WATCH THE BIRDIE
By Chris Wadsworth
4 a.m. The alarm clock goes off. Shawn Thomas and his 10-year-old daughter, Parker, stumble out of their beds at their Overland Park home in Ashburn, get dressed and grab their gear. A quick stop at McDonald’s for breakfast and they are off.
Their goal: some patch of wilderness or another – from a marsh in the Broadlands to a meadow in Alexandria or the shoreline of the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg. Their quarry: taking photographs of birds of every shape and stripe.
“Parker loves everything there is to love about birds and honestly – her enthusiasm was infectious,” Shawn Thomas said. “This is a kid who by age 9 had memorized most of the East Coast bird field guides.”
During the week, Shawn works in cybersecurity. He says he’s also neurodiverse. He took up photography to try to balance out his more analytical side.
“I’ve always needed a creative outlet,” he said. “About two years ago, I landed on photography because it checked a lot of boxes at once. It gets me outside. It scratches the artistic itch. And there’s enough technology involved to keep the other part of my brain happy.”
Parker came to photography by way of her love of birds – and as a way to spend more time with dad.
“We take pictures of birds together and it’s fun being with him,” she said. “I get to learn things and see things that most people don’t, and I get to share all of it with my dad.”
The father-daughter duo are self-taught – YouTube videos about photography and a lot of trial and error. But their efforts have paid off. Both have won multiple awards and honors for their art.
Shawn has had multiple first-place wins and Best of Show honors at photo competitions around Northern Virginia. He has competed internationally as well and took ninth place in the Animal Kingdom category in the Amateur Photographer of the Year contest in Great Britain.
Parker is also racking up accolades. In a contest put on by the Fredericksburg Photography Club, she entered six photos and every single one received a ribbon, including first, second, third and two honorable mentions. In a contest at Huntley Meadows in Alexandria, she won first place for youth and third place overall in the adult category.
“She loves that people respond to her pictures and it has been really great for her confidence,” Shawn said. “She is sharing something she genuinely loves and people are responding to it.”
For Shawn, photography is likely to remain a hobby, albeit one he spends a ton of time on, including editing, maintaining his website, writing a weekly photo blog, entering competitions and more.
However, for young Parker – this love of birds and photography could prove to be something even bigger in her future.
“Parker is a whole other story,” her dad said. “She regularly talks about wanting to travel the world as an ornithologist, studying and documenting birds for a living. For her, the photography and the birds were never really separate. It’s all just one big thing she loves and she’s already figuring out how to make it her life.”
SEE MORE
To see more photos from Shawn and Parker, each of these Ashburn shutterbugs has their own photography website. Check them out: