You are in every memory, but only a handful of the photos.

Loudoun County Family Photographer

I'm Sam. I come to where your family actually exists: in your kitchen, your backyard, wherever you love to spend summer break or your ordinary Tuesdays - and I find what's real. The moment after the performance ends. The one that feels like you.

Come as you are. I promise I'm going to see you.

Documentary Family Photo Sessions in Northern Virginia and Beyond

More About Sam

This is what it looks like when you love your people.

I don't do posed. I don't do, "everybody look here and smile."

I show up where you're most yourself: your home, your backyard, the park your kids have memorized by heart - and I wait for the real thing. The chaos that turns into laughter. The quiet moment nobody planned. The one where you forgot I was there.

In-home sessions are where I do my best work. Your mess, your light, your Saturday morning cheerios all over your cozy Loudoun County home. That's the good stuff you're going to always want to remember.

But wherever we end up... I need one thing from you. Just show up. Be there with each other. I'll find the rest.

Don't wait for the right season. This one is already passing.

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What it feels like after the session

Love from Melissa Rudder

Sam of s a schinsky photography is truly wonderful. From the initial booking to the final reveal, she is professional, personable and makes everyone in front of the camera feel at ease. She has a special eye to capture beauty, joy, and the unique personalities of each member of the family.

You hope to have a few favorites from a photo shoot but I loved every single one of mine. She captured some of THE BEST pictures I've ever seen of myself in addition to my two energetic boys at a time that I will cherish and remember as a mom.

If you're looking to document a special time in your life or just the everyday in-between moments, book a session with Sam!!!!

Round Hill, Virginia

MORE TESTIMONIALS

Its more than family photography, it's the breath in between.

My grandmother was the first person to ever frame one of my photos.

She wasn't even in it. Didn't know the details. But she put it on her wall anyway and when I asked her why she said, "there is a story here, Sam. I wonder what it is."

She's gone now. That photo lives on my wall.

Every time I pick up my camera I hear her. Every family I photograph, every mom who grants me permission to peek inside... I show up for them. I'm looking for the story Grandma saw. The one that doesn't need explaining. The one that just is.

I've never once picked up my camera and not found it.

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I photograph to remember.

I know the fear.

Not the vague kind. The specific, 2am kind, when you're lying there trying to hold onto the exact weight of them in your arms and realizing you already can't quite remember it the way you could six months ago.

Time doesn't actually speed up. It just starts to blur at the edges when you're not looking.

You've been looking. I know you have. You're here, aren't you?

So here's what I want for you. Not just photos on a hard drive. Something your kids can hold. Something their kids can hold. Proof that you were here, that you loved them like this, that this season... the messy, beautiful, ordinary one you're living right now - was real and it mattered and you were in it.

Not invisible. Not behind the camera. In it.

That's why I photograph families every year. Not because things change, (though they do, faster than you're ready for) - but because every version of your family deserves to be remembered.

The fear of forgetting is just love with nowhere to put itself. Let me give it somewhere to live.

A few kind nudges along the way.

Grateful for the recognition - and the families who make it possible

I'm not competitive by nature. Ask my husband and daughter, they got that gene entirely and I'm still not sure how I ended up outnumbered.

But every once in a while I'll submit something. Not to win. More to hear whether what I'm doing out there is landing the way it feels like it's landing.

Turns out sometimes it is.

These aren't the biggest awards in the industry. They're just quiet little confirmations that I'm in the right arena, doing the right work, for the right people. I put them here for you - not for me. Because the families in those images deserve to know how genuinely, objectively, beautiful they are.

You probably already knew that though.