Helen Bartlett / Family Portraiture

Newborn Photography in Bethnal Green – Just One

31Aug

‘This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home….’ I love how so many games and rhymes are passed down from generation to generation. How, you see the same mannerisms, the same inquisitive gestures from one child to another, unifying common ideas and experience. Pictures like this make me think about the universal nature of childhood and how love is expressed in so many of the same ways in the past and in the present and will continue into the future.

It’s often the little gestures that lead me onto paths of reflection like this, in the case of today’s image, the gentle counting of toes as Mia holds her tiny new baby brother. Is she wondering at how tiny they are? Repeating a familiar rhyme about Little Pigs on market day, practicing her counting (which was amazing I might add, I’m always so impressed by multi-lingual children) we don’t know. I imagine her looking back on this image when she is older and I wonder if she will remember what she was thinking at the time. I’m hoping I will still be photographing the family then and can ask.

Often on a photo shoot I’ll place the children in good light and then wait to see what develops, how they interact. In this case Mia was so gentle with her baby brother, holding him so carefully out in the park near her Bethnal Green home where we had met for our newborn baby and family photography session. I love the way the light wraps around both children as if summer itself holds them in it’s careful embrace, Milo just days old enjoying an early trip to the park.

Sometimes the details come together better than I could have planned them, I love how Milo and Mia’s feet are almost touching, the difference in scale so apparent with their beautiful delicate toes. It’s such a tender moment. The soft light and a shallow depth of field emphasizing the moment, two children in their own world, sharing these early days together and building a relationship that they can enjoy all their lives. It’s a real privilege to be invited into people’s homes to share these moments and I hope that this image, and all the others from our fantastic family photography session will be treasured into the future.

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