Family Photographer in Radlett

Aim for mid tones and hold the family to two or three colours; matching outfits look staged, but a shared palette keeps the group together. Avoid bright green and khaki against the summer grass at Aldenham, because both sink into it. Footwear matters more than clothes here: the grass is wet under the surface most of the year, so bring boots and change at the car.

Yes. A family session can happen where the family already is, so the travelling is ours. We meet you at an entrance to Aldenham Country Park rather than a point deep inside it, so no pram is pushed further than it has to be, or at your house if the session is an indoor one. Newborn and baby work happens at home; the rest is outdoors unless the weather rules it out.

Yes, at your house rather than the studio. A newborn session follows feeds rather than a clock, which only works where the heating, the kit and the parents already are, so we come to Radlett and use whichever room holds the most daylight, usually a bedroom with a large window. Allow three hours, most of it spent waiting rather than photographing.

Allow around an hour, whether at the studio or at Aldenham Country Park, though we stop when the youngest has had enough rather than when the hour is up. With a baby or toddler in the group we leave room for a feed, a nap or a wander, so nobody is hurried. The children decide the pace, and the session bends to it.

Mostly, yes, and the method is to give the family something to do instead of something to hold. We keep the group walking the lakeside paths at Aldenham and take frames between the instructions rather than during them. There will be one arranged picture, because everybody wants a frame with all faces towards the camera, and it takes two minutes at the start.