Smile, and (don't) say "cheese!"...

I love doing group shots, particularly with children, since you never know what you're going to come back with. This little lot have been friends since birth - each of them arriving within a few days of each other - as their parents all met at an NCT class and they are all still friends nearly three years later.

They are a real bunch of characters and the sequence of photos from this shoot on a hot sunny day in one of their back gardens in Caterham, Surrey, was priceless.  This photograph is one of my favourites, but there are others where a couple of them are pulling a different facial expression in each one (they'll definitely be the jokers of the pack later on...!).

While I completely understand the desire for a lovely picture of all the kids facing the camera and smiling, for me at least, the images that make me smile (and in some cases belly laugh during editing) are the ones where each child is doing their own thing, and basically just being themselves.

So while in the end, we did get one of them holding hands, facing forward, with a few "cheese"s, my personal favourites will always be the ones with tongues poking out, coy shoulder shrugs and uncontrollable giggles.

Just play...

I love travelling with children.  It lends a whole new perspective and the experiences we have and the people we meet as a result of being with them are so wonderful. I believe travelling helps keep your mind open and your soul free - for that reason, I’m keen for my children to travel and experience different cultures and meet people from different backgrounds so their minds stay as open as they are naturally predisposed to be.  

Watching the children interact without the self consciousness, embarassment and barriers that sadly we often feel as we get older, melts my heart.  When they meet people for the first time, they don’t see anything other than a smile and a potential playmate.  

"Wanna come for a ride?"

This was never more evident than on a recent holiday to Thailand.  We were on a trip to a little place where they looked after a small number of elephants. After we had seen the elephants being bathed and fed, we were taken to the Mahout’s (elephant carer) village which was essentially a few basic wooden shacks in the middle of nowhere. A little boy, perhaps aged 3, who lived there came straight over to my two year old daughter and gave her his little trike to play on.  He then scurried off to try and find himself something to ride so they could play together. 

They didn’t speak the same language, and their backgrounds couldn’t be more different, but they still communicated with each other, purely through playing, pointing and facial expressions, mainly smiling.

"I think I've got a bit of engine trouble..."

It was so lovely to watch them. Tearing my daughter away when it was time to go was a challenge to say the least.

Perhaps we should all smile and play a little more.

"Let's just chill here for a bit..."

They say never work with children or animals...

Bluebells are a fantastic setting for pictures - primarily found in wooded areas, there are usually other features such as mossy logs, trees, leaves and so on, to add other points of interest to the shot.

So, on a warm sunny afternoon, I thought I would take my two (an adventurous, rather spirited two year old, and a particularly inquisitive ten month old who has discovered crawling and standing) to Banstead Woods in Surrey in search of a nice background to get a decent shot of them together.  With nothing else scheduled for the afternoon, I thought it'd be a lovely, fun, (potentially) relaxing afternoon, sure to lend itself to some photography.

I hadn't visited the area before, but with the baby in a sling and the two year old refusing to sit in the buggy, we eventually huffed our way up the hill and ventured into the woods to a nice looking area with sparse patches of bluebells.

The second I put the baby down, he shoves whatever he can find into his mouth.  Leaves, mud, sticks, the bluebells... Meanwhile, his sister, who decided she didn't want her photo taken (at all), wanders off in search of biscuits and apples...

Having plied the two year old with biscuits and with the baby safely strapped in the buggy where he can't get hold of anything he shouldn't, we move on to find another spot.

There are some beautiful areas full of bluebells with trails already leading through them so there is no need to walk over the bluebells themselves - it was disappointing to see a big patch of bluebells right in the centre flattened, by what I suspect was a mat or rug for people to sit on and have photos taken, funnily enough.  Like all of these spots, we must look after them.

Having realised that it would be impossible to put the little man down without him being within arm's (and therefore mouth's) reach of bluebells, strapped in the buggy he remained.  Instead, we walked along the trails with me trying to subtly take my two year old's picture without her noticing.  It didn't work.  "You not take my picture mummy!'

Point made. Shoot abandoned and we came home for ice cream instead.

The hubby is definitely coming next time...