What exactly is Documentary Photography?

Have you heard people talk about documentary photography, and not been entirely sure what it actually means? Read on…

a girl cleaning her clarinet, her dad is helping her

This is the sort of thing that I aim to capture during a documentary photography shoot…

a boy face planting in a chocolate doughnut

…But in an artful way that my dad and his shaky hands certainly couldn’t (bless him!).

The fundamental basis of this type of photography is the premise that real life is beautiful EXACTLY as it is.

Think back to your favourite childhood photos, and I’m willing to bet that they are the ones that show lots of the context of your childhood:, the toys, the clothes that speak of the time that you grew up in.

Real life stuff happening in the frame, not just a tight crop of the family sitting posed in a studio or in a field. Even the cups, or the branding on the jars you can see in the frame will take you back.

So, when you have a documentary shoot, I come into your space and just hang out with you while you do your normal thing. I’m like a (friendly!!) hawk watching for those moments that tell your story.

But I won’t be telling you what to do.

It’s a job that requires patience and great observation, as well as the ability (gleaned over years of practice) to predict what may happen next and where it will happen.

Sometimes the thing you’re waiting for happens, sometimes it doesn’t.

Occasionally something else entirely random happens…

This is the magic of documentary photography. No two shoots are the same, because what we capture is entirely you…

two boys playing jenga, a girl is walking by looking at their game. Another small boy is in the background drawing at the table.

…I just provide the artist’s eye to show you how beautiful your everyday actually is.

So, how do we make this happen? Click here for a bit more info on the process

Crafty Things to do with the Kids this Autumn Half Term

by Yvonne

From Cute Leafy Faces to Gloopy Hallowe’en Horrors, here’s my honest guide to some crafts to occupy little ones for a few hours on a rainy day this October half term

17 October 2023

My mum was a proper Crafty McCraftface. She’s pretty humble about it, but she was bloody amazing at doing stuff with us growing up. My dolls and I often had matching home made outfits! Super cute, but I do wonder where she found the time.

Though to be fair she was a stay at home mum so I guess she had one less (fairly large) plate than I have to juggle.

So maybe it’s in the blood, as I’m ALL about the crafting and creating too. But I’m also a little short of time these days. I don’t miss corporate life AT ALL, but it did mean that I could clock off at 5pm full of unused creative energy and spend all my spare time making stuff. Now that I create for a job, and love it so much that I pretty much think about it 24/7 – I do find I have a lot of half finished crafting projects, and ALL the unused tools and gadgets that you can imagine.

an overhead shot of an embroidery project, with a coffee!

The kids love to craft and make (do all kids, maybe?) so they don’t need to be asked twice to embark on some project or other, and it’s a good way to connect with them, and keep them off their screens for at least a while.

As you know, I like to keep it real, so here is my honest guide to a few crafty things we got up to last year. The process is always very photogenic, even if the output sometimes looks a bit like a dog’s dinner 🙂 And creating a memory of the time spent doing it is what I’m actually aiming for rather than Instagram worthy perfection. Which is just as well, as you will see:

1. Drawing spooky scenes on cookies

Essential Kit

Biscuits
Fondant Icing
Cake Pens – I got mine from Morrisons

This one is one of the more successful and one we do at different times of the year with different themes. If you can’t be bothered to bake the biscuits, or aren’t any good at that kind of shizz, then just buy some. Ideally totally flat ones and not too sweet as the icing is really sweet. Something like a rich tea is perfect. I usually use a sugar biscuit recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery recipe book, though I cut down the sugar quite a lot and they still work. Roll out some white fondant icing to around 2mm thick, and cut circles the same size as your biscuits and stick them on top with edible glue. Get a coffee, and let the kids go crazy with whatever spooky design they like, and fight over who has the orange pen.

Top Tips

Leave them to dry for a few hours otherwise the pen nibs will sink into the icing.
Use a glass if you don’t have a cookie cutter.
You can make edible glue yourself out of the icing you already have: Take little ball of fondant about the size of a Malteser add about 1/4 tsp of water, and microwave it for about 10-15secs in a microwave safe bowl. Whisk it up with a fork and then paint it on either the icing or the biscuit and stick them together.
The homemade glue It will only stay liquid for a while so don’t hang around!

Scores on the Doors

Fun:	10/10
Nice and Easy to set up:	5/10
Not Much Mess:	10/10
Looks Good:	10/10
Not too much Fighting:	5/10
Keeps them Occupied for ages:	10/10
Not much parent help required:	8/10**

** none once the biscuits are done!

2. Making Glue Ghosts

Essential Kit

PVA glue
Googly Eyes
Needle and thread
Greaseproof Paper
A flat surface like a baking tray
Patience

This one looks sooooo good on Insta. Or at least everyone else’s attempts seem to. Ours looked just a little more sh*t, but the kids really enjoyed making them so there’s that…!

They are (in theory) very simple to make… You just lay out the paper on the flat tray, and then squeeze out the PVA glue in a ghostly shape. Pop the googly eyes on and leave it to dry, before attaching a thread somewhere near the top (using the needle, obvs!)

Top Tips

Make sure your surface is REALLY flat as otherwise the PVA will go where you don’t intend it to.
Make sure they are quite spread out as otherwise you’ll just have one really fat ghost.
Start them at least a week before Hallowe’en. Maybe my house is just damp but they took forever to dry!!
Let go of any idea of perfection 🙂
One glue bottle per child to avoid fighting

Scores on the Doors

Fun:	10/10
Nice and Easy to set up:	3/10
Not Much Mess:	1/10
Looks Good:	5/10
Not too much Fighting:	10/10
Keeps them Occupied for ages:	5/10
Not much parent help required:	1/10**

** unless you don’t mind your house being covered in glue

a bit sh*tter than I imagined…

3. Bouncing Spiders

Essential Kit

Black card
Scissors
Glue
Googly Eyes
Elastic string, ideally black
Something like a hole punch or a skewer to make a small hole

I went wrong on this one and tried to make them with felt and pipe cleaners – they looked really nice at first but the glue didn’t really want to stick them and the poor spiders ended up falling apart after we hung them up – definitely just use card instead. Cut 2 small matching circles of the card out per spider (I used a shot glass to mark the circles). Cut 4 long thin strips of card per spider. About 1/2cm wide, and long enough to cover the circles and stick out each side by about 2cm. Put the glue on one of the circles, lay out the legs (symmetrically if you can) and stick them down on the glued circle. Glue up the 2nd circle, and pop it on the top. Glue on the googly eyes. When they’re dry, make a little hole and thread the elastic through and knot it.

Top Tips

You can thread them up on a string if you like, to make a sort of bunting.
Let them dry before hanging them, so they don’t fall apart!

Scores on the Doors

Fun:	10/10
Nice and Easy to set up:	5/10
Not Much Mess:	6/10
Looks Good:	10/10**
Not too much Fighting:	10/10
Keeps them Occupied for ages:	5/10
Not much parent help required:	1/10

** if yours don’t fall apart!

4. Leafy Friends

Essential Kit

Autumn Leaves
PVA glue
Googly Eyes

Go for a walk and gather the leaves. Get some pics of them jumping in the leaves while you’re out there 🙂

If they don’t turn out how your were hoping, give me a call for an Autumn Shoot! 🙂

Simply stick the googly eyes on the leaves… And done! Ours got named and played with, pretty cute.

Top Tips

Get nice fresh leaves before they go all dry and crispy

Scores on the Doors

Fun:	10/10
Nice and Easy to set up:	10/10
Not Much Mess:	10/10
Looks Good:	10/10
Not too much Fighting:	10/10
Keeps them Occupied for ages:	3/10
Not much parent help required:	10/10

5. Pumpkin Carving (and Eating)

Essential Kit

A pumpkin 🙂
A pumpkin carving set or a perilously sharp knife
Lots of bowls
A Sharpie

some different coloured pumpkins in a window

Sigh… This always seems like *such* a good idea. My oldest now insists that it’s a tradition and we HAVE to do it. But to be honest I might rather chop up the damn things and put them in a pie 🙂

I’m not sure this really needs instructions but just in case:

Get your sharp knife and cut a nice big circle around the stalk off the pumpkin, remove it and all the seeds and fibres. Scoop the seeds in one of the bowls and scoop out as much of the flesh as you can and save this too. You can get special scoopy things (Waitrose have them at the moment) but I usually use a melon baller.

Get the kids to draw their spooky faces on the pumpkin with a sharpie. Make sure they draw something that you can cut out easily – so straight lines are very much easier than curves, and make sure there’s nothing that will be unsupported after you cut it – gravity, you know… Try to avoid taking over if their version looks a bit rubbish.

Kind of obvious, but you do the cutting if the kids are small 🙂

Top Tips

The most important thing is to treat it to stop it rotting – spooky is all very well but a decaying caved-in face on your windowsill is maybe a spook too far. I usually dunk mine in bleachy water, and one year I also smeared the inside with Vaseline, which worked quite well, but used up quite a lot of Vaseline.
Don’t even thing about wasting the seeds! Wash them so that there is no gunk and fibre on them, dry them *really* thoroughly. It’s a bit of a pain to do, but worth it! Toss them with a little oil and season with salt and paprika before baking them in the oven at 200C for 10-15 minutes. Yum, yum, YUM!! Don’t burn them or they get a little bitter.
Make the flesh into a pie and serve with too much cream. Lots of recipes on the internet already… Another YUM
I don’t put the bleachy or Vaselined pumpkin in the food waste bin afterwards. Someone told me that goes for pig food. Which I think is not actually true, but… just in case!

Scores on the Doors

Fun:	10/10
Nice and Easy to set up:	1/10
Not Much Mess:	1/10
Looks Good:	10/10**
Not too much Fighting:	10/10
Keeps them Occupied for ages:	5/10
Not much parent help required:	1/10

** depends very much on your cutting skills!

a boy smiling at the pumpkin he has carved. The pumpkin is wearing a metal bowl as an army helmet.

Remember, crafting with your kids is not really about making things, it’s about making memories.

a boy crafting, he has drawn all over his face with blue marker pen and he is laughing

If you’d like me to capture beautiful images of your kids crafting, a documentary session is perfect for that! Contact me for more info!

Do NOT say cheese! …why documentary and lifestyle photos are my thing

by Yvonne

Everyone can spot a forced smile a mile off

The muscles in your eyes are much more honest than those around your mouth – they just can’t fake it! So the biggest thing that I have to overcome in my job is people (especially kids) who have been conditioned to stare at the camera and ‘say CHEESE’.

So, what can you expect when you book me to capture your family moments?

My style is on the documentary end of lifestyle photography (if you want to know the difference between these two, I have a new blog coming shortly)

It is all about capturing the natural organic connections between you and your family.

Clearly it’s not normal to have a photographer in your home, but my aim is to make you forget that I am there, as much as you can, and to create photographs which look like I wasn’t actually there – it’s just you and your family enjoying eachother’s company!

The best way to do this is to set up some activities or play, which I will simply observe and capture for you in an artful way. If you and your family have some special hobbies or things that you love to do together, this can create really great photo opportunities and memory captures.

I will also come armed with some suggestions for fun things to do which make great photos. If you try to forget that the camera is there, we will get more natural interactions and beautiful photographs.

There will also be some shots of the whole family, and for those I will give you some light prompting and direction, in order to get them looking natural and un-posed. Of course, Granny will always expect one where everyone is looking at the camera and smiling – so there will be at least one of those too.

Get in Touch

5 Reasons to Choose an In-Home Photoshoot in High Wycombe

by Yvonne

A photoshoot in your home may not be something that you’ve considered, but you should seriously consider one…

Which of us doesn’t love having great photos of our families?! But… it’s something most of us put off for another day. It can be quite a stressful prospect, so how do you make it as easy and enjoyable as possible? This is where in-home photoshoots come into their own.

Here are my top five reasons to choose to have your photoshoot in your own home

1. Many people feel awkward on front of the camera.

little girl playing with Silvanian Families toy

In your home environment is where you are most “you”. You will feel more relaxed and this REALLY shows in the images. Your little ones will also be more relaxed – children take a while to warm up to new people and surroundings. Having them show me their bedroom and their toys is a fast way to get them to feel more comfortable, which will always result in better shots.

2. What are you wearing?!

If anyone has misjudged the wardrobe choices, we can quickly have a look and see what might work better – you can all even quickly change into a second outfit if you like – to mix things up a bit! Also – no more worries about your child messing up their outfit en route to a studio shoot!

3. Your house is where many of your favourite family memories are made.

It’s great to capture your moments of connection in the environment where they actually happen on a daily basis. All the more so if you don’t plan to stay in that house forever, or if you plan to redecorate – how amazing to have artfully captured images of the space where your family life began? Your home is also probably full of all sorts of things – your little ones’ favourite toys, a beautiful blanket on the sofa – that will look beautiful in a photo and can be captured for your memories.

4. It allows us to capture some activities that you and your family enjoy together.

brothers playing with dinosaur excavation toy

If you like baking or painting or crafting together – why not get some beautiful photos of you doing that together? Or capture some everyday activities which you will treasure in times to come – bath-time, brushing your little one’s teeth, story-time… the possibilities are endless in a home environment – whatever you like to do, we can capture it!

5. You don’t need to worry about the weather!

Boy catching raindrops in his mouth under an umbrella

It has to be a REALLY dark day outside for an indoor photoshoot to be called off. Outdoor shoots can be amazing, but we are at the mercy of the weather – different weather and light conditions outside can result in very different photos – or even a postponed shoot. At home, if the conditions are right, we can take some shots in the garden as well as indoors, but we don’t have to stress if it is raining!

…all of this, with coffee and snacks to hand, to keep everyone at peak mood!

Are you ready to capture those memories?

Why not give me a call today to see if we are a good fit?

Get in Touch