Martin and Karen Photography Blog » Family

Family photography that’s a bit different

martin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:03:52 +0000

When I’m photographing families I always aim to have the photos look as natural as possible. It’s one of the reasons that I usually prefer to work on location with kids. They can have fun playing in a park or another favourite location without being corralled into an artificial studio environment.

Sometimes when a client wants some studio style images we’ll start at the studio then move to a location later. Even then I like to keep the shots looking as natural as possible. I’m not a big fan of the white-background look that is so prevalent nowadays.

Annita came to the studio with her lovely children Lexie and Jake. We started by making some relaxed portraits on the studio floor just using natural light before moving to a local park to finish the shoot. They aren’t due to come back to see their pictures for a few more days but I can’t resist sharing a few here. Hope you like them.

Family friend Alice came along too. Here’s a portrait of her, taken on location:

Family photo shoot

martin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:57:47 +0000

This shoot was organised by Evonne and Emma as a birthday present for Mo. So we made a day of it with a location photo shoot that started late morning, a buffet lunch back here at the studio then back out on location for some more photos. It was the first time I’d seen everyone together since Evonne and Alex’s wedding in 2007 so it was great to meet everyone again. It was also great to see Kaian again and to see how he’s changed since we photographed him at a few weeks old.

It was a great fun shoot and a great jet lag antitdote Here’s a selection of our favourites.

Jon and Karin’s family shoot

martin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:59:38 +0000

Last month I had the privilege of photographing Jon and Karin and their lovely family of five kids (and two dogs). My approach to keeping that many kids amused is to get them involved in the shoot to make it exciting. So we had great fun together exploring their garden looking for interesting places to take pictures. We were spoilt for choice for brilliant locations and the kids were fantastic. There’s too many great pictures to show individual pictures of everyone on the blog (sorry guys) but here are a few of my favourites.

Baby Audrey

martin — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:08:06 +0000

This was a first for me – four generations of one family in one photograph. New mum Zelda invited me to photograph her with her lovely baby Audrey together with her mother and grandmother. It was a real privilege. The shoot was on location at Zelda’s mum’s flat in London’s West End. Here’s some of my favourite pictures from the day:

Jamie at one

martin — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:05:51 +0000

It was a thrill to have the chance to photograph Jamie again a few days after his first birthday. He’s changed a lot since his first shoot (link) but was still a smiley happy chap and great fun to photograph.

We started the shoot with a trip to a nearby country park. Despite the dull weather I had a few tricks up my sleeve to come up with these sunny looking shots.

We finished the shoot back at Jamie’s home with a few simple pictures to complement the pictures from the first shoot in Mum and Dad’s album.

Antonia’s Dancing Shoot

martin — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:47:20 +0000

Here are some photographs of the lovely Antonia dancing in our studio. We were aiming for a classic ’stage lighting’ look to these pictures and I think we pretty much succeeded. I’ve photographed Antonia twice before and she’s a natural in front of the camera. She’s an excellent dancer too

Fun in the rain

martin — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:16:45 +0000

Its tempting to postpone a photo shoot when its raining, but kids are resilient and usually don’t mind getting wet providing you make the shoot fun. Catherine, Michael and Roya were no different in fact I reckon we got more natural and original pictures than if we’d done this with the sun shining.

Tracy, Steve and Samuel

martin — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 22:02:29 +0000

Here are a few of my favourite shots from today’s photo shoot with Tracy Steve and their very special little boy Sam at their home in Bedfordshire. We were able to take some family portraits and individual shots of Sam and his parents indoors in their home which is flooded with natural light, and outdoors too since the rain held off until later.

Mariella, Graham and Bron

admin — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:39:38 +0000

I photographed Mariella nine months ago when she was just six days old. Needless to say she’s changed a bit since then. Bluebells in the woods gave a brilliant natural background to this family photo shoot.

Family photo shoot

martin — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:37:22 +0000

John and Sue asked us to take some family photographs to commemorate a couple of significant birthdays. We met their children and grandchildren in Newark where John had kindly scouted out a great location at the castle ruins. With the family coming from far and wide we were lucky that the forecast storms didn’t appear. It was bitterly cold though. The family were great and we got a super collection of photos. Here’s a couple of them:

This family group was shot under open cloudy skies. A portable studio flash provided the ’sunlight’:

A great location in an archway under the ruined castle tower provided an interesting background and gorgeous natural light: