Family Photography

I’ll send you a quote and as soon as you accept it and pay your deposit, your date gets secured in my diary.

A week or so before our session, I will send you an email just to touch base.

On the day, I’ll turn up and immediately start to engage with your kids (and you! 🤣) to put everyone at ease.

Then I’ll gear up. I usually use three cameras. And kids love them! Which is great!

Then I will ask you to just get on with the day - that could be your kids playing in the front room, or in the garden, then going for a walk to the park or having lunch or bath time. Hanging your washing, doing some gardening… everything is allowed!

Once the session is over, I’ll pack up, then a few weeks later, you get your gallery.

Do exactly what you’d normally do when spending time with your family. The more you engineer a shot, the less effective my eye becomes - I need you to trust my skill. All of the work shown on this website is shot completely candidly. Hanging your washing, children eating their breakfast, playing in the garden… the more normal you act, the better I get. The only thing that does help is natural light… so if it is possible, let’s keep artificial lighting turned off around the house or to a minimum as much as we can. But if it’s dark winter, then we’ll make do with what we have. I am very adaptable!

Good news again! Whatever you like! Or maybe you have a favourite t-shirt you got given years ago that you want to feature in those photographs... remember, I am photographing you as you are, to celebrate the real and the ordinary. Wear what you'd wear. Be who you'd be. I often have clients answering the door in their pyjamas for a morning or whole day session!

You don't need to do anything other than live your daily life. Many of my portraits do not have eye-contact; that's because ideally, I'd like to "disappear" and for you to forget I am even there... that way I have more chance at capturing the real you. HOWEVER, some of my best portraits have involved direct eye-contact from both children and adults. Eye-contact that is meaningful can be utterly beautiful in photographs. But remember, a smiley eye-contact and a "cheese" isn't going to help me help you preserve your real.

Nope. The beauty of a whole day session means I have time to compose. And sometimes this means I need to take a step back. It could be that for 10-15 mins, am not shooting at all. I may also want to interact with your children sporadically to get them at ease (and also because I am a big kid myself!). And at some point, I may also stop for my lunch (which I usually bring!). And sometimes, it could be that I need to focus on what I can hear too. I am VERY laid back though, and calm and totally approachable. So hopefully within an hour or so, you guys may feel like we’ve known each other for a long time!

Why not spend a bit of time with your loved one going through all my photofilms and galleries. It may put their minds at rest if they are expecting a formal, bossy, awkward photographer... It might also help reading some of my reviews, many of which mention my general approach. It is very important to me though that you both "buy into" my approach, however. A good rapport with my clients is essential to me. The more at ease you are, the better your photos will be!

I don't use a flash during my family sessions. I only use available light. This is why in winter months, I only offer morning sessions. Not to worry, though, producing memorable shots with a very small amount of light is something I am used to! A lot of the portraits shown on this website were taken in all seasons and all sized-rooms. The photo below was taken in a small terraced house in the winter on a very rainy morning!

Cancellation within 4 weeks of your shoot will incur the full cost. Cancellations before then enables you to re-book at no further cost. Please bear in mind that the deposit is non-refundable.

Here is 90 seconds of the sort of shots I take.

In your gallery, you’ll find a mixture of images. Some that tell a story, with many things happening in the one shot… or some candid portraits. One of my passions is taking portraits that encapsulate my subject’s personality as much as possible. I also absolutely love taking photographs that represent relationships too. I guess you could say I am a story teller who wants to leave you with images you can both hang on your wall and ones that tell the story of your family. .

Absolutely! I just approach my work in the same way. I photograph what I observe and observation is my passion!

I do charge for extended family or birthday parties totally differently though as the pace is different and I am also creating images for many more people. In the same way that you’d pay more on your catering if more people attend the party. More images are produced and that all takes me more time in post-production.

I charge £250/hour (for a minimum of two hours on weekdays and 3 at weekends). With this fee, you do get all your images in high resolution.

Absolutely not! A family is a family! I don’t have kids and so my family looks completely differently to a “standard” family (whatever that means!)… for a look at what a shoot with an older family looks like…click here. I stayed with this particular family for 4 hours and we had a great time!

I feel very passionate about the role that the portrayal of pretend-happiness has on our mental health, especially for parents who seem to be given constant messages of what they should be doing or not being doing. So my images, slideshows and my story telling aim to tell the story of your family as it is… Life style photography leaves you with images that make everything look rosy and perfect. But our lives aren’t like this. My mission is to celebrate our perfect imperfections. So, for that reason, I am not a lifestyle photographer. In the industry, my style is called documentary photography. We want mothers and fathers to feel good about being who they are. Don’t worry though, you are not just about to get given 50 images of everyone looking grumpy either! Just photos of real emotions!

Absolutely! I am happy to photograph your family anywhere given I have the permission to take photographs in said location. Your contract will stipulate the exact location of the shoot so that travel expenses can be taken into consideration. But other than that, I have even met a family in London Natural History Museum. Mum wanted her 3 year old boy's very first experience of it captured. Here, this little boy is looking at the stunning 25.2-metre-long blue whale skeleton suspended from the museum's ceiling the museum's ceiling.

Of course! Under the new 2018 GDPR regulations, I need your consent to publish any photographs taken of you or your children on private grounds (whether your home, someone else's home or a museum). Legally, I do not need consent for any shots where faces are not recognisable. My standard policy for my family photoshoots is that you have 5 days once I have sent you the photographs to decline consent (my birth photography policy is different). If I don't hear back from you with a specific request not to publish your images, I will assume that you are happy for me to use them. I do realise that personal wishes, philosophies are even circumstances vary greatly, so I do understand some people wishing not to give me consent. All I would say is that publishing your images plays a significant role in fulfilling my vision… which is to help create a world where we, human beings, celebrate exactly who we are, rather than what we “should” be.