When families first get in touch with me, one of the most common questions I hear is: “Where should we have our photos taken?” It feels like a big decision. And I understand why – you want the backdrop to look good, you want everyone to be comfortable, and you want the photos to actually feel like you. But here’s what I want you to know before you start scrolling through Pinterest for the perfect golden-hour field: for documentary family photography, the location is not about aesthetics. It is about your life.
And if the thought of standing in a beautiful field while someone tells you where to look makes you quietly uncomfortable, you’re probably in exactly the right place.
There Is No Pre-Chosen Location
A lot of photographers have a go-to spot. A favourite park, a particular stretch of woodland, a photogenic wall in the city. I don’t work that way.
My sessions are rooted in your story, not a location I’ve decided looks nice on Instagram. That means we don’t start with a place – we start with you. Who you are, what you love, how you spend your time together, and what you want to remember about this particular season of your family’s life.
That shift in thinking changes everything. Instead of asking “where will we look good?”, we start asking “where do we feel like ourselves?”
The Mundane Is More Than Welcome
One of the things I love most about documentary family photography is that the ordinary moments, the ones families often think are too boring to photograph, are frequently the most meaningful.
Grocery shopping. Hanging out the laundry. Making packed lunches. These are the rhythms of family life, and they’re exactly the kind of thing your children will one day struggle to remember in detail. The specific way your kitchen looked on a Sunday morning when making pancakes. The way you always had to wrestle the duvet cover while the kids tried to climb inside. The checkout queue at your local supermarket, where your youngest always asked for the same thing.
Chores don’t need to be avoided in a photo session. Quite the opposite. They’re often where the most honest, joyful, and intimate images come from, because nobody’s performing. Everyone’s just getting on with it, together.
How We Actually Figure Out Your Location
I start every session with a questionnaire. It might feel like a lot of questions at first, but every single one of them is there for a reason. I want to understand your family from the inside out – not just your faces, but your rhythms, your rituals, and the things that make you you.
Some of the things I ask about:
- What does a perfect Saturday look like for your family?
- What makes your kids laugh? What are their favourite things to do right now?
- What are your partner’s hobbies or passions?
- Is there anything about your family at this exact moment in time that you want to have captured before it changes?
After you’ve filled that in, we have a proper conversation — and from there, we build a real plan together. Not a mood board, not a vague idea. An actual plan that reflects your family’s life right now. We talk about what you enjoy doing, what a normal weekend looks like, what you want to hold onto, and what shows your children’s personalities. The ‘what’ determines the ‘where’, not the other way around.
One Session, Multiple Locations
My sessions run for three hours, which gives us real flexibility. We are not rushing through poses in one spot. We have time to move, to settle in, and to let moments unfold naturally.
Others start at home and then head somewhere else: a local park, a favourite café, a playground the kids love, or somewhere further afield like the coast or a forest. I’ve worked with families who wanted to include a specific shop they visit every week, a community garden that holds meaning for their children, or a local library that’s become a Saturday morning ritual.
There is no right or wrong combination. What matters is that the places feel like yours.
If you’re curious about why a home session can be so powerful on its own, I wrote about it here: Why a family photo session at home is great.
Questions to Help You Think About Your Locations
Sometimes families need a little nudge to realise that the places they already love are exactly the right places. Here are some questions to sit with:
- Where does your family feel most relaxed? At home on the sofa, in the garden, at a particular park?
- What places do you visit regularly together? A weekly walk, a favourite playground, a beach you return to every summer?
- Are there places tied to a specific memory or tradition? Somewhere you went on a first family trip, or a spot you’ve watched your children grow up visiting?
- What does your child love most right now? If they are obsessed with a particular playground, pond, or patch of woods, that is a great starting point.
- Is there something about your everyday environment you want to preserve? Maybe your current home, your neighbourhood before you move, or a season of life that is already changing.
These are not just logistical questions. The location you choose says something real about your family. It adds another layer to the story. And when you look back at your printed photos years from now, that place will hold meaning – not just in your memory, but in the image itself.
The Location Becomes Part of the Story
This is something I feel strongly about. When we photograph your family somewhere that actually matters to you, the images carry more weight. Your child running through that park – the one you’ve been going to every weekend since they were a toddler; is a very different photo to your child running through any park.
The same is true for your home. The worn kitchen table, the corner of the living room where your youngest always builds their towers, and the garden where your kids play out after school. These are the places that hold your family’s real life. They deserve to be in the frame.
And when those photos are printed and on your wall, they become more than a nice picture. They become a record of where you were, who you were, and how you spent your time together.
Frequently Asked Questions About Location
What if we don’t have a garden or much outdoor space?
That’s completely fine — and more common than you’d think, especially in London. Your home doesn’t need a garden to be a great location. Kitchens, living rooms, hallways, and even a small balcony all hold the real texture of your family life. And if you want some outdoor time, we can always head to a local park or green space nearby. London is full of them.
What if we’re planning to move house soon?
Then book your session before you go. Seriously. Your current home, however imperfect it might feel, is the backdrop to this chapter of your family’s life. The walls your children have grown up within, the rooms that hold your daily routines, the particular light through a specific window at a certain time of day. Once you leave, you can’t go back. A session in your home before a move is one of the most meaningful things you can do.
Can we choose somewhere we’ve never been before?
Absolutely, if it fits your family. If you’re an adventurous family who loves exploring new places, then a new location is a perfect reflection of who you are. That’s the documentary approach: photographing what is actually true about your family. If exploring is your thing, let’s go somewhere new and capture that energy. If it’s not, if your family is more homebody than adventurer, then I’d gently suggest that somewhere familiar will feel more authentic in the images. Either way, I’m up for it.
What if we can’t decide between home and outdoors?
Do both. That’s genuinely one of the advantages of a three-hour session — we have time to move. Many of my sessions start at home (breakfast, morning routines, the comfortable chaos of getting everyone ready) and then head outside for a walk, a playground visit, or a favourite local spot. The combination often produces a really rich, varied set of images that tells a fuller story of your day.
What if my child has a favourite place that isn’t very photogenic?
This is one of my favourite questions — and the honest answer is: it doesn’t matter. If your child loves a slightly scruffy local playground, a particular corner of a supermarket, or a muddy patch of ground in the park, that is exactly where we should go. What makes an image meaningful isn’t the backdrop. It’s what’s happening in front of it. A child completely absorbed in their favourite place, full of joy and completely themselves, will always produce beautiful photographs.
And here’s the other thing: photographs preserve places too, not just people. That slightly scruffy playground might not exist in ten years. The corner shop your child loves might be something else entirely by the time they’re grown. When your child is older and looks back at those images, they won’t see an unphotogenic backdrop. They’ll see the place they loved. And that will make it one of the most valuable photographs you own.
Can we do multiple locations in one session?
Yes, and many families do. Three hours gives us real flexibility to move between two or even three places if they’re nearby. We’ll plan this together in advance so the session flows naturally rather than feeling rushed. The key is making sure each location means something, rather than just collecting backdrops.
