The Photograph I Always Want to Take

There is one photograph I always want to take during a newborn session.

Not the baby curled and sleeping.
Not the mother gazing down.

The hands.

A father's hands holding a newborn — enormous and careful and completely certain — while everything else in the room is uncertain.

Those first days at home with a new baby are unlike anything else.

A new mother who doesn't yet know what to do with this small person she has been handed.
Who is exhausted in a way she has never been exhausted before.
Who hasn't slept.
Who worries.
Who wants, more than anything, to be the best mother she can possibly be.

Whose body hurts.
Whose whole self is rearranging.
Who sometimes feels completely alone in the universe — even in a room full of people.

Whose own parents may be far away.
Who has only just stopped being someone's child herself — and is now responsible for another life entirely.

In those moments, there is nothing more important than the person beside her.

Not always words.
Sometimes just a look.
A steadiness.
An energy that says: I've got you. We've got this.

That is enough to move mountains.

And when I photograph a father holding his newborn — those huge hands, that quiet certainty — I am photographing that too.

The thing that doesn't always get said.
But that makes everything possible.

If you're expecting a baby and thinking about a newborn session in London or Bromley, I'd love to hear from you. See full collections at investment or get in touch.

What I Know About Caesarean Birth — From Both Sides of the Camera

I had a caesarean myself.

I remember the specific kind of pain that nobody quite prepares you for — not the operation itself, but the days after. Standing up. Lying down. Anything that asked anything of my stomach muscles. I had been someone who trained, who moved through the world easily, and suddenly I couldn't sit up without thinking about it first.

My scar healed slowly. For a long time there was no feeling there at all. My husband talked me into trying leeches, of all things — and somehow, it helped. I still don't fully understand why. I just know that I needed something, and that was the thing that worked.

I tell you this because when I photograph a mother recovering from a caesarean, I am not guessing at what she's going through. I know it.

Years later, I was on the other side of it in a different way.

My daughter was in labour for three days. A home birth that became, in the end, an unplanned caesarean — her baby was simply too big. I didn't sleep for those three days. I have the data on my watch to prove it, which still makes me laugh a little.

I was there when they brought her and my grandson back from theatre. I heard his first cry. I photographed him, and the feeding, and her, and her husband — not a single pose, nothing arranged. Just the tenderness. The relief. The tears that come after something that hard is finally over.

I stayed with her for several weeks afterward.

So when I photograph a newborn session for a mother who has had a caesarean, here is what changes:

I bring the pillows. I roll the blankets into the right shapes before she even has to ask. I find the positions that don't ask anything of her stomach — propped against the headboard, baby resting high on her chest, nothing that requires reaching or twisting or holding her own weight in a particular way.

I move slowly, and I let her move slower.

There is no part of the session where I need her to lie a certain way for the photograph. The photograph adjusts to her — never the other way round.

Recovery from a caesarean is real, physical, and it takes longer than anyone tells you it will. If you're in those first weeks and thinking about a newborn session, I'd love to talk it through with you — what's comfortable, what isn't, and how we make it work for exactly where you are.

This experience also shaped how I approach every birth I photograph — not just caesareans. I've written more about that philosophy here: What "Natural" Actually Means When I'm Photographing a Birth” →

If you're considering birth photography in London, here's what to expect →

Get in touch or see the collections.

I Once Said I Wanted Five Children

Sometimes I think it’s a very strange question — and at the same time, a very important one.

Why do we actually want children?

When I was little, my mum once asked me:

“Kate, how many children do you want?”

And I answered:
“Five.”

To this day I have no idea where that number came from. Nobody in my family had lots of children. Maybe some distant great-grandmothers, but that’s about it.

Then I had two children and honestly thought:
“That’s it. Absolutely enough. No more.”

A few years later, I suddenly wanted another baby.

And instead, I had triplets.

I still remember my mum laughing:
“Well… dreams do come true. You wanted five.”

When I photograph newborns now, parents often imagine that newborn photographers must have beautifully documented every second of their own children’s lives.

Perfect little albums.
Perfect sleepy portraits.
Perfect memories carefully preserved from day one.

But my own children sometimes ask me:
“Mum, you’re literally a photographer… why do we barely have any photos from when we were babies?”

And I always answer honestly:
Because I was exhausted.

Completely exhausted.

When you have small children — especially several at once — sometimes you are not creating memories.
Sometimes you are simply surviving between feeds, laundry, tiny socks, sleepless nights, and cold coffee you forgot to drink.

And honestly, that is one of the reasons I love in-home newborn sessions so much.

Because you do not need to pack bags.
You do not need to drive anywhere.
You do not need to pretend you are functioning perfectly.

Sometimes parents simply hand me the baby… and go back to sleep.

I’m not joking.

And I completely understand it.

Maybe that’s also why these photographs matter so much.

Not because life looks perfect in them.

But because one day the whole period starts feeling almost unreal.
Like some strange beautiful fog you lived through half-asleep.

Tiny fingers.
Milk bottles at 3am.
Warm sleepy weight on your chest.
The sound of breathing next to you in the dark.

You are unbelievably tired.
And somehow, at the very same time, deeply happy.

So why do we have children?

Maybe to live a bigger life than the one we could live alone.

Maybe to watch another human becoming themselves right in front of you.

Maybe to heal things quietly without even noticing.

Maybe to experience a kind of love that completely rearranges your understanding of time, fear, exhaustion, and joy.

Or maybe simply to lie there one day, surrounded by your children, and suddenly realise:

this is life.