Just One – Kristina and family – Putney family photographer, London SW18

I’ve been lucky enough to photograph Kristina and her family since 2007 when I had been recommended to her by a friend and visited her beautiful Putney home in SW18 for some family and children’s photography. We had a brilliant time right from our first session, and Kristina’s autumn photo shoot is one that I look forward to all year round.

This year we moved our usual October shoot back a month to November, and we were lucky with the most amazing autumn day – not too cold and with lovely soft light. We headed outdoors bright and early as always – it’s such a lovely time to be out taking pictures and has so many benefits. The children are full of energy and the parks are all to ourselves, which is particularly good as children get older and a bit more self conscious.

We headed down to the river Thames in Putney and it was just us, the occasional dog walker, early morning runners, and the local football team out in the early dawn.

There is the most incredible avenue of trees by the river in Putney, and I was thrilled to see that the park Kirstina had in mind was the same one – I like to think of myself as a bit of an expert on London parks but I often only know them by sight rather than by name, as I have visited so many on children and family photography shoots but often coming from different areas of London each time.

I knew the avenue would make the most incredible backdrop for a fairly formal family portrait, which I knew Kristina was keen on – at this time of year, the thought of Christmas cards is never far away. It was perfect for our children and family photographs with the trees adding a wonderful sense of perspective and drawing the eye into the image.

We took a number of different shots here which I’ll share on a future blog post, but I wanted to share this one as today’s ‘Just One’ preview image – my favourite shot from our session.

I love this picture of Kristina and her family walking towards the camera – it’s such a lovely shot of them all. I love how everyone is so close and how all the family relationships are clear even in this one picture – twins Poppy and Julian are in the middle, exactly mirroring each other with their legs in perfect time; Kristina in charge on the end, so glamorous as always with her family and her lovely dogs, Clemmie and Truffle; I love how Chris is so protective of his daughters, an arm round Poppy and holding little Violet’s hand, daddy’s girl and such an important part of the family.

I love this shot and I’m so pleased that Kristina has chosen it for her Christmas card – I think it’ll make my new portfolio in the Spring too, it’s such a favourite image from our children and family photography session in Putney in South West London, SW18. I hope you like it too.