I’ve been meaning to write one of these for a while. A good old ‘here’s what’s actually going on’ post rather than a studio specific post… I don’t know if people want to know what’s been cracking on but I always love to read others’ so here it is! Studio, home, dogs, chaos and all.

In the studio…

It has been such a beautiful season in the studio lately, and I want to talk about it because it genuinely makes my heart so full. June ended up being my busiest month so far this year so I’m chasing my tail a little bit (but I’m not mad about it!) and I sit here at 4.30am writing this to make sure I get it in before I start editing!

The viewing sessions have been something else recently. I’ve had family after family sitting in the studio, seeing their images on the big screen for the first time, and then choosing the most stunning wall art, frames and albums to take home with them.

Watching someone hold a finished album for the first time, or see a large wall print mocked up in their living room and go “oh – that’s the one” – I will never, ever get tired of that.

Sitting with people and throwing them some tissues as they cry over photos and actually getting to SEE which ones their favourites are.. what a JOY! I am so confident this is going to change the way that I capture people as I’ve noticed how people lean towards images I don’t always gravitate to..

There is something so different about seeing your images in print rather than on a phone screen. I say it to every family before their viewing session – your photographs deserve to live somewhere you’ll actually see them every single day.

Watching that click for people, watching them leave with something tangible and beautiful that they’re going to put on their walls forever, genuinely one of my new favourite parts of this whole job.

I’ve also been absolutely immersed in bump to baby journeys lately, with lots of beautiful families expecting their babies in August and September. I’ve spent the last few weeks photographing the most gorgeous maternity sessions. Bumps in the golden hour light, families about to grow, that particular kind of excitement and nervousness that only exists in the final weeks of pregnancy.

And in just a few weeks, those same families will be walking through my studio door with their brand new babies, completely exhausted and completely in love.

I cannot wait.

The outdoor sunset shoots have been absolutely STUNNING too.

Yorkshire in the summer evenings is just awesome.. the light, the fields, the warmth. I’ve had some of my favourite images of the year come out of those sessions recently. If you’ve been thinking about a golden hour maternity or family shoot, there’s still time to catch the summer light before the evenings start drawing in. Just saying. 😊

At home..

Life outside the studio is beautifully, chaotically busy in the way it always is when you have small children and a labradoodle and approximately forty seven things happening at once.

My eldest is starting school soon. I cannot quite believe I’m typing those words. We’ve been doing settling in sessions and parents evenings, and every single time I sit in that tiny little chair across from her teacher, I have to actively resist the urge to cry in public.

She is absolutely fine with all of it. It is entirely me that’s the problem.

But here’s the thing I really wanted to write about today.

My youngest has started walking.

Which is wonderful. Brilliant. Exciting. All of those things.

But I am currently sat in a quiet grief for the stage that just disappeared without asking permission.

For weeks, every single evening, she would army crawl across the lounge floor to bring me her books. One at a time, determined, absolutely focused, dragging herself across the carpet with this look of pure concentration on her face. It was the funniest, most earnest, most completely her thing I have ever seen.

And I didn’t capture it. Not once. Not properly.

I am a newborn photographer. I have spent five years telling families to document the fleeting moments, the ordinary moments, the ones that feel so everyday you assume you’ll remember them forever. And I missed one of my own.

I did it purposefully because she would STARE into my eyes as she did it and I was always worried she would stop doing it if I broke eye contact but now I’m absolutely gutted and kicking myself.

She’s walking now. The army crawl is gone. I will never see it again, except in my head, which is already going slightly fuzzy at the edges the way memories do when you’re tired and life is full.

I’m not telling you this to make you sad. I’m telling you this because I mean it when I say it in the studio. I really, truly mean it.

The moments you think you’ll remember forever are the ones that slip away the quietest. Not the big ones – the first steps, the first birthday, the first day of school. Those get photographed and celebrated and documented within an inch of their lives. It’s the small ones. The army crawl across the lounge. The way they say a word slightly wrong before they learn to say it right. The particular way they smell at bedtime.

Those are the ones.

If you’ve been putting it off, if you’ve been thinking “I’ll do it next month, they’re not quite ready, I’ll wait until things calm down” – please don’t wait.

Things don’t calm down. They just change. And the version of your family that exists right now, today, in this season, it’s worth capturing. Properly. In print. On your walls. In an album that gets picked up on a random Tuesday evening and makes someone’s whole day.

I would love to meet you.

Feel free to explore my website for more information and to see some of the photography I’ve captured. Have questions? Send me a little message here!