The First Year Package — Because This Is the Year That Changes Fastest

The first year of a baby's life contains more change than any other. In twelve months, you go from a baby who fits in the crook of one arm and sleeps in twenty-minute stretches to a person who has opinions about food, pulls themselves up on the furniture, and may already be taking their first steps.

Most of that change goes unrecorded.

Not because parents don't want to record it — everyone wants to — but because the logistics of booking a photographer three separate times across a year that is already full and exhausting and wonderful feel like too much to think about when you're four weeks postpartum.

The First Year Package is the answer to that. One decision, made once, covers three sessions: the newborn session in those first quiet weeks, a milestone session at around six months when your baby is sitting and alert and beginning to show you who they are, and a first birthday session — which tends to be louder and more cake-involved than the other two.

All three happen at home. I come to you each time, with lighting and wraps and everything needed, so there's no travelling, no unfamiliar space, no logistical mountain to climb with a baby at different stages of mobility. The newborn session follows a baby who mostly sleeps. The milestone session follows a baby who is learning to sit. The first birthday session follows a baby who has views on everything and will make them known.

What you end up with is a complete record of the year — not just the newborn days, which tend to get photographed, but the in-between parts that don't. The six-month version of your baby, who already looks nothing like the newborn version. The almost-one-year version, who looks nothing like either.

The First Year Package is £1,400, which covers all three sessions and includes a fine art print from each. Full details on everything that's included here →

Sibling Newborn Photography — What If My Older One Won't Cooperate?

Every parent asks some version of this question before a sibling session. Usually it comes in an email, slightly apologetic: "Just to warn you, my three-year-old is going through a phase." Or: "She says she doesn't want a baby brother, so this might be interesting." Or simply: "He won't sit still for more than thirty seconds."

Eighteen years in, I want to reassure you: this is not a problem. It is, in fact, almost exactly what I'm hoping for.

The sibling portraits that families treasure most are rarely the ones where everyone is sitting nicely and looking at the camera. They're the one where the older child is mid-lean, nose almost touching the baby's face, examining this new person with absolute seriousness. Or where they're holding the baby's hand with both of theirs, concentrating hard. Or where they've simply climbed in next to the baby and are looking at something completely else entirely, unaware of the camera at all.

Children between two and five years old are not good at performing. They are, however, often extraordinary at being themselves — and being themselves next to a new sibling produces some of the most honest portraits I make.

What I've learned is that the session works best when I don't try to control the older child too much. I give them a small job — "hold this," "sit here for a moment" — and then mostly I photograph what happens next. If they're interested in the baby, wonderful. If they lose interest after four minutes and want to go and find their toys, that's fine too. I've usually got what I need by then, and we can come back to it later when curiosity brings them back.

The one thing that does help is not building it up too much beforehand. Children who've been told for weeks that today is a very important day when they must be very good tend to arrive over-rehearsed and stilted. Children who've been told "a photographer is coming to take some pictures of the baby and you can be in them if you want" tend to arrive curious and relaxed.

If you're booking a newborn session and wondering whether to include your older child — include them. The images of the two of them together, from these very first days, are the ones you'll reach for first in twenty years.

Full details on newborn sessions here →

Mum and Baby Photography in London — The Session Most People Forget to Book

Most families book a newborn session for the baby. The poses, the wraps, the tiny curled feet. What often gets missed — and what I find myself thinking about more and more — is the other person in the room.

You, in those first weeks, are also someone worth photographing.

Mum and baby photography is a quieter thing than a full newborn session. There's no elaborate setup, no posing equipment, no plan beyond the two of you in whatever room feels most like home right now. It might be the chair you've been feeding in at three in the morning. It might be the bed where you've been sleeping in two-hour stretches with a baby on your chest. These are the places that will feel significant later, in ways that are hard to explain now when you're still inside them.

I offer a dedicated mum and baby session for families who want this recorded — just the two of you, unhurried, in the early weeks. It takes about an hour. I bring a small amount of lighting if the room needs it, but mostly I work with what's already there. The images that come from these sessions tend to be the ones families reach for first.

Fathers and partners are of course welcome in frame. But the session is built around one relationship — the one that changed everything.

I photograph mum and baby sessions across London, from those first days home from hospital through to the end of the fourth trimester. If your baby is already a few months old and this is something you're wishing you'd done — it's not too late. The early softness lasts longer than people think.

If this sounds like something you'd like, I'd love to hear from you. Full details on sessions and pricing here →

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 →

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