Capturing natural pictures of babies is one of my favourite things to do. Although we’ve got a fully equipped studio I much prefer to photograph babies at their home. That way if baby needs to be changed, or have a sleep or a feed it’s no problem. Much less stressful for the baby and for the parents too. I couldn’t imagine ever adopting the production-line approach of some studios. You get your hour slot and that’s that. What happens if baby is off form, or they get stressed out by the whole studio experience?
I photographed twins Alex and Ava at their home in North London. Although you can’t tell in these pictures Alex really wasn’t feeling herself. So I’m going back in a few days to do another session with them. I’m always happy to reschedule or come back and do another shoot at no charge if for some reason baby isn’t in the mood for photographs. Stuff happens 
Here’s a sneak preview of a few of my favourites from the first shoot. More to come
Most photographers seem to call themselves ‘award winning’. You’re never sure really what that means. Maybe that’s why we haven’t entered many competitions. Each month we see the results and think ‘we’ve got better shots than that’ yet we never seem to do anything about it. Until now. Lola decided it was time we entered a few images, a lo and behold we’ve won a few prizes. We entered the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers’ monthly competition and we’ve won four gold awards. This competition differs from most because you are competing against other professional photographers. And it’s international (though most of the entrants are from the UK). We’ve won golds in four different categories so far.
First of the four is this shot of baby Mariella with dad, taken when she was six days old. I love this shot for its intimacy, and also the eye contact, which is hard to capture with a newborn baby. Although this looks like a studio shot it was actually taken at the client’s home, using window light only.
Next up is one of my favourite wildlife photographs. It’s not widely known that I lead photo safaris to Africa on behalf of a specialist USA-based photo tour company. This one was taken on a tour to Tanzania. A few moments later and it was all over. Feel sorry for the frog
The next gold is a powerful and moving picture of a young Masai, also taken in Tanzania. The day before I’d run a ‘photographing people’ workshop for the tour participants, and one of the techniques I taught was shooting in to the sun when the the light is harsh and there is no shade. That technique works well here – I love the way the light rims her face. There’s a soulful look to her expression that really appeals to me too.
The final gold award (for now?) was for this image we took of Richard Ashcroft at a rock festival promoted by one of our clients. Photographing at a rock concert is a real eye-opener. You’re only allowed to be in the ‘pit’ for three songs so it’s a mad scrum with all the other photographers to get the best angles. Because Karen and I were working as a team the pressure was off slightly, so I could take a step back and look at what the lights were doing. Positioned myself carefully in a line with Richard and the backlight and this is the result. The lighting director should really get half this credit
These four pictures now go forward to the annual judging in January. Flushed with initial success I guess we’ll be entering a few more images next year
There’s definitely a baby theme going on at the moment. Not that I’m complaining – they’re generally great fun to photograph, especially if you have plenty of time. I always allow at least half a day for a location baby shoot. It means that there’s no problem if baby needs a sleep, feed or change (or in Luke’s case all three). Luke’s shoot was another on location in North London – we took the photographs at Alice and Ed’s flat. Over the space of a couple of hours we got a super collection of pictures. Here’s a few of my favourites:
