Family session

With small children the usual advice about golden hour is wrong. Late afternoon has the better light and the worse mood, and the mood wins every time: a session at six in the evening with a tired three-year-old produces forty photographs of a tired three-year-old. Morning, shortly after breakfast and well before a nap, is less flattering on paper and far better in practice. An overcast day removes the question entirely, because the whole sky becomes the light source and there is no bad hour. This is the one service where the schedule is set by the youngest person present.

On clothes, choose a palette of three or four colours and let everyone pick within it rather than matching outfits exactly. Matching reads as a uniform and dates the photograph to the year it was taken; a shared palette holds together and still looks like people who dressed themselves. Avoid logos and bold graphics, which are the first thing the eye lands on, and dress the youngest child last so they spend the least time in it.

Seventy-five minutes covers posed group frames, candid coverage and an individual portrait of each child, which is the part parents are most glad of later. The posed frames are taken first, in the first twenty minutes, while attention still exists — a session that leaves the whole-family shot until the end frequently does not get one. After that the structure loosens deliberately, because children stop performing at about the twenty-minute mark and that is when the photographs worth keeping start.

Bring snacks that are not sticky, a change of clothes for anyone under five, and whatever object a small child refuses to be separated from — it is better in the frame than being negotiated over out of it. Forty retouched photographs within five business days, a print release included, and a free reschedule if conditions make the location genuinely unusable. From $375, agreed before you book.