Adventurous family session at their farm on the Cornish coast

I loved this recent session which was in celebration of Laurie turning 40 (gifted to her by one of her close friends).

The girls were 11 and 8 and full of girlie enthusiasm which I love!

I arrived on a breezy but sunny evening at their small holding on the Roseland Peninsula. The forecast was a little bit of everything - including showers. But after debating whether to postpone earlier that day, we’d decided to go for it and it was looking ok (ignoring the big dark clouds building in areas).

Child with pony on family farm in Cornwall — Flo with her beloved pony

First thing we had to do was get some photos of the girls with their pony. Then we all piled into their car and drove round to some friends of theirs’ house which was on the edge of the nearby cliffs, with a beautiful garden and sea views. The owners were away but happy for us to use their outside as a location. It was absolutely gorgeous and fortunately when the inevitable shower did start raining down, we had somewhere to take shelter. They showed me around and tried out some photo ideas to get everyone warmed up.

Awkwardness

The first 10 minutes or so are always a bit uncomfortable. Nobody arrives at a photoshoot feeling like they know what to do. Although the brief is always ‘we just want some natural, unposed photos of everyone’ when the moment arrives it is quite normal to start off with some posing and yes, a feeling of awkwardness.

I don’t pose you because those are the photos I want to take. It’s because I can intuit a desperate need to be given something to do and the easiest way to start adjusting to the camera is to do something familiar, which is to stand and smile at the camera. Most families then start to have some fun, natural laughter comes through and that’s it - the ice is broken.

When children at family photoshoots are a bit older, as the girls were, then the activities and prompts are different to sessions with a toddler or baby. These two were very happy to do skipping races and to pick daisies for their hair, and still young enough to run free and be cuddling their parents.

This was a fun and lovely family to be around - I really enjoyed spending time with them!

To the farm!

After a bit of time at their friends house we hopped back into the car and drove to Jamie’s dad’s farm which was next door (5 minutes away). There we walked through the corn fields down to an area of wild flowers. Some huge pink poppies were growing there which were amazing! It was a beautiful spot for some more posed family photos as well as some relaxed playful ones of the girls. We popped down to the cost path for some final photos before heading back up to the car. But just as we were walking, the rain started to fall and we were treated to a beautiful big rainbow over the sea.