Autumn Family Portraits
After months of being cooped up indoors and prevented from photographing families thanks to the pandemic, I was ecstatic to finally get out for a family portrait shoot in Hinchingbrooke Park. Judging by the smiles on the Foster Family’s faces when we met in the car park, they were just as excited as I was.
Hannah had explained to me that she’d always struggled to photograph her boys, they were always full of energy and moving around so fast that she couldn’t capture them, let alone getting in the frame herself! Naturally, we set off to find some things for the boys to climb on, jump off, and start spending some of there seemingly endless amounts of energy! (Spoiler alert, the boys lasted longer than us adults did).
My only concern before the shoot was that the Autumn colours might have already faded, leaving us with a bit of a dull colour pallet, but I was delighted to find that wasn’t the case, especially down this path. Almost all of my family photoshoots have been done in the Summer, on the sun-kissed beaches of the Mediterranean but it’s images like these that remind me that it is possible to capture gorgeous family photos in the UK too, all year-’round.
Whilst adventuring through the woods we stumbled across a den made out of fallen branches, clearly someone’s lockdown project. The boys were soon loving their new fortress, seized control as Kings and defended their land by peppering me with leaves and laughter.
Our adventures continued through the park on the search for reindeer, the biggest leaf we could find and the Trolls Bridge. We found loads of leaves and the bridge, but sadly the reindeer and the troll were working from home that day.
The boys were showing no signs of tiring, so we hit the play-park. The swings, seesaws and climbing frames made for some great dynamic shots of the family playing together.
It’s photos like these of simple play-park fun that remind me of the abundant opportunities for a documentary approach to family photography and the value of it; capturing those natural moments of laughter and love in everyday life that are fleeting and one day will be fond childhood memories.
I wanted to say a huge thank you to the Foster Family for being such fun to work with, especially King Stephen and King Albert, long may they reign, who put me through my paces and ran me ragged around the woods all morning. Lockdown may have stopped me working with families, but I’m optimistic that it will soon be in the past and I can return to what I love doing most.
Footnote on equipment: all images taken on Lumix S5 camera body, Lumix 24-70mm F2.8 and Lumix 70-200mm F2.8 lenses. This was my first family photoshoot with the new full-frame equipment and I am blown away by the image quality and sharpness; having spent the past 5 years shooting on Micro-Fourthirds cameras this is a game changer for me, I’m excited to take more special family photos with this setup.
