Helen Bartlett / Family Portraiture

Children and family photography in Kensington, London SW5

02Aug

Kensington was the location for this children’s and family portrait photography session, which is one of my favourite areas of central London to work as a photographer. I love the incredible architecture of Kensington with its wonderful blocks of flats with rooms flooded with so much light from spectacular windows, making them a fabulous location for children’s and family photography.

As with all my sessions, we started nice and early in the morning – I find 8am is the perfect time to start as children wake-up so early and at that time of day, they are bright, alert and full of breakfast. We also have the advantage of lovely early morning light and nice empty parks. For today’s session, we were going to be out and about in the garden square belonging to the flats – I love the Kensington garden squares, each one is so different to the next and always beautifully maintained. These gardens always have such fun things to do, too.

We started our session indoors with some pictures in Alyssa’s fabulous drawing room. I loved the designer chairs and the children really enjoyed a game of ‘merry-go-chair’ spinning round and round. Alvarito had the time of his life running around and jumping on and off the sofa, and I was thrilled with the pictures that I took of him in those split seconds of quiet between moments of madness. The big window provides such a beautiful architectural setting and the symmetry of the picture makes it such a special image, really showing off the scale of the room and also how small Alvarito is at just under two years old.

We then headed outdoors. One of my favourite images from the session is the children waiting at the backdoor, with the corridor stretching out between me and them. It’s the perspective of the adult trying to catch-up with the excited, eager children as they run for the door, for the garden, and for freedom! They wait impatiently by the door – a picture that could have been taken of so many children the world over for hundreds of years. Only the clothes and the decor would change, the excitement remains the same.

We played all sorts of fun games outside from chasing monsters to finding the Gruffalo, from skipping to stone gathering all accompanied by peals of laughter and much giggling. It was a lovely morning, so much fun and I’m thrilled with all my pictures. I do love photographing happy families doing the things that they love. It’s such a wonderful job. I hope you enjoy looking at today’s selection of pictures from our children and family photo session in Kensington in London SW5 as much as I enjoyed taking them.

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