Your kids don't have to perform

The best family photographs I take usually aren't the ones where everyone is looking at me. They're the ones a second before or a second after — a kid whispering something ridiculous to their mom, siblings shoving each other, somebody being carried who is technically too big to be carried.

So I don't run sessions on repeated smile at the camera. I give you something to do — walk toward me, hold hands, get down on the quilt together, put them on your shoulders — and then I photograph what happens. We'll still get the classic everyone-together portrait if you want it, because plenty of people do. It just isn't the whole session.

I don't move anyone into position with my hands. Everything is talked through.

What this looks like with small children

Toddlers and babies get photographed doing what they're already doing: walking with you, being carried, playing, sitting on a quilt, swinging, hanging onto a sibling, holding the stuffed animal they refuse to put down.

If someone needs a snack, a change, or five minutes to run around, that's part of the session and not a deduction from it. The clock is an approximation, not a stopwatch — it doesn't start the moment you park, and walking between spots doesn't count against you.

Before you come

Say something low-key to your children. We're going to the park and Julie is going to take some pictures while we hang out. That's it. Try to skip the build-up, the bribes and the warnings — kids arrive braced for a test when they've been prepped for one.

Who's in the photographs is up to you

Blended, divorced, step and every other shape of family is welcome. Tell me who's important and any groupings you'd like, and I'll take care of it without making it a conversation on the day.

Larger families of more than seven, get in touch before booking so we can plan the timing. Regular pricing usually still applies.

Dogs are welcome, leashed. Bring waste bags and treats, and someone who can hold them if you'd like a few frames without.

Your privacy is yours

Nothing from your gallery is ever posted publicly — not here, not on social media, not in anything printed — unless you've signed a release saying it can be. Children's names and ages are never published at all.

When to book

Mornings, or the couple of hours before sunset, when the light softens. In summer I keep midday off the calendar entirely, because overhead sun isn't kind to anybody.

Which session fits

The names describe length. What matters is what you want to end up with.

Short — one thing, done well. A current portrait for the wall, a few frames of the kids. If you know exactly what you're after and it's one thing, this is enough.

Standard — the portrait, plus everything around it. Time to move to a second spot, photograph the siblings together and separately, get mom and dad on their own, catch the silly ones. Enough variety for frames, gifts and a small album.

Extended — when you want a body of work rather than a photograph.

Say you've moved into a house with a lot of empty wall, and it's been two or three years since anyone photographed your family properly.

Here's how ninety minutes actually goes. We might start at the farm at Carriage Hill — the barn and farmhouse make a good rustic backdrop, and it's an easy place to spread the cream quilt out for a picnic and let everyone settle in. Kids warm up faster when there's something to do. If there's time we wander over to the bridge and the creek. Then we head to the pond as the light drops, and that's when we get the more formal frames: everyone together, each child on their own, mom and dad by themselves for once.

Along the way you get the candids — duck-duck-goose, a kid on dad's shoulders, another one hugging mom's leg. All the siblings together. The dog in some and not others.

That's a gallery wall, a holiday card, and enough left over for an album for the grandparents. You can't get there in fifteen minutes.