Cathy Carr is a landscape designer over at Garden Gate Landscaping in Silver Spring, Maryland. We met two months ago at a holiday party, and Cathy mentioned that she’d been thinking of getting some business portraits of herself done for marketing purposes. We chatted about the image she wanted to portray, and of course as a landscape designer, we both agreed that business portraits in an outdoor environment would be much more appropriate than the standard headshot on a backdrop.

So just a few weeks ago, we headed over to her home in Silver Spring, Maryland and photographed her in the comfort and privacy of her own backyard garden. Cathy, I really enjoyed working with you, and many thanks for the awesome review that you wrote of our Silver Spring business portraits on Angie’s List! And to all, when you get to that point when you’re looking around for a landscaping company to transform that green mess of a yard into something fabulously gorgeous, just give Cathy Carr a call!

“I hired Irene for a business portraits session because I need professional bio pictures to be used on the Web and for brochures and the like. I happen to know a number of professional photographers, and have a number of friends and family members who have taken pictures of me in the last 30 years, but there are very few pictures of me that look like me and that I like. I need images for professional reasons and since Irene Abdou had made me feel comfortable when I met her at a party, I decided to hire her. She sent a contract ahead of time and I signed it electronically knowing in writing exactly what to expect.

Irene came to my home for the business portrait session when she said she would, contacting me ahead of time to confirm. In less than an hour, she had shot some very nice photos in several different poses, making me feel comfortable from beginning to end. Her assistant handled lighting; the session was outdoors. She checked in with me every 10 or so images to get my feedback through the camera. We whittled the 12 or so good shots down to 4 great ones and then spent a little more time selecting the two finalists. Irene went off to digitally process the pictures and emailed them to me the next day (today!) It was a sweet experience for someone who usually freezes up being photographed.

Irene is very personable – she clearly really likes people and is an excellent listener – and so her personality made the session very pleasant.The final business portraits are excellent and I am very satisfied that I can represent myself professionally with them AND I can share them with my loved ones and they will like the pictures, too!

I highly recommend Irene Abdou’s photographic services. It may seem like a lot of money for two business portraits — it initially did to me — but when you consider travel time to my place, the expensive equipment, her training, an assistant, her professionalism, etc. it is really a very fair deal.”

– Cathy Carr, Silver Spring, MD