Photographing families is one of the highlights for me as a photographer, I get to hang out with brilliant people and meet the cutest children. I photographed Kieran and Hollie family shoot in their gorgeous house tucked away next to the river Wensum in Norwich’s city centre. Willow is their first child and they were keen to have a family shoot to have some quality photos of her during this momentous and special period in their lives but also as gifts for friends and family. Little Willow was only 8 weeks old when I met her and blimey is she delicious!
I like to use the family shoot to document normal, everyday activities you might do with your family. I had a chat with them beforehand to talk through ideas and come up with a range of things to do that are fun and represent them as a family at that point in time. As little babies are not very mobile, we decided to focus on how Kieran and Hollie spent their afternoon looking after her. It’s the little tasks you do multiple of times a week you so quickly forget as they jump up into the next phase of their development. For example parents often spend a lot of time feeding in the early months and it’s a really lovely moment in the day when you get to cuddle up, I’m always keen to photograph this as, unbelievable as it might seem, it’s easy to forget. I have just found a photo, possibly the only one I have breast feeding my son, and I’m going to get it printed up – I was on a camping holiday and I’m sitting outside my tent on a rug whilst he sits in my arms and tucks in.
It was just so lovely capturing how they all interacted with one another. Kieran and Hollie are so in love with Willow that I really just wanted to record all the care and love they were giving to such a precious little girl. As with all my Family Essence photo shoots shot at home I end it with a photograph of the whole family outside their front door as it’s the front door that sees all the coming and goings; that represents and marks where that family is in that moment in time.
Kieran and Hollie were kind enough to write how they felt being photographed by me and the images I took for them.
“Our family shoot with Beth was absolutely wonderful! She came to our house and captured us with our newborn daughter doing our normal, every day things in such a lovely, laid back way. We didn’t want any stuffy, posed photos – we wanted something relaxed and true to our life and to our family and Beth got this so spot on. As a fellow mum, Beth understood what it’s like to be a new parent, and you can really feel this in her approach – gentle, easy-going and so friendly, you even forget you’re being photographed as you have a chat about family life. The photos are truly beautiful, and there is something extra special about them being unposed and in our home – they are a snapshot of a time that is so precious and we can’t thank Beth enough for capturing these very tangible, real, meaningful memories that we’ll treasure forever.” Hollie
“As keen photographers ourselves we had never really considered the idea of a family photo shoot because we thought we could capture it all ourselves, but actually having Beth there was so important because she could capture all three of us interacting together far better than we ever have. It’s us as a complete family from a perspective we rarely get to see. While we have a million selfies it’s actually quite unusual and special to have these reportage style images of family life and they will be fantastic for Willow to look back on when she’s grown up.” Kieran
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