much for staying to catch the gorgeous light of sunset!  But the kids, shockingly enough, were not especially concerned about my desire to practice exposing in backlighting.  They were much more interested in whether they could still get pizza for dinner after the stick incident. 

I’m trying to write less so I have time to show more, but just have to add — this next image stole my heart as I was editing.  Just as I opened this image, the soundtrack to “August Rush” started playing on my computer, opening with the words,  ”I believe in music the way that some people believe in fairy tales.”  Ummm…how appropriate for this image!  You can just feel the soundtrack that is running through this child’s mind!

- Danie Smallwood, family photographer

When things got busy this Fall, I cheated a bit and relied on Facebook for some of my sneak peeks.  As a result, somehow I think I forgot to blog about this session at all!  Which is truly a shame, because this is one of my favorite families — yet another repeat client this Fall (thank you wonderful families!)!

The following images, featuring the gorgeous Fall foliage this year in Washington, DC, are those that Kimmie specifically mentioned she wanted to display together; so I reedited all of them to ensure that every image complemented the others — so important for a wall display!

Above – we’d gotten off to a tricky start, with little boy I absolutely fascinated by the Fall leaves.  Of course, we all were — that’s why we wanted to photograph in the Fall! — but it was no easy task getting past that intense concentration!  But, of course, we still managed lots of great images.I love a family that includes their dog in their family photo. 

One of my favorite things about photographing the G family is that they always include their dog, Sadie.  Isn’t she beautiful?  As a dog parent myself, this image just tugs at my heart, full of the trust our pets have for us.

Did I mention that I got these printed on metallic paper and they kept all the brightness and life that our backlit LCD monitors show….  Stunning!

- Danie Smallwood, Photography by Danie

I know I’ll love looking back and remembering how my daughter broke into my apparently not-so-hidden stash of photography props and managed to stuff her head into this hat.

Gasp…yes, we so allow swords at the table.  At least for lunch or other “casual” meals!  That’s the Christmas tree in the background, there, as my daughter contemplates how to avoid eating her lunch.And there she goes, shoving her cheese over to her brother’s place.My son was in a bit of a hammy mood (and had, in fact, just eaten ham, so I suppose that was appropriate).My daughter had finally talked me into yoghurt instead of cheese.  I agreed, in exchange for a few more pictures of her….Here, she’s admiring her still blue (after 2 days and many washings) hands (the result of an unfortunate incident involving an ink pad that was definitely not washable ink).Caught on camera — my daughter’s preference to use anything but her napkin (here, a pot holder from her play kitchen)!It proved trickier than I had expected trying to feed my daughter while taking pictures too (I was moving too slowly), so my son stepped in to help out.I pulled back a little to catch the full scene, including my son, who apparently opens his own mouth as he feeds my daughter just like his daddy does!Just another day in our lives, but I think I’ll treasure these little moments just as much as the big ones.

- Danie

I then spent the next few hours just following these two brothers around the park.  Little brother is Mr. Personality, and has so many different expressions, I could do a whole storyboard of close-ups of his face!  I love this devilish little grin.

I actually know the O family from a few years ago when Mom and I were in a playgroup together with our older sons (Big Brother here is the same grade as my own little guy).  Sadly, our paths don’t cross as often anymore, but my kids will still benefit from our morning of exploration.  These brothers found a patch of bamboo tucked away in a corner of the park that I’d never even noticed before — and played there for close to an hour with a few sticks of bamboo and some leaves.    Ah, the creativity of childhood.

This shoot was exactly what I like to do — squeeze in a few “formal” family shots (if the kids are up for it) at the beginning, and then be, for the most part, a fly on the wall, documenting the kids at play.

It was great to see the O family again.  Repeat clients are, of course, the lifeline of any photography business (only one reason for my reciprocal referral policy).  Much more than that, though, it just makes me a little giddy getting to watch, in tiny slivers, these little guys grow up.  Thanks so much for sharing your family with me once again, O family!

See more “O” family pictures here, or see the slideshow — including their mini-album! — below.

- Danie Smallwood, Photography by Danie

Getting fun pictures of my kids at the park sometimes seems like such a drag.  Been there, shot that.  I mean, seriously — we go to these parks all the time!  How many “new” pictures am I going to find?  So I went on a mission to look for little holes around the equipment to use to frame my daughter as she played.

Among the many shots I tried out that morning, these are a few of my favorites.  Framed just by that slide-climbing-structure-thing my daughter is obsessed with.  And yeah, it’s not the easiest thing to get a moving kid in focus whens hooting through a 1″ hole.

Photography Tip #2:  Make lens distortion work for you by watching your angles.

If you’re working with an SLR, you’ll appreciate that I was shooting with a 35mm lens (having planned just to take pictures of the inside of my son’s camp, so my mom could see how amazing it is!).  Since I had no other lenses with me, distortion was going to play a big part in the photos I was shooting.  No way around that!  So, I figured, gotta make it work for me.

Are you hungry yet?  After the park, my daughter announced that she was hungry (I think that’s just her new favorite word, but I find it impossible to ignore the “I HUNGWEEEE, Mommy!” call), so we ran over to the newly renovated McDonald’s over on River Rd. in Bethesda (which, incidentally, looks like it should be a Cosi, rather than a child-friendly fast-food restaurant, but that’s another story entirely).  I was determined to get some pictures of my daughter without the guy reading a newspaper in the background.  So to eliminate the distractions, I casually stood up on the bench next to my daughter’s high chair, and grabbed a picture before they asked us to leave.  (I did get a few weird looks, but hey, I love the picture, so it was worth it.)

Then back to Glen Echo Park to pick up big brother.  Since the kiddos were dragging their feet walking back to the car, I gave up the fight and let them play in the dirt, figuring I’d see what I could get laying my camera on the ground and shooting up at them (since I was uncharacteristically wearing a dress that day, this meant shooting blind, camera on ground, me not on ground!).

There is something just so precious about shots looking up at a child.  Don’t get me wrong — they don’t usually look great.    But when they do, it’s like you’ve placed yourself in their world for just a moment, where they’re constantly looking up at you.  And then, of course, sometimes, it’s just a little fun. 

So, what do you think?  Worth taking the time to break out of the more traditional playground pictures?!  (Which I also took and will share our full lifestyle session — aka, Mommy and Daughter morning — soon….)

- Danie Smallwood, Bethesda, MD

Fast forward a few years, and I’ve learned that Carol is hardly the only artist in her family.  A couple months ago, I heard her son, Aaron Seeber, a jazz drummer, performing with his quartet (side note: my 4 year old son LOVED the music!), and Carol and I got to talking about photos for Aaron’s MySpace page and publicity images.  And so it was that the three of us met at 7am this morning (when it was already humid and nearly 80 degrees).  We even risked the wrath of the park’s grounds keepers, who helpfully informed us it was too early for drum playing in the park.

I’ll post more pictures later, but this was the one I saw on that little LCD screen at the park, and actually had to show Aaron and Carol right there.  Then I had to come home and edit it, and well…the rest will come, but here’s my current favorite from the morning!

Thanks for meeting me so early — always nice to beat the heat!

- Danie Smallwood, Bethesda MD photography

I went a little overboard with pictures of baby “N” in this post — that adorable little Christmas dress was just irristible! Sorry big brother, that’s hard to compete with!

- Danie

K’s Mom heard about my photography from Carol Freedman, of Carol Freedman Design, who actually helped us with wall color and furniture arrangement a few years ago when we bought our first house (she was so easy to work with, and very reasonable about our budget — I would guess we actually saved a lot of money working with her and getting things right the first time).  We’d fallen out of touch until I contacted her recently to share with her the positive feedback we’d gotten both from our realtor and from the buyers on the colors in the house (always nice to hear, right?!). Thanks, Carol, for the referral!

But back to K — it’s shoots like this that remind me why I love my job so much.  What better way to spend an afternoon than photography a beautiful senior, so excited about her future, enjoying the present; and helping her preserve some of these memories from home before she heads off to the West Coast (possibly!) for school next year?!  K — it was such a pleasure to meet you.  Enjoy your sneak peek for now — there’s lots more to come!

Did I mention that, as I write, we’re getting the rain I feared would come last night?!    Thank you, weather!

- Danie Smallwood | Bethesda, MD high school Senior Photographer