Honoured to share with you my latest commission for the Prince and Princess of Wales: a birthday portrait of Prince George as he turns 10. As with my previous portraits of Prince Louise, Princess Charlotte & Prince William, I took this portrait of Prince George in the grounds of the Windsor Estate, a few months later.
I love how this image captures the confidence, maturity and charm of Prince George – and gives us a glimpse of what lies in store as a future king.
For more examples of my children portfolio, click here.
I’m so excited to share with you another portrait I have taken for the Prince and Princess of Wales: A father’s day portrait of Prince William with his children Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis and Prince William, taken on the Windsor Estate. As a portrait photographer with a passion for photographing children, I’m not sure the honour gets much better than this!
I love how this portrait captures the love the children have for their father Prince William. With Prince Louis hugging his father’s neck in true joy, whilst Princess Charlotte and Prince George, with their hands on Prince William’s knees, and laughing adoringly up at him, you can see the adoration they have for their father, and the fun they have with him.
I chose this location for this portrait, not just because of the lovely backdrop and light it offered, but also because of the inscription on the bench: Presented to HM The Queen on the occasion of her 90th birthday 21st April 2016. A mere 7 months on from her death on 8th September 2023, I thought it would be a wonderful way of adding another dimension to this portrait – making it all the more meaningful for the Prince of Wales and his family.
For more examples of my family & sibling portraits, click here.
Ancestry and the National Portrait Gallery are collaborating to create a Nations Family Album – the first ever holistic visual representation of the British population in photographic form. So they are inviting the British Public (all ages, backgrounds, cultures) to submit photos of family members (old, recent, together, separate). The winning entries will not only feature in this online Nations Family Album gallery, but also in an exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery when it reopens early next year.
I am honoured to say that I’ve been elected as one of the four judges on the panel of experts, along with the baritone singer Peter Brathwaite, renowned for his series of photographs on Rediscovering Black Portraiture, the National Portrait Gallery’s Chief Curator, Dr Alison Smith and Simon Pearce from Ancestry.
Themes for the photos are: legacy, belonging, connection and identity – all of which reflect the emotions experienced when looking through old family photos or starting a journey on your family history. You can submit up to 3 photographs per person. And the deadline is 11.59pm on 30th June. For more information, visit the Ancestry website.
I’m really looking forward to seeing all your entries.
I honestly think that nothing beats a labrador puppy photoshoot. They are just too delicious for words. It took all the will in the world not to kidnap the lot and bring them home with me!
The aim here was to capture the ‘mother’ with her puppies before they all left for their new homes. The puppies’ confined space in the kitchen wasn’t remotely photogenic, and outside wasn’t really an option as they would all run wild. And then I spied the pram in the hall.
It took quite a bit of previsualisation, planning, setting up, and then training the mother to jump up onto the side of the pram. And then once they were all in place, I had about 5 seconds before chaos broke loose. But thankfully that was all we needed!
I love the way it looks as if the mum is really ‘nurturing’ her pups. The truth is she’s looking for the treat underneath one of her pup’s bottoms! Crafty!!
Finally, two households are allowed to mix again. Hooray! I have been counting down the days to this moment. This means that I’m officially now allowed out to capture some spring family photoshoots. My goodness I have missed photographing children and family photoshoots. Bookings are flying in again now. I still have a few spaces this Easter holidays but am almost fully booked in the summer half term (with just one slot left). In fact, July is also already looking pretty busy. So please get in touch soon if you’re thinking of booking a shoot. Be it to commemorate lockdown hairstyles, celebrate a birthday, or capture the whole family together again after months of isolation.
To see more examples of my children photography, please visit the portrait section on my website. Or if you’d like to discuss in more detail, please email me at [email protected] or call me on 07815 750 141.
Although many of my photoshoots involve activities indoors and outdoors, there are times when my clients have a specific location in mind. Somewhere that encapsulates an era in their children’s life. On this occasion, the family were moving house and school. So it seemed fitting to have an outdoor children photography shoot in the grounds of Cheam Prep school, Newbury, Berkshire, where the girls had both been at school.
We started the shoot by playing lots of games in the main grounds, using the beautiful avenue and stunning gardens as backdrops. And then headed to the fabulous outdoor play area, which offers an abundance of entertainment. We had so much fun. Playgrounds are perfect locations for outdoor children photography. I love to capture the children’s adventurous spirit whilst they explore, climb, slide and swing. Indeed we explored every nook and cranny, climbed every ladder, slid down every slide, and swung high into the skies. I find static swing shots can look as void of emotion as motion and prefer to capture them moving. This is obviously more challenging photographically but nothing beats that feeling of wind through your hair as you swing high and low.
This shot was one of my favourites. I absolutely love it. There is so much joy, energy and movement. You can feel her excitement at reaching high into the sky. It’s an image that is full of emotion and spirit. It can’t help but make you smile when you look at and remind you of those exhilarating feelings of ‘flying high’ when you were little. This is what I strive to provide in my children photography sessions.
For more examples of my children photography, please do visit my children, teenage and family galleries. Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss the possibility of me coming to your home and photographing your children and family.
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.
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.
They say ‘never work with animals or children’ and yet I spend most of my working life doing exactly that… and LOVE it. Especially when the impossible all comes together, which it did in this image. We probably had 4 seconds before bedlam broke loose, but that was long enough, just!
Such a happy morning, just wish I could have smuggled one home.
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.
