It was a high risk pregnancy and we weren’t sure how things were going to turn out, so it was kept very low key all round, hence no announcements on here that I was expecting. I started my maternity leave at 29 weeks at the end of February although I stopped doing sessions at the end of January as due to SPD (back and pelvis problems) I felt I was no longer able to give my best for customers. It took forever to get up off the floor after this shot with my children!

End of April, this little man was delivered via c-section:

Here he is at just four days old:

And here are a few more of him at 12 days old – firstly being prodded by his big sisters:

Trying out my new cocoons:

As you might expect, given I won’t really be working now until probably November, there will be a lot of this little fellow and his big sisters to come over the next few months!

I will probably start taking bookings for future work in late November (no guarantees for Christmas) by August/September time.

In the meantime I can do a few urgent sessions here and there in special circumstances and/or subject to quite a high minimum order (payable in advance) as I can only take a few limited days out of my maternity leave by law to work, so I wish to use them carefully which I am sure you can understand.

If any existing customers wish to order prints/products etc from a previous session, they can do so at any time – please contact me to reinstate your gallery.

I am looking forward to getting back to work though, and photographing all your amazing and gorgeous families again!

2 year old C looking thoughtful:

4 year old B posing as usual!

2 year old C tries to copy:

Two girls together!

B with her daddy sharing a moment:

Our two usually get on very well!

And finally – a storyboard:

Keep an eye open for some very special photos hopefully coming in around two weeks..

If this little stunt baby looks familiar to you, that’s because 7 months ago he looked like this!

Yes, Baby Alexander was the first ever newborn I did. You can see the photos and original post here. He was six weeks early, and the photo above was taken on his due date.

Wow, how he has grown!!

He’s now a strapping young lad, and didn’t stop smiling for most of the session!

Here he is in a very cute Halloween bear outfit with his mum:

And finally, posing with one of the blankets from the original shoot!

Alexander’s parents did a fantastic job keeping him smiling and Alexander himself was a wonderful model. Honestly, I have too many happy photos to choose from – it’s going to be a pain to edit them down to a manageable level!

I had such a lovely time at this session – thank you N and J for inviting me back to photograph your handsome little man again!

This gorgeous baby belongs to this gorgeous mother! Here’s a link to that session in fact.

At the time of this new session, this adorable little girl was just five days old, and so tiny and sweet. Here she is with her mother L!

Despite being only five days old, this as-yet-unnamed (I can empathise – it took us three weeks to name our first!) beautiful little girl was wide awake for most of the session, so I got plenty of photos of her gorgeous big eyes.

Like last time, the mother, L, was game for all sorts of props and poses, so I got to try out plenty of the things I bring with me! She is clearly already a wannabe Princess – she seemed very taken with the tutu, and clearly likes roses!

We also tried her in a hat. This very sweet hat, like the one used in this newborn session here, was handmade by Jo at Halobaby who makes many gorgeous and cute baby things!

Finally I had a chance to try her out in the cocoon:

This was the first time I’ve met a newborn from a maternity session, so it was a real privilege. It was such great fun working with L and her family – thank you, and your mother too, for being such good sports, super helpful and very enjoyable to work with!

Also present was the proud father L, who was a great assistant when I needed one, as well as a fantastic model with L too!

And last, but not least, I must not forget Winston, their gorgeous family dog. One of the things he loves the most is resting his head on L’s tummy.

The excited parents-to-be are one of those rare couples who do not know whether the baby will be a boy or a girl! I can’t wait to find out either.

I recently invested in a portable backdrop system for use in homes where there isn’t enough room for a full studio (which in London is most homes!) Although it was still a bit cramped, this system is perfect for regular portraits such as these, or for children that don’t escape too far..

I leave you with a stunning pose that I am still in awe L was able to do this far along!

It was a genuine pleasure working with L and L and Winston, and I am very much looking forward to hearing about your new arrival!

It was also a chance to try out my new vinyl “wood” floor, and use the pink backdrop in the studio properly as until now I have only used it with newborns and natural light. You can also see my basket and chair prop if you are interested in using them for your session and later on I used my black velvet backdrop for more moodier shots.

Here’s a selection of some of my favourites, enjoy!

B is getting much better at posing

Then again, dressing her in her favourite clothes works wonders!

B loves being a ballerina

C isn't quite newborn size, but loves the basket!

B and C and the basket

B fits in the basket even less well, but she gives it a go!

C is still a little bit too small for my chair prop

A portrait of B, with my black velvet background

And in case you were wondering why they all look so happy, here’s what my children really think of me photographing them all the time:

Other people’s children are *so* much easier as it’s a novelty!!

I have another newborn session tomorrow, so watch this space in a few days for hopefully a sneak peak.

Baby Eleanor

Eleanor, like Alexander was born prematurely, in Eleanor’s case she was born at 33 weeks back in April. So although she’s actually a few months old, she’s very close to newborn age gestationally.

In a basket!

Despite this, she’s doing absolutely fantastic – she’s doubled her birthweight and starting to build up some adorable baby fat!

Sleeping

Eleanor was ever so good. Not only did she sleep for most of the session (I’m sure the hot weather helped with that a little!) but she graced us with lots of wonderful expressions when she was awake as well.

What's going on?

It was a real pleasure to meet mum Jacqui, and photograph sweet baby Eleanor, and I’m very much looking forward to post-processing the rest of the photos from the session!

Ruby and her Dad

Sophie is a big cloth nappy fan, so out came the cloth nappies!

Ash and the nappy stash

Faith is the oldest, and did a grand job with posing:

Faith

Faith and her mum Sophie

At the end of the session, the children even allowed mum and dad to snatch a quick pose themselves!

James and Sophie

You can see their full gallery by clicking on the link here.

It was all great fun, both to capture the images and to process them. Thank you again to Sophie and James and their family for being such great models!

Before I left, I did two more sessions on the weekend before, but until now I have not had a chance to upload them!

The first of these was a newborn session with handsome Percy, who was born two weeks past his due date – what a contrast to Alexander who was born 5 weeks before! Percy is just a few weeks old for this session.

Percy in a basket

Percy was not all that keen on sleeping, despite being so new!

But he was a good sport even whilst awake, giving lots of good poses.

Playing around

Watching the world

Trying to roll already

He spent a lot of time feeding, as newborns tend to do! So when he wasn’t feeding, he was making his thoughts quite clear..

Percy tries the taste of his arm

Percy has a full head of hair too.

Head shot!

Finally he fell asleep, and I managed to get some of him in the basket!

Sleeping in a basket

It was lovely photographing Percy and meeting his mum Chloe (and the rest of their family!) Percy is a gorgeous little chap and it was a real privilege to be asked to photograph him!

It’s reassuring that I don’t always need my full backdrop (requires at least 10-12 feet across, not to mention 8-10 feet in front) in order to create studio photos.

Laura was good fun to photograph and easy to work with!

Due to the lack of room obviously it was awkward to do full length portraits, but I managed a good selection of head and shoulders.

Of course we can’t forget about the cat!! She was not nearly as enthusiastic as Laura to have her photo taken, but we both love her outraged expression here:

You can see the rest of the photos from the session (including more of her cat) in a larger size at my Smugmug gallery here.

Thank you to Laura, and her cat, for a great session! I have two more sessions (a newborn and a family) remaining to process, which I hope to have done over the next few days.

Jo is absolutely stunning – ivory skin with a perfect complexion and beautiful vibrant red hair.

Beautiful Jo

She tried a couple of outfits over the course of the session:

And even a hat:

And what is a photoshoot if you can’t have a silly goth pose?

As with the others, there are more to come at a later date whilst I catch up.

It was a real privilege to photograph Jo, she is an excellent model and of course it made a nice change to have a model that I didn’t have to make silly noises at to get their attention! A big thank you to her husband David who arranged the session and helped out too.

There was disaster when I arrived when the fuse went in one of my lights, so I was down to one light for the session. Lesson learned about spares there! Fortunately there was a lot of natural light in the room and I also had my reflector so the session was saved.

Faith is the oldest, and was a fantastic model! Not only did she do everything I asked, but also helped out fantastically with the others too. If every child was like Faith, my life would be so easy.

Faith

Ruby is two years old and full of beans.. and opinions!!

Ruby

Ash is 16 months and was sadly getting over a tummy bug so he wasn’t his usual smiley self, nor was he up for many photos, but I managed to get a few photos of him including this one:

Faith and Ash

Faith and Ruby share a moment

Faith and Ruby

Ruby makes her feelings known to her mum!

Sophie with Ruby

James has his hands full!

James and his girls

There are more to come (and also more of Meg and her horse Pico) hopefully in a few weeks.

Coming up soon – a model in glamorous evening dress, and a newborn!

It went very well – Lewis was great for the camera (it’s true what they say about photographing other people’s children – it is much easier!) pulling faces and dancing, and I managed to capture some great expressions!

As he’s only little, I ran out of time to try different backdrops so these are all on my Arctic White paper.

So.. meet Lewis!

Lewis

Lewis pulled some fantastic expressions!

Lewis dancing to his musical drum

Lewis with his daddy

Lewis with his mummy

Playing with his blankets and cushions

I love this one in particular - Lewis and his heart cushion!

He loved playing Peekaboo

Peekaboo!

One final photo

Once again, it was a great pleasure to take these photos – thank you to Claire and Ian for letting me borrow their sweet little boy for an hour!

If you like these photos, you can see the full gallery of twenty on my Smugmug site here.

Amy has a very small front room, yet somehow I still managed to fit in the studio although it was rather tight at times. I brought along my new white paper backdrop, and I was very pleased with how effective it was.. worth every penny.

So, first off – Felix.

Felix and his teddy bear, Felix

Felix was rather attached to his teddy bear, and wanted it to be in all the photos. Here’s what happened when we tried to take it away:

Felix without his teddy

He is usually a happy chappy, and was extremely co-operative (especially at first) and did most things we asked!

Felix rolling around

One of the things Amy wanted most were some photos of her with Felix.

Felix cuddles his mummy

This was also a chance to try out my new black velvet backdrop, which also worked incredibly well!

Felix resting on his mummy

Meet Dave – Amy’s boyfriend!

Dave and Amy

We all had a lot of fun trying out various different poses..

Dave and Amy sitting down

Their patented “Staring at the chimney pots” pose:

Staring at the chimney pots

And a portrait of Amy on her own.

Amy

Finally, I decided to experiment with storyboards.. and felt that these photos were a natural fit!

Soppy storyboard

All in all, we had a great time! It took around an hour to set up the equipment (this will get faster as I get more practice) and we were shooting for two hours. Amy and Dave are very pleased with the photos and immediately changed their Facebook profile photos to some of the more soppy ones!

Thank you so much Amy, Dave and of course Felix for being my guinea pigs and being such great fun to photograph

Monday I did a tandem nursing shoot with Jessica.. watch this space!

With the “Silver Birch” backdrop, and a child’s chair that was very conveniently on location:

C on a chair

I then did some rim lighting from behind the hair with my black backdrop:

B is surprised!

A black and white of B

And some with my youngest daughter:

C is thinking hard

Rage!!

Tomorrow I will be visiting a very special little boy and his mummy, so I will have a different child to share here!

I remembered to pack everything except my softbox which was very annoying. I couldn’t take the full width paper that I bought a few weeks ago (it’s 9 foot!) so it was sawn up a little and I had a 1 metre width instead.

Here’s some of the first half of these photos, mostly starring my brother but some with his girlfriend too (SFW!!):

1. Moody brother

2. Colour

3. With girlfriend and whistle!

4. More Jake and El

5. More Jake and El only in colour!

6. More black and white