Northamptonshire natural family photography – I was asked by a dear friend to do a natural family shoot for her grand daughter and her sisters daughter. The bluebells were still out, the sun was shining and it was time to get those girls into the woods. I knew it would be fun when we met up and this young lady below jumped into my arms. The search began with a walk down the muddy track to the best spots to capture them. Their different personalities became apparent, one marching along saying “I’m leader”, the other stopping to look at every insect, dog and flower along the way. I suggested a place for them to sit on coats, while I laid amongst the bluebells through the trees and captured them with the 70-200, this allowed them to be themselves and ignore my lens. With young children they are easy distracted, I ask them what their favourite things are and let them be themselves and engage together. Enough sitting in one place done, we walked along, an abundance of Dandelion seed heads entertained the walk down more tracks, a competition made by themselves to find the best ones and then cover me in their flyaway seeds! Their entourage for the day (mum and Nanny Georgie) had brought hats, fairy wings and Barbie doll – well who wouldn’t enjoy wearing fairy wings in the woods! Props can add such fun to a shoot and allow the children to enact different situations. We spotted a fence, framed with sun drizzled trees and the girls were soon to climb it, by now they had got used to me pointing a camera at them and really became themselves. Two wee cousins talking together, commenting on things, the usual family tit tat together made me smile. As well as taking photographs with camera, my goal is to do this capturing their individual personalities, I aim to produce a set of images that depict each child, if they are outgoing I want this to show, likewise if they are quiet and pensive I want this to come through. I often get asked if I do family shoots in a studio, with staged light and perfect posing. I have tried it but felt too restrictive in terms of capturing personality, as much as there is a place for that it’s not for me. I feel my own experience of bringing up three children and my training in NLP has helped me develop my own style of working and I tell this to clients when booking.

As our time in the woods came to a close, it was a time to pick some daisies, the girls knew they couldn’t pick bluebells and knew how important it was not to trample them too. A few minutes were taken to sit on a picnic table to remove their wellies, a perfect time to stand shielded by a tree to watch with camera, before heading for the cars.

An absolutely gorgeous shoot, two beautiful cousins sharing, their mum and Nanny got to watch, share and enjoy the day with them without having to take any pictures themselves. I see it so often at parties, weddings and shoots I’ve been commissioned to photograph, how so many want to capture whole day with their own camera, instead of through their eyes, as much as there is always a time to take a photograph, how I wish at weddings especially the guests would just enjoy the day and allow us to capture it for them and tell their story, as it happens for them.

To book a family shoot, email me on vie2009@live.co.uk or call me on 07929 978493.