Chasing Light, Wild Places and a Little Bit of Peace
One of the questions I'm asked most often is how I find the locations for my family and motherhood sessions.
The answer is that location scouting isn't really something I schedule into my diary; it's woven into everyday life.
Every family walk, bike ride or excuse to spend half an hour outdoors becomes an opportunity to see what the landscape is doing.
I find myself returning to the same places again and again throughout the year. A favourite meadow. A woodland path. My little patch of bluebells. I'll cycle out to visit them, often repeatedly, watching for those subtle changes that most people would never notice. One week the buds are tightly closed, the next the whole woodland floor is glowing. Sometimes I'm not even checking the flowers themselves, but the light – whether it's catching the trees in the way I'd hoped, whether a spot that works beautifully in May still sings in June.
There is something rather lovely about becoming so familiar with a place that you notice the smallest shifts. It feels a little like following an old friend's story through the seasons.
It's all terribly scientific, obviously.
In reality, it's often me standing in a field muttering, "Not quite yet..." before cycling home again.
Looking Beyond the Pretty View
When I'm scouting locations, I'm looking for far more than somewhere that photographs well.
The best locations have a little bit of magic about them. They need beautiful light, interesting textures, room for children to run and explore, and enough variety that we can move naturally through a session without feeling confined to one small spot.
Most importantly, they need space.
Not necessarily physical space, although that's lovely too, but space to breathe. Space for children to play without being told to sit still. Space for families to relax into being together rather than feeling observed.
And in summer, finding that kind of space can be surprisingly tricky.
Away From the Madding Crowd
As soon as the evenings become warm and golden, everyone quite rightly wants to be outdoors.
The trouble is that photographers often want exactly the same thing.
The most beautiful locations are usually the busiest. The famous viewpoints, the well-known wildflower meadows and the prettiest woodland walks can be bustling with walkers, cyclists, picnics and families making the most of the sunshine.
Even some of my favourite lakeside and riverside locations transform completely during the summer months, bustling with barbecues, paddleboards and barefoot football matches that continue right up until dusk. It's lovely to see people enjoying these spaces, but it does make the search for peaceful golden-hour locations a little more challenging.
Which is why so much of my location scouting involves trying to find places away from the madding crowd.
Sometimes that means discovering hidden corners that few people know about. Other times it means choosing a slightly less dramatic location in exchange for a quieter, more relaxed experience. A field edge instead of the popular meadow. A hidden path rather than the well-trodden one. The light is often just as beautiful, and families tend to feel far more relaxed when they're not sharing the space with half of Hertfordshire.
And occasionally it's a case of getting creative.
A careful choice of angle, shooting through long grasses, using the landscape to frame a scene, or a little thoughtful editing afterwards can transform a busy location into something that feels wonderfully wild and peaceful.
The final photographs rarely reveal that there was a barbecue, a football match and a handful of paddleboarders just out of shot.
Following the Light
The other thing I'm constantly chasing is light.
A location can look completely different depending on the time of day. What seems fairly ordinary at lunchtime can become magical as the sun begins to drop lower in the sky.
When I'm scouting, I'm always paying attention to where the light falls, where the shade sits, and how the landscape changes throughout the evening.
The truth is that photography has far less to do with beautiful locations than people think.
Beautiful light will nearly always win.
A spectacular location in harsh light rarely compares to a simple field bathed in soft evening sunshine.
The Sea Is Calling
As much as I adore Hertfordshire, and as lucky as we are to have such varied and beautiful countryside on our doorstep, there is one thing we don't have.
The sea.
Hertfordshire is gloriously landlocked, but I've always loved the coast more than just about anywhere else.
Earlier in May, I found myself setting an alarm for what felt like the middle of the night and heading down to the coast for a maternity session at the crack of dawn.
It was absolutely worth it.
The early morning light was soft and dreamy, the beach stretched endlessly in both directions, and for a moment it felt as though we had the entire coastline to ourselves.
Well... almost.
There were two joggers and a dog walker.
But compared to a summer afternoon at the seaside, it felt wonderfully peaceful.
There is something about the sea that slows everything down. The rhythm of the waves, the vast skies, the salty air and the sense of space. It creates exactly the kind of atmosphere I love for motherhood and family photography.
I enjoyed that session so much that I'm tentatively considering opening up a late-summer weekend dedicated to coastal shoots somewhere along the Essex coast.
At the moment, dawn arrives at around 4am, which feels like a slightly unreasonable request for both families and photographers. By late summer, however, sunrise will be arriving at a much more civilised 6.30am, making those peaceful beach sessions feel considerably more achievable.
I'm still in the planning stages, but the idea of photographing families by the sea in that soft early morning light, before the beach fills with buckets, spades and day-trippers, is incredibly tempting.
More on that soon...
Why I Wouldn't Swap It
Every now and then, usually when I've been caught in a rain shower halfway through a scouting expedition or have cycled several miles only to discover that my bluebells aren't quite ready, I find myself thinking that having a studio would be considerably easier.
Predictable light.
No mud.
No weather apps.
No cycling across Hertfordshire to inspect a patch of flowers.
Lovely.
And yet I don't think it would scratch my creative itch in quite the same way.
There is something deeply satisfying about watching the seasons unfold, discovering how familiar places transform, and finding those fleeting moments when beautiful light, wild landscapes and family connection all come together.
It's about knowing exactly when the bluebells will peak. Remembering which meadow catches the last rays of evening sunshine. Returning to places that feel like old friends and seeing what story they're telling this week.
The perfect location isn't really about the location at all.
It's about creating the space for memories to happen naturally.
The fields, woodlands, lakeshores, beaches and hidden corners simply provide the backdrop.
