On Saturday afternoon, Ian and his brother Mark arrived at the studio with their respective families. The children were great fun, the youngest, aged 2 was a fan of Iggle Piggle (who often sits on my camera helping me to take pictures). The shoot went very well and each of the older children each had a turn at directing a pose!
Here are a selection of shots:
Richard and Amanda visited the studio this weekend with their adorable son Oliver. A friend had bought them a gift voucher towards a family portrait shoot and now that Oliver was 6 months old they had decided to make use of it.
Mum and Dad kept Oliver entertained with nursery rhymes and lots of singing whilst I worked away, arranging lights and composing the shots. We stopped for a few short breaks whilst Oliver took the opportunity to have a feed and play with his toys – he was very patient with us in this unfamiliar environment.
Here are a few pictures ahead of the viewing:
Watching the fairground
Situated in Beaconsfield, not far from the centre of town, is a wonderful model village. Bekonscot makes a great family day out; our 2 year old and 5 year old love spending time walking along the paths (ice cream in hand) looking at all the different things that are happening in the village.
It’s easy to find (especially with a satnav) and opposite the main entrance is a free car park. If that’s full, then we park on the road about 5 minutes walk away on Grenfell Road or Caledon Road.
Is that Noddy?
So what’s there to do? The model village depicts many aspect of life in an older England, there’s a game of cricket, models of steam trains, a fairground, churches, a school and lots more! As well as the model village itself, there is a small gauge train ride which is very popular with our children, it doesn’t go far and doesn’t last a long time but they really enjoy it. There are also some remote controlled boats, they cost £1 which lasts about 5 minutes (our 5 year old can just about see over the control console). There’s also a play area with a wooden boat, train and other items that the children love to play and climb on.
For refreshments there is an area set aside with benches and tables (some undercover) where you can have a picnic or buy food/drink/ice creams from a small shop. This area is located not too far from (and not too close to) the toilet facilities.
It can get busy at Bekonscot, the paths that lead you through and around the village are fairly narrow, there is a one way system but it isn’t always observed. Taking a children’s pushchair around can at times be difficult. We decided to allow our 2 year old to walk around on our most recent visit and he didn’t observe the ‘keep off the grass’ signs and wanted to leave the paths in order to explore in more detail 
.
Village life
When you decide it’s time to leave, you will find a gift shop located inside an old railway carriage near the exit. It sells lots of toys including Brio Thomas the tank engine sets.
Don't miss the train
Karen is having a tough time deciding which of these three high key portraits is the one!
Which picture would you pick for a framed portrait?
Photo 1
Photo 2
Photo 3
Please leave a comment with your vote. Many thanks for your views.
Sweet young lady!
Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting a family from Harpenden, Sam and Darren brought their 7 month old daughter and Sam’s parents to the studio for some family portraits.
Baby Emily was so cute and such a pretty young lady! She seemed to enjoy posing for the camera and had lots of patience with me.
For the first time, I had an assistant in the studio, Emily’s grandfather, he very kindly attracted her attention with a prop I keep to hand – a singing Eeyore who has ears that clap! Many thanks for your help!
I’ve been busy processing the pictures from the shoot, here are a few for mum and dad. I’ll be in touch soon to arrange your viewing.
Mother and daughter
Proud Parents
Aylesbury Family Portrait
A family from a small village near Aylesbury visited the studio on Sunday. The three children were full of energy and took advantage of the good weather and the fact that the studio is located in my garden, running around for a good 10 minutes before we started the shoot. Dad wasn’t feeling at his best after celebrating England’s win over Scotland in the rugby on Saturday afternoon ; mum wasn’t too sympathetic after all, it was Mother’s Day and she was expecting him to make an effort for her!
Mother and Son.
The family were great fun to photograph and the kids wanted to try all sorts of poses! Many thanks for your visit , your photos will be ready for viewing soon – I think we have some great family portraits for you to see!
Newborn baby
This weekend I had the pleasure to meet a wonderful young couple with their new, new baby. They arrived from Watford on Saturday morning proudly carrying their 3 week old beautiful baby girl. After a chat and having reviewed some example newborn pictures, the shoot commenced, little M didn’t seem to mind, she was still asleep and so I took advantage of this creating compositions with her lying down on her own, still and peaceful.
A beautiful moment
After a while, M woke, a little hungry; I remember those days, newborns asleep apart from when they are feeding … after a feed, we continued and mum, whose valentines surprise this was, joined her daughter on the stage. It was a pleasure to be working, seeing mum and daughter enjoying each other’s presence, seeing the happiness in a new mother’s eyes; who can call this work?
A proud father
As the studio session progressed, dad, who arranged the shoot as a Valentines present, joined the rest of his family on the stage, there were some wonderful intimate moments the emotion of which I hope I have done justice in the images I captured.
Another feed, a change of tops and another backdrop – I set up the studio with a black backdrop and a different lighting configuration, gone were the soft boxes and out with the brollies and a snoot. This section of the shoot followed a similar shooting plan as the first half (oops, yes I usually like to have a plan for a shoot), but the compositions were a little different to make the most of the directional, moody lighting.
