I’ve known Bronwyn since I was about 10, when our families were in the local choral society together. We would spend our weekends ‘helping’ to paint sets, make props and bang nails into pieces of wood and many week nights with our homework in the local town hall while our parents rehearsed their singing. So it was brilliant to do family portraits of her, her husband Phil and daughters Amelia and Freyia recently at their home in West Sussex.
When I arrived, we saw the weather closing in and immediately put on boots to walk through woods near their home across a footbridge, where the girls watched passing trains.
The cloud cover gave us very gentle light for some portraits.
Amelia was very keen not to miss any opportunity to get close to the camera, even when the photographer was, ahem, ‘hidden’ in the grass.
And she was completely delighted with a tree stump just made for her to climb and play the king of the castle … although getting down took almost as much effort as getting up.
Freyia was completely chilled throughout our session, enjoying her scenic perch in the arms of either Bronwyn or Phil.
Autumn leaves – something the family is going to miss when it returns to Australia next year.
The edge of the woods had a perfect seat for a formal family portrait.
In another woodland gap, Amelia found a log to use as a horse.
Then home while Bronwyn whipped up a lemon delicious pudding (a recipe we both have and use from our school home economics classes) and Amelia and Phil entertained the rest of the household – i.e. me, with a rock chick version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Before the chefs came for more music. 
I’ve just returned from a short break with family which included visiting my three-day-old niece in Gloucestershire, the daughter of my sister Kirsty. She is yet to be named, but since her grandma was visiting from Australia, there were some official portraits taken with daddy Blair and big sister Matilda Rose. I especially love the photographs of Matilda and the new arrival because my earliest memories were of meeting Kirsty, who is 3.5 years younger, wrapped in a similar cotton baby blanket when she arrived home from hospital.
Alex is turning one and had a family portrait session with his parents, based in Greenwich, to mark the event. They brought a number of his toys including soft blocks, a xylophone and bubbles. Stuart would build a three or four-block tower and Alex would crawl quickly towards and knock it over – great fun!
They also brought bubbles, which Alex has only recently been introduced to. He’s such an eager, curious little boy, that he kept crawling out of the studio area and we also took some photographs in the lounge using natural light while he looked at his reflection in the big glass doors.
It was a great session and can’t wait to design the album they have chosen as part of their package.
I’ve just spoken to a new client, who booked a portrait sitting for his parents’ forthcoming wedding anniversary. One of his big reasons for booking was that a family member had died recently and when going through her things, he’d been struck by how beautiful some of her portrait photographs were. He said it was a lovely to have these as a memory of her.
We also talked about photographs taken within the family – and I believe these are different to professional portraits but can be wonderfully valuable. A client a couple of years ago put together an album for her father’s sixtieth birthday with photographs dating back through their lives. One photograph was of the father and his two daughters with a yellow car – chosen for its colour at the request of one of the daughters. Another was of the father and a daughter at the kitchen sink, washing and drying up together. They really are a reflection of their family life. While I can photograph a ‘Day in the Life’ session with clients – and have – this catching of everyday activity is something that anyone can do – with treasured results. One of the drawbacks of this, however, is that the photographer – a family member – won’t be in the images. So, in an ideal world I believe that we’d have a family camera in a home that anyone can use (certainly adults) so there is no one person always missed from the photographs and complement this with regular professional portraits.
The last couple of weeks have been busy – mostly taken up with my niece Tilly visiting London for five days. We’ve had a ball – the V&A Museum was brilliantly set up for children. On the day we went, they had badge-making and you can borrow activity back-packs on various themes; we tried two – one on glass and another on organising a party in ancient China. We found the architecture gallery on the way to the glass gallery, including a short film on the building of the Swiss Re building – or Gherkin. Since we had already been Gherkin-spotting earlier in the week (usually to make our time on public transport pass by more quickly), this was a bonus.
The V&A also has a paddling pool in the square in the middle, with a very civilised lunch and coffee place – so I could chill with a latte while Tilly dashed in and out of the water. We also had a quick trip to the Natural History Museum, to see the dinosaurs and the blue whale. This was especially fun as there is a huge whale in our bedtime reading “The Bad-Tempered Ladybird”.
An interactive exhibition at the Livesey Museum on Old Kent Road on the numbers 1-12 was also good for a couple of hours. There was a great pretend shop where you could ‘buy’ hairy spiders, string knots and scorpions – complete with till. A game of table football was probably our favourite thing, although not sure what it has to do with numbers.
When Tilly left, I realised that I don’t have many photographs of my family around, so have just ordered portraits of her and my sister Kirsty for the lounge, as well as a large canvas of a landscape that has very happy memories for me, to go over the sofa. Much as I love the painting that is already there, it’s really too small for the space and will fit in well in the bedroom.
Below is a portrait of Kirsty when we were playing around in the studio with her favourite hats.
And this is Tilly, wrapped in some of the material I recently bought for portraits. The idea was to have it around for some maternity portraits, but realised that it’s great for children as well – and could be used for mother and child portraits.
And this is the landscape, taken with friends in Southwold on a blustery day with long walks on the beach, bluebell woods and involving bacon sandwiches.
This week has been a great time for location shoots. I did a maternity shoot with Nouf on Wednesday at her art deco styled home, which was great fun. She’d seen the shots of Tia with a pink translucent scarf and liked that style, so chose a number of floaty dresses and scarves for her shoot. Two oriental screens made amazing backdrops and the art deco mirrors were just stunning. We also had oodles of natural light and Nouf looked great.
Yesterday, I photographed Polly and Humphrey Wood and daughter Kate Reardon with Polly’s two dogs – it was most definitely a family photograph of five! We took some family shots inside, some outside in the garden (dodging the builders) and then went for a walk in nearby Parsons Green. Kate was celebrating the success of her website Top Tips for Girls which has been live for about a week. The site’s members answer such questions as “How to be happy” and “How to remove chewing gum from hair” – and can rate contributions from others.
