Capturing Family Portrait
Photography Documentary Style

Watch the slideshow to see our family portrait photoshoot at the home of the gorgeous Chapman family!

Flipping through your family photo albums always brings back incredible memories, as well as the usual series of questions:

“Who’s that?” “Do you remember that day?” “Where was this?” “What on EARTH are you wearing in that one?!”

A family album is a treasure-trove, an archive of your personal history, a record to pass on from generation to generation. It’s how we learn about our great-grandparents, how we remember loved ones, how we record key moments in our family life.

But what if the photographs didn’t just remind us of how our family looked or where we’d been, but actually showed us a little of their personality? What if instead of everyone doing their best to smile as they stand in a carefully orchestrated line in front of a landmark, the photographs showed the real stories behind that day and those precious memories?

That focus on real moments, real interactions between people is where documentary photography really shines. Unlike the more traditional family portraits the photographs are captured spontaneously, directly in the moment, and usually over a period of time. That sense of spontaneity, the fact that you as the subject don’t know precisely when the photographer is going to press the shutter means that even the most guarded in front of the camera can’t help but drop that learned frozen response and show a little bit more personality in the photos.

Nowhere is the idea of exploring personality in a photograph more important than in family photography. These photographs are not just to be enjoyed now, they are for your children to enjoy later, to relive a part of their childhood, to understand more about the members of their own family and what they were like at a different time in their lives. These are a personal record of your family and that’s why we believe they should truly represent you and the relationships you all share.

The beauty of taking family photographs on location rather than the rather more abstract surrounds of a white box in the studio is that we can photograph not just the essence of you as a family through your expressions and connections but also through the way you interact with your home environment.

Looking back at those family pictures in years to come isn’t just interesting because of the people who are there but because of the way your surroundings will have changed. To us as family photographers, it’s endlessly fascinating to look back over the changes in style and fashion that affected our lives – the way that seemingly insignificant details from the past now seem extraordinary. In 30 years time the car you drive now will seem alien. In 40 years time the way we dress now might seem equally bizarre. The fashions of our homes may not be timeless, but the memories that are created within them truly are. These photographs show the genuine fun you share together day-to-day as a family, and to us that’s far more powerful than just a smile in an empty white room.

Whether your family photoshoot takes place at home, out on a family day out or even on holiday, our approach is always the same. We don’t want you to stop and smile at the camera, we look to capture you as a family in full flow, embracing the spontaneity and all the little individual characteristics that make your family completely unique and completely fantastic!

Our family photography embraces the best traditions of street photography to capture not just any old family picture but a piece of art with you at the centre. Our work has received numerous accolades and taken us all around the world sharing our ideas but really the focus of our photographs is simple: it’s about people and relationships, and nowhere is the relationship more interesting than between members of the same family.

We allow plenty of time for our family photoshoots so you have the chance to get used to us and to relax around the camera. Unless you’d like one or two posed group shots we won’t ask anything of you at all on the day, we’ll just watch, observe and shoot the action as it happens, moving our own feet and making creative compositions in our trademark York Place style.