Newborn photographer for Huntingdon and Godmanchester

Most babies in Huntingdon and Godmanchester are born at Hinchingbrooke, in The Park Birth Centre, a mile or two from home. From there, my studio in Papworth Everard is about fifteen minutes away: out through Godmanchester and straight down the old Roman road, Ermine Street. No A14, no Cambridge traffic.

The drive from Huntingdon is one of the easiest to the studio, and newborns are what I have photographed since 2010.

From Hinchingbrooke to the studio

The road from Godmanchester to Papworth is one long straight line through open farmland — the Romans built it, and it has hardly bent since. You park right outside, and the guide you get when you book shows exactly which door is ours.

From Brampton and Hartford it is a few minutes more. From Alconbury Weald and the Stukeleys, allow about twenty.

What a newborn session is like

I work at your baby's pace. If your baby needs feeding, we stop. If they need holding, you hold them, and very often that is when the best photograph of the morning happens — the one of you.

The best time is the second or third week, after a few days at home. If those weeks have already gone, nothing is lost: there is no wrong age to photograph a new baby, and I have written about what changes at six weeks.

If it is just the three of you, the Mini Newborn Collection is an hour. If grandparents are coming over from Brampton too, the Classic Newborn Collection gives us two hours for everyone, and the Total Newborn Collection adds a heART Fusion film of the morning. What each one includes.

Portholme, the Chinese Bridge and Hinchingbrooke

Newborns are photographed in the studio. For family and maternity sessions outdoors, most sessions use the open farmland around Papworth — but Huntingdon and Godmanchester have some of the loveliest open ground in the county, and if you would rather be photographed close to home, these are the places I would choose.

Portholme Meadow, between Huntingdon, Godmanchester and Brampton, is the largest traditional hay meadow in England. In early summer, before the hay is cut, the grass is tall and full of flowers, and the light at the end of the day goes gold across the whole of it.

The Chinese Bridge in Godmanchester, built in 1827, crosses to the meadows from the town. A few photographs on the bridge and the rest of the session out on the grass make a good hour for a family with small children.

Hinchingbrooke Country Park, next to the hospital, has woodland, lakes and meadow in one place. It is the one I would pick in autumn, when the trees turn.

Going out to Portholme or the country park adds a little for travel.

After the newborn weeks

Then come baby sessions around six months and a year, and a cake smash on the first birthday. Those happen in the studio, and the fifteen minutes matter just as much with a toddler in the back seat.