children photographer;

Candid children photo shoot Gloucestershire

Posted on in Children photography, Family photography, Portrait photography

Candid portrait from a children photoshoot

This is a candid portrait from a children photoshoot near Burford in Gloucestershire.  It also reminds me of the fun we had that day.   We bounced on beds, played hide & seek in the laundry basket and cupboards, choo chooed trains along their train track etc.  And we did all this before we went outside for more games and a lovely walk.  I took this photo during a game of ‘I spy with my little binoculars’.  It makes me laugh out loud every time I look at it.  Perhaps because of the way the younger brother is holding his binoculars in a closed position.  No idea what he saw through them.  But that didn’t matter as he was pretending to be as grown up as his big brother!

I also take beautiful and timeless portraits of the children together and apart during the shoot.   But these candid portraits capture the essence of their personalities.  They also create lasting timeless memories of what they loved to do in the home they grew up in.  And they are often the ones I love the most as they are so rich in nostalgia.

Our childhood memories are often the most mundane – lying on a favourite sofa with the dog, playing lego, hiding behind our parents’ bedroom curtains, reading a book with mummy, helping Daddy in the garden.   So when I’m taking photos at your home, I love to photograph your children both indoors and outside.  I often prefer inside light for portraiture, especially on a sunny day.  So don’t worry if it’s raining.   We can still capture so many wonderful memories inside and there is almost always a dry spell when we can get outside and splash in puddles!

If you are interested in booking a family or children photoshoot, please do get in touch.  I’m based in Dorset but happy to travel all over the country – I’m regularly in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, London, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall.   Do also look at some more examples of my children and family photography to give you a more extensive feel of my style of portrait photography.

Teenage sibling Portrait

Posted on in Children photography, Portrait photography, Sibling photography

Photographing teenagers

I’ve been photographing these siblings every two to three years since they were just toddlers – it’s been such a joy to witness them grow into wonderful and fascinating teenagers.

On each shoot, I photographed them within surroundings that are part of their childhood which not only makes the portraits so much more special, but rather nostalgic too.   This shelter, in the park next to their house, has seen many different stages of their childhood – be it to shelter from the rain, play hide and seek, skate around, hang out with friends etc.

When I first started out as a children photographer, I found photographing young children so much easier – because they are unselfconscious and spontaneous – but as my children themselves grew into teenagers, I have found photographing teenagers every bit as rewarding.   And the added bonus is, when I ‘previsualise’ an image they follow directions, as in this portrait here!  This shelter engulfed them when they were little, but now they seemed to own it and the memories within.  It also provided a wonderfully graphic frame in which to place them.

Royal Baby

Posted on in Children photography, News, Portrait photography

Royal Baby Competition

In celebration of the much anticipated arrival of Meghan and Harry’s baby, I have teamed up with my favourite frame supplier, Addison Ross, to run a prize draw in which you can win £250 of your own choice of Addison Ross frames AND 20% off a weekday children or family portrait shoot with me within 2 hours of my home near Sherborne, in Dorset.

To enter, visit the following link to Addison Ross website.

 

 

 

 

School Notices front cover magazine

Posted on in Children photography, Editorial photography, Portrait photography

School Notices – best issue yet

Fabulous issue of School Notices Magazine – ‘Noticed’; Their best yet.   And lovely, as always, to see my images donning their front covers.

School Notices is a new company offering parents, pupils and schools a fabulous way to communicate. Taking the principle of the old-fashioned school noticeboard, they have created a cutting-edge website where parents and alumni can connect with other like-minded members across a network of schools in the UK. Members can buy and sell within a trusted community; businesses can reach out to our members; and schools benefit from the fundraising support from advertising revenue.

urban children portraiture

Posted on in Children photography, Portrait photography

Candid Urban Child Portrait

How old are we when we stop skipping down the road, or jumping on street walls?   Some may say never, but in essence there is definitely a time when we become too self conscious, when we are suddenly too grown up, too rushed, too stressed…   One of the many joys of photographing children is that they remind me to stop and enjoy the little things again, hold hands, skip down the street, even try a bit of jumping.  And wow, the thrill comes straight back – along with a few strange looks admittedly!

When I moved out of London over 10 years ago, I craved rural backdrops for portraiture, but I fear I was simply unaware of quite how fantastic urban backdrops are for children portraiture – especially in black and white.  Every street offers something unique, graphic, dynamic, quirky, but equally, every street invites the imagination of a child by offering games, adventures, magic, fun, play…

This image captures Ben enjoying a little alley way just around the corner from his home – he apparently does this wall jumping each time they walk along there.  I hope one day that this image will remind him of a whole chapter of his childhood.

 

 

Perrott Hill

Posted on in Children photography, Editorial photography, Portrait photography

Capturing the Spirit

Capturing the spirit of school life and providing schools with compelling images to use for advertising, prospectus, website, PR and social media is one of the areas of my work that I most enjoy.    Indeed I photograph regularly for schools across South West England, from Perrott Hill School (as per the above image) in Somerset, Sandroyd & Pinewood in Wiltshire, Leweston, Hanford and Castle Court School in Dorset, Cheam and Twyford in Hampshire, Horris Hill in Berkshire and the Westminster Choir School in central London.

I love the colours, light and composition in this image, but it’s the way that the boy is looking cheekily up at the little girl that brings the image to life – reflecting the most important qualities we, as parents, look for in a school – the happiness factor – and the same reason that Country Life Magazine chose this for the front cover of their annual supplement School Life.

 

 

Sir Tom Jones Jools Holland portrait photography

Posted on in Children photography, Editorial photography, News

Portrait of Tom Jones and Jools Holland

This was a truly memorable evening in aid of www.childbereavementuk.org, with performances & contributions from musicians, actors and authors including: Sir Tom Jones and Jools Holland, Bill Nighy, Ben and Marina Fogle, Brendan Cox, Michael Morpurgo, the Taplow Youth Choir and The African Gospel Choir.  As a portrait photographer specialising in children photography, a mother of three gorgeous girls and wife to a wonderful husband, I am aware of how lucky I am.  It is a wonderful to give back to a charity providing a lifeline to bereaved families.

 

 

Portrait of Daddy with his boys

Posted on in Children photography, Portrait photography

Father and sons Portrait

As a children and portrait photographer, I’m often asked to capture a family together.   This is I think one of the most challenging jobs for a portrait photographer – everyone looking good at the same time in a not too cheesy pose!    I have however learned over my years of photography that a family portrait doesn’t need to have everyone smiling perfectly at the camera.   In fact, they tend to be more compelling if they look more natural and capture a moment.    This requires a little forethought – composing the image and then creating the moment.

In this case, the brothers were all sitting on the bales of hay, when on cue, their father ran in to give them a good tickling, enabling me the change to capture a spontaneous image which exudes the fun, laughter and love shared between the father and his sons.

I find these type of family portraits far more meaningful and likely to stand the course of time.    Indeed, I hope this photo will remind these boys of how much their father loves them… forever.

 

 

Portrait of teenage siblings in Battersea Park

Posted on in Portrait photography, Sibling photography

Portrait of Teenage Siblings

One of the many things I love about my job is returning to photograph the same children and families over the course of many years.    I have been photographing these siblings every 2-3 years for over 15 years – now with a pretty unbeatable collection of  A* A’Levels and GCSEs behind them, they were a far cry from the little rascals I photographed in my studio in London aged 4 and 2 years old!

I love the composition of this image – the sister on the fence smiling down at her younger brother, both looking happy, relaxed and confident, framed within the urban context in which they have grown up.

Posted on in News, Wedding photography

OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER FOR PIPPA MIDDLETON’S WEDDING

I’m just surfacing from a crazy couple of months of photography, with back to back weddings, school marketing & prospectus photoshoots, family portraits, Country Life editorial and frontispiece shoots, sculpture and new product shots and so forth.    The highlight however was being commissioned to photograph another incredible Middleton wedding.

As the official photographer for Pippa Middleton &  James Matthews’ wedding,  I captured the bridal preparations, church service, formal groups, reception, speeches, departure and of course the fantastic party in the evening.   It was a tremendous day and huge honour.    I am one lucky Dorset photographer!

I would like to thank Dan Pangbourne, a fantastic photographer and great friend, for his help in setting up the lighting for the formal group photographs.  These were a great success and I’m thrilled with the final images.

Working alongside with me for the rest of the day were photographer Matt Porteous, and film makers James O’Garra and Patrick Gather – all of whom were a joy to work with.