London wedding & portrait photographer - in Greenwich, Blackheath and Westminster » Family portraits

Wimbledon family portraits | Monica and family

Rebecca — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:56:48 +0000

Monica wanted some casual photos of her family taken in the park near their Wimbledon home to capture where her children spend so much of their life, as well as having a more formal portraits for a grandparent’s 80th birthday present.

We started with a family group.

Then moved onto the important task of Jedi warfare.

Next up, some running along favourite paths and scooter action.

The games don’t stop: girls versus boys in trying to get to the other side of the square without being caught.

The wonder of a bug … but if you put your arms like THIS (Jedi warrior stance, obviously), you are safe.

A hill means running, if you’re a small boy.

Or a bit of a meander in your favourite stripey socks. Amazing how tiring this all is.

All too soon, it was time to collect our belongings and return home.

Finishing the afternoon with Looney Tunes cartoons on the TV and Hula Hoops on the fingers.

Small people and sunshine

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 00:43:55 +0000

I last saw Peter and Amanda several years ago when their son Henry was a baby. Now they have baby Sasha and Henry is very much a young man, seriously interested in sticks, transformers and investigating locked gates. We got together this morning before his school sports day in Dulwich, taking some relaxed family group photos. Children are usually a delight to photograph anyway, but when they are playing and cuddling with the rest of their family, it’s really special. I often wonder how treasured those photographs will be in the future for the children themselves.

Chelsea baby portraits | Thea

Rebecca — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:43:47 +0000

Almost five years ago exactly, I was photographing Patrick on his first birthday. Now he’s running around with a Nintendo game … and it was his sister Thea’s turn this week on HER first birthday. What’s amazing is how similar they look at the same age. Here are a few from their session which are going into a feature album with one selected as a large wall portrait.

Twickenham Christening | Mothers’ Day

Rebecca — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:02:26 +0000

Wedding clients Gemma and Matt from 2006 have added baby Henry to their lives – and after a maternity portrait session during Gemma’s pregnancy, I was able to capture the next stage in their lives together – Henry’s Christening. They chose Mothers Day for his Christening at St James’ in Twickenham, attended by family and friends. I took a selection of photos to commemorate the day: some of Henry getting ready, on our way to the church, the Christening itself and the reception at Arthur’s Restaurant on the Green.

West Sussex family portraits

Rebecca — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:25:06 +0000

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.

Newborn portraits | my new niece

Rebecca — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:18:27 +0000

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.

London family portraits | Beatrice

admin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:38:00 +0000

I photographed Emma and Tim’s wedding six years ago in June. They’re the loveliest couple and we’ve stayed in touch since we lived in Limehouse/Wapping and now I’m in Greenwich and they’re in Herne Hill. We met last week for a portrait session with their daughter Beatrice who is about three months old. They’d just returned from 10 days in Venice, where they had honeymooned – and apparently Beatrice was welcomed with open arms across the city by beaming residents, wherever they went.

And Beatrice is very, very cute, especially in this family chair.

And we had some portraits of Emma and Beatrice together, athough missed out on portraits with dad, as tiredness had set in. But that did give me a chance to see Emma & Tim’s photographs from Venice – stored on a lovely wireless server – showing what an IT whizz Tim really is, as well as a reminder of when I went there about a year ago.

London family portraits | Greenwich | Stuart, Lucy and Alex

admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 10:01:00 +0000

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.

Icey park family portraits

admin — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 22:18:00 +0000

Karen & Mark married exactly four years ago today in Battersea Park’s Pump House Gallery and they now have a daughter who is exactly two years old (having very cleverly been born on their wedding anniversary), so they celebrated with a portrait session followed by a visit to Santa and the children’s zoo.

I last saw them a couple of months after they were married in Sydney, where they lived for about two years – and they don’t seem to have changed a bit – well, apart from their addition Grace, with another baby on the way. The bright and icey weather was perfect for their shoot, near a mostly-frozen lake and inside the gallery, where there was an exhibition which included children’s toys, making a fun back-drop. It certainly doesn’t seem four years since they married, especially when chatting with the gallery’s events co-ordinator Catherine Davies, who remembered Karen & Mark.

London family portraits

admin — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:18:00 +0000

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.