Highgate Wood for toddlers
Seventy acres of ancient woodland on Muswell Hill Road with a café, a large playground and a sports field. Cycling is not allowed there, so the paths stay calm for small walkers.
Family Photographer in North London
Relaxed family sessions at your home or in a North London park, from the ancient woods around Highgate to the lakes of Trent Country Park. Kaushik Bathia drives in from Northwood, about 8 to 15 miles away, so the family stays put.
The short answer
Is there a family photographer who comes to you in North London?
Yes. Kaushik Bathia photographs families at home, in the garden or in a local park across North London, from Mill Hill and Barnet, about 8 to 9 miles from Northwood, out to Enfield and Edmonton, about 15. A session usually lasts about an hour and follows the children's mood rather than a shot list. Travel from Northwood is quoted up front and set out in writing before you book, and session prices are given on request by phone or WhatsApp on 07956 505383.
Very good experience. Did a family shoot at Kaushik Bathia's studio yesterday. He was amazing at getting all of us to give natural smiles.
Kaushik is a fantastic photographer and has captured some superb family memories for us! Great service with high quality, professional images.
Kaushik took a photograph of my grand-daughter. The final product was superb. My little 2 year old girl was kept so calm and at ease with Kaushik’s kindness. We will now always use Kaushik for our photography.
Where to meet
Woods, heaths and Edwardian parks: picking a North London setting
North London has three broad kinds of open space, and each photographs differently. The ancient woods on the Haringey side, such as Highgate Wood (70 acres run by the City of London, with a café and a large playground), Queen's Wood with its spring bluebells and Coldfall Wood on Creighton Avenue, give soft, shaded light and fallen logs for toddlers to climb. Further north, Trent Country Park near Cockfosters spreads over 320 hectares of Green Belt parkland, with an avenue of lime trees and ornamental lakes.
The formal Edwardian and Victorian parks suit families who want a bench, a bandstand or a flower border in the frame. Friary Park in Friern Barnet has three redwood trees and a café in the Gothic Revival Friary House. Broomfield Park in Palmers Green has ponds dating from the eighteenth century, a conservatory and a bandstand, and Pymmes Park in Upper Edmonton keeps a Victorian walled garden with an ornamental pond. Each sits within a short walk of streets of family homes.
Some of the best-known spaces come with rules. The City of London requires permission for professional photography on Hampstead Heath and offers a two-hour weekday licence for small handheld sessions, and Alexandra Palace asks every photographer to hold a permit for Alexandra Park. Primrose Hill and The Regent's Park are Royal Parks, where lifestyle photography needs a permit from the park office. We talk the permit position through with you while choosing the place, so nothing is left to the morning itself.
At home
Bay windows, mansion flats and back gardens
Plenty of the warmest family pictures happen indoors: on the sofa, round the kitchen table, on the stairs. North London homes give a lot to work with. Muswell Hill is known for its streets of Edwardian architecture, North Finchley's housing runs from Victorian cottages to large double-fronted houses, and Belsize Park has Georgian and Victorian villas and mews houses. Bay windows and tall sash windows let in the soft side light that a home session runs on.
A home session suits babies who nap on a schedule, grandparents who would find a long park walk tiring, and children who relax faster among their own toys. Kaushik moves the family between two or three rooms, and into the garden if you have one, choosing each room by where the daylight falls at that hour. There is no need to tidy the whole house: clear one corner of the living room and the space by the brightest window, and leave the rest.
If the weather turns, an outdoor booking can move inside without fuss, which matters on a damp November afternoon in Hornsey or Crouch End. When you call, tell us whether you have a garden, a balcony or a green at the end of the road, and the hour is planned around what you have.
Distance
From Mill Hill at 8 miles to Edmonton at 15: how the journey works
Kaushik works from Northwood, in the north-west corner of London, so the nearest North London neighbourhoods lie on the Barnet side: Mill Hill is about 8 miles away, Hendon about 8.2 and Barnet about 8.6. Finchley, Golders Green and Temple Fortune are about 9.3 miles, Hampstead and East Finchley about 10.5, and Highgate, Camden and Muswell Hill between 11 and 12. The eastern side runs further, with Wood Green about 13 miles, Islington about 14, and Enfield and Edmonton about 15.
Each of those is a come-to-you session: Kaushik drives over with the camera and the family stays at home or meets him at the park gate. Travel from Northwood to your part of North London is quoted up front and set out in writing before you book, so the cost of the journey is clear from the start. If you would rather make the trip yourselves, the Northwood studio on the Joel Street parade, two minutes from Northwood Hills station on the Metropolitan line, is the alternative.
Tell us the children's nap times and school hours when you get in touch, and we suggest a start time around them. A Saturday morning in Cherry Tree Wood, opposite East Finchley station, looks very different from a weekday afternoon at Swan Lane Open Space in Whetstone, and the plan should fit the family rather than the diary.
Ages and seasons
Bluebells in Queen's Wood, autumn colour on Monken Hadley Common
Outdoor family sessions work best from late spring to autumn. In April and May the oak and hornbeam of Queen's Wood, and the woods at Moat Mount and Scratchwood off the A1 Barnet Way, carry bluebells and wood anemones, a soft backdrop for younger children. Summer evenings throw long, low light across the open fields of Arrandene Open Space off Wise Lane in Mill Hill, a 25-hectare nature site whose meadows were once hay fields for coach horses heading north.
Autumn is when the oak, hornbeam and beech of Monken Hadley Common, between Monken Hadley and Cockfosters, turn colour, and the flat, partly surfaced Dollis Valley Greenwalk south of Woodside Park is an easy route with a buggy. Winter sessions move indoors or into short, bright middays, and a December session at home suits families who want the tree in the picture.
Ages change the plan more than the season does. Toddlers need a playground nearby as a reward, such as the large one in Highgate Wood or the play areas for toddlers to teens in Mill Hill Park on Daws Lane. School-age children like a task, such as a race round the lake at Grovelands Park in Southgate. A teenager may prefer a short, efficient session with a café stop at the end.
Bigger groups
Grandparents, cousins and festival gatherings
A birthday, an anniversary or a festival such as Diwali or Eid can bring the whole family into one place for a group picture. A garden or a large living room works for a small group. For twenty people, a park with level grass, such as Lyttelton Playing Fields in Hampstead Garden Suburb or Victoria Park off Ballards Lane in Finchley, gives room to arrange rows without anyone standing in a flower bed.
We plan the groupings with you beforehand: the whole family, each household, the grandparents with all the grandchildren, the cousins together. With a written list and one relative ready to call names, the formal part takes far less time than people expect, and the rest of the hour is free for relaxed pictures of people talking, laughing and chasing children.
Afterwards you choose your favourites from a private online gallery, and they can become prints, framed wall art or a hand-finished album; prints for grandparents can be ordered at the same time. See family photography for how sessions work in general, or the North London overview for every service in the area.
Planning
Planning around North London
Free parking at Trent Country Park
The two main council car parks by the Cockfosters Road entrance are free, and the park is about a ten-minute walk from Cockfosters station, handy when grandparents arrive separately.
Weekday licence on the Heath
Professional photography on Hampstead Heath needs City of London permission, and the two-hour licence runs on weekdays only. For a Saturday, choose a Barnet or Haringey park instead.
Golders Hill Park and its small zoo
A flower garden by a duck pond with a humpback bridge, a water garden and a small free zoo. It is managed as part of Hampstead Heath, so check the Heath's photography rules first.
Pymmes Park walled garden
Grade II listed walls on three sides, an ornamental pond and herbaceous borders in Upper Edmonton: a sheltered setting for families on the eastern edge of the area.
Parks and open spaces for a family shoot in North London
These are the North London parks and open spaces that suit a family session, each with a source you can check before choosing.
- Mill Hill Park: Mill Hill Park on Daws Lane, once part of Daws Farm, was bought by Hendon Urban District Council in 1923 and opened in 1924, and has tennis courts, play areas for toddlers to teens, a café, an outdoor gym and gardens. 1
- Hendon Park: Hendon Park is a 12-hectare park opened in 1903, two to three minutes' walk from Hendon Central, with a Holocaust Memorial Garden and a Japanese maple named one of the Great Trees of London in 2008. 2
- Oak Hill Park, East Barnet: Oak Hill Park in East Barnet, laid out as a park in 1933, is crossed by Pymme's Brook and the Pymmes Brook Trail, and part of it has been the Oak Hill Wood Local Nature Reserve since 1997. 3
- Stephens House & Gardens: Stephens House & Gardens at 17 East End Road, N3 3QE, is a Grade II listed house with 10 acres of landscaped gardens, left for public enjoyment by Henry 'Inky' Stephens of the Stephens' Ink Company. 4
- Swan Lane Open Space: Swan Lane Open Space on Woodside Lane, Whetstone N12, has play areas for toddlers to teenagers, a cafe, a water feature and wildlife interest. 5
Sources, facts checked October 2026
Town by town
Family photography around North London
Find your neighbourhood below, with its distance from Northwood and a link to its own family photography page.
- Mill Hill (8 miles from the studio)
- Hendon (8 miles from the studio)
- Barnet (9 miles from the studio)
- Temple Fortune (9 miles from the studio)
- Finchley (9 miles from the studio)
- Golders Green (9 miles from the studio)
- West Hampstead (10 miles from the studio)
- North Finchley (10 miles from the studio)
- Whetstone (10 miles from the studio)
- Hampstead (10 miles from the studio)
- East Finchley (11 miles from the studio)
- Belsize Park (11 miles from the studio)
- Highgate (11 miles from the studio)
- Camden (11 miles from the studio)
- Muswell Hill (12 miles from the studio)
- Cockfosters (12 miles from the studio)
- Kentish Town (12 miles from the studio)
- Crouch End (12 miles from the studio)
- Southgate (12 miles from the studio)
- Hornsey (13 miles from the studio)
- Wood Green (13 miles from the studio)
- Haringey (13 miles from the studio)
- Palmers Green (13 miles from the studio)
- Winchmore Hill (14 miles from the studio)
- Islington (14 miles from the studio)
- Enfield (15 miles from the studio)
- Tottenham (15 miles from the studio)
- Edmonton (15 miles from the studio)
Good to know
Family photography in North London: questions answered
The Avenue House Estate Trust asks for permission for any non-private photography at Stephens House & Gardens, and keeps the gardens for family group photography by people holding their events in the house. If you are not holding an event there, Victoria Park off Ballards Lane, about seven hectares between Finchley Central and North Finchley, is a straightforward alternative nearby.
Yes. Alexandra Palace asks both amateur and professional photographers to get a permit before photographing in Alexandra Park. The 196 acres around the palace, with a rose garden, a boating lake and views over the London skyline, are a big draw, so if you choose it we build the permit into the planning well before the date.
Every North London neighbourhood is within about 15 miles of Northwood: Mill Hill and Hendon are about 8, Highgate and Camden about 11, and Enfield and Edmonton about 15. Kaushik comes to your home or a park near you, and the travel for that distance is quoted up front and set out in writing before you book.
Often better for babies and toddlers. A bright front room with a bay window gives soft light, the children stay relaxed among their own things, and naps and snacks are easy. Muswell Hill is known for its streets of Edwardian architecture, and big front windows are part of that. You can also combine the two: start at home and finish in a nearby park.
Usually about an hour. That leaves time for a few planned groups, some play, a snack break and the relaxed pictures that come once everyone forgets the camera. Larger extended-family sessions may run a little longer, and we talk timing through with you when you book.
Choose two or three colours that sit well together, such as cream, navy, rust or sage, and avoid big logos and busy patterns. Woodland is mostly green and brown, so warmer tones stand out against it. Bring wellies or spare shoes for the woods in autumn, and a coat for the walk between spots.
Session prices are given on request by phone or WhatsApp on 07956 505383, and depend on the session and the prints or albums you choose afterwards. Travel from Northwood to your neighbourhood is set out in your written quote, so you see the whole picture before deciding.
Plan your session
Book a family photographer in North London
Tell us your neighbourhood, the children's ages and whether you picture a park or your home, and we suggest a plan and a date.
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