Barry and Justyna have been together for nearly seven years, but they delight in each other's company and it shows.

We met in downtown Washington, D.C., with the intention of utilizing the monuments as background. Originally, Justyna thought of the Jefferson Monument, but eventually we stayed in the National Mall area because Jefferson is "way way WAY over there."

The first photo above was taken while sitting in a black wrought iron park bench outside the Smithsonian Castle. It's an honest to goodness castle made out of red brick, and has a fantastic garden with winding paths and droopy trees, which make great backgrounds!

The idea was to make sure the photos didn't "look like vacation shots," which I took to mean not taking those types of photos where you smile for the camera whilst standing in front of a landmark. Sure, no problem :)

This particular photo is probably one of my favorites. I was standing at the back of the World War II Memorial, in front of a waterfall, and they went to the upper level where the waterfall was pouring from.

Voila! Barry and Justyna in front of the Lincoln Monument, with the Reflecting Pool behind them, and the waterfall pool in front of them.

There were actually a million and one tourists at this location, and I stood in my place for about ten minutes, camera ready, and went 'click' every time the space was clear.

They just kept cuddling, or kissing each other on the head, and dancing around in general.

Directly to the right of them was a very large, very fat pug. It watched them the entire time.

Quite a few people noticed the pose they were doing and as soon as we vacated our spot, a whole bunch of tourists ran over to that same spot and started posing themselves!

Fortunately the day was not too hot, not cold, not too sunny, and was actually overcast (perfect!). We were going to do it the weekend before, but it was raining. We could have done something different (such as indoors) but we really wanted this to be outside with those uber famous landmarks in the photos looking cool.

Speaking of cool, you find the most interesting things in DC.

While we were walking from the Smithsonian Castle gardens to the Reflecting Pool, we walked by a building that was shut down. There was a great big sign on the door, saying "building closed" and a large, ornate, wrought iron fence in the entry way.

I noticed it wasn't locked or chained, and so I pushed it near the decorative bricks, and Justyna grabbed a hold of it and gave Barry her best "you can't get me back here" expression. Barry laughed at her- the best expression you can get :)

They kept smiling and laughing the entire time, enjoying every moment, goofing off together as they teased each other about being a model. The best part of a photo moment is when everyone is having such a fantastic time, true laughter erupts and it just can't helped... and then they'll beam at each other and you've got photo magic!