A newborn studio ten minutes from Cambourne

My studio is in Papworth Everard, just north of the Caxton Gibbet roundabout. From Great Cambourne, Lower Cambourne or Upper Cambourne it is about ten minutes — nearer than the middle of Cambridge and a good deal easier to park at.

Cambourne is a young town, full of young families, and for them this is the shortest journey to the studio there is. Newborn photography has been my work since 2010.

Ten minutes, door to door

Out of Cambourne towards Caxton Gibbet, north at the roundabout, and Papworth Everard is the next village. The car goes in the space beside the dark grey front door, and the guide you receive when you book describes the rest.

If your baby is born at the Rosie, in Cambridge, you drive home along the same road: the studio is five minutes beyond your turning into Cambourne. From Caxton, Bourn, Elsworth or Eltisley it is closer still.

Why ten minutes matters with a newborn

Newborn photographs belong to the first fortnight or three weeks, which is exactly when every trip out of the house needs planning. Ten minutes in the car is a very different thing from forty.

In the studio your baby sets the pace. We stop for feeds and for cuddles, you can sit and rest between photographs, and older brothers and sisters have a room of their own to play in. There is no rush, because nothing about the session depends on it.

Ten minutes away, the one-hour Mini Newborn Collection makes sense on its own, with a baby session to come later. For brothers, sisters and the whole family there is the two-hour Classic Newborn Collection, and the Total Newborn Collection adds a heART Fusion film. Everything each one includes.

Before the baby, and after

Being this close makes it easy to come more than once. A maternity session in the last weeks of the pregnancy; the newborn session; then a baby session when your baby can sit, and a cake smash for the first birthday. The Classic and Total collections each come with a voucher towards the next session.

Outdoors around Cambourne

Family sessions happen outdoors, usually in the fields behind the studio, a few minutes from home. If you would like somewhere else nearby, these are the places I would suggest.

Cambourne Country Park. Eighty acres between Lower and Great Cambourne, walkable from half the town, with open grass and quiet paths. The easiest possible session for a family with toddlers: no car at all.

Crow Hill. The view over the whole of Cambourne and the fields beyond — a good place for the last photographs of the evening.

Hayley Wood, fifteen minutes south. An ancient wood kept by the Wildlife Trust, carpeted with oxlips and bluebells in April and early May. For a spring maternity session, there is nowhere better near here.

Wimpole Estate, fifteen minutes south. The National Trust parkland around the hall, with long avenues of trees and wide open grass: beautiful in October.

Travel to any of these is added to the price, and from Cambourne it is a short trip.