Family Photography in Islington N1

It’s such a pleasure to share these children and family portraits from a recent photo shoot in Islington in North London with you today.

I’ve been lucky enough to photograph Debbie and her lovely family three time before and this, our fourth family photo shoot was even better than the others. It’s wonderful to see children grow up over time, to keep visiting and become a regular fixture in the family calendar. I love chatting to the children, seeing what they are up to at school and which games and activities spark their interests at each different age. Some hobbies are clearly here to stay and some are passing phases. Who knows which will be the ones they define themselves by as they grow up?

It was a beautiful day when I arrived, nice and early as always, at Debbie’s Islington home. We were soon off to the park, stopping on the way for coffee and croissants to give everyone plenty of energy. We went to a nearby garden square in Islington for our photos, a location the children love where we had taken pictures on our second session back in 2010. It always amazes em how you can return to the same place but have such different days. The ages of the children make a great difference of course, but even if you were to go with the same children two days in a row, I believe you would have a totally different photo shoot. This is one of the things I love about lifestyle location photography; it’s so much fun and one day is always completely different to the next.

We had great fun in the square, playing the girls favourite games, including hide and seek and a thrilling game of tag. Debbie and Gerry had to try to lure the girls away from ‘home-y’, out to the grass where they could be made ‘It’. It was so funny to see the girls laughing hysterically as they were tempted into danger by their parents who thought it was hilarious. ‘No, I won’t get you, I promise, look at this daisy I’ve found, would you like to see it?’ It was tremendous fun. The square was also a great spot for the girls to show off their scooting, round and round, faster and faster. Perhaps motor racing will be a career choice later on.

When we felt we had exhausted the options for children’s and family photography in the square, we headed over to Highbury Fields. Sometimes, with the smaller squares and parks you tend to find in Islington, it’s fun to go to more than one location. This provides a wider range of photo opportunities. I’m never in a rush and always happy to visit more than one park in the quest for more exciting and innovative portraits for the families I am lucky enough to photograph.

We had a great time at Highbury Fields, the girls showing me all their favourite spots for playing. The light was beautiful in the ‘fairy glade’ near the playground and the pictures of the girls running through the trees are just lovely.

As the girls began to tire after our wonderful active morning, we headed home. We had promised to do some pictures in their special party dresses, and it was lovely to photograph inside the beautiful house. We ended up with some lovely shots of the girls playing the piano and lying, in perfect pose, on their parents bed for a formal shot for the mantlepiece. They were so brilliant to photograph, so much fun and perfectly behaved all morning.

As a treat and a thank you for their wonderful modelling, we finished with some jumping on the bed. The girls, now wearing their favourite onesies, shrieked delightedly at seeing how high they could go. It was the perfect end to a perfect morning, and I left everyone tired and happy knowing, we had a fantastic set of children and family portrait photographs from all around Islington.