I had a really nice break from the studio last week when I went for a woodland walk with the Broomfield family. I work with mum, Marie, who wanted some natural looking, outdoor shots of her children, Isobel and Lucas.

Isobel, who is nine years old,  was no stranger to the camera. She’s been snapped countless times recently and appeared on BBC’s newsround after a drawing of herself was chosen as one of 13 to be used in a new animated film as part of the Tate/Ardman Movie Project.

Shooting this way was a first for me with anyone other than family. We agreed to meet in some local woodland that I know very well and just go for a walk and see what happened. I had a few locations I wanted to try but other than that everything was pretty much on the fly.

As it worked out it was a very productive, if tiring afternoon. Some of the locations worked really well and some didn’t. Both Lucas and Isobel were really good models although I wore Lucas out long before Isobel. Even Marie and Mike posed for a few shots and they turned out really well.

The two hour walk filled two 4GB cards but I found post processing the images a lot easier than my studio shots. Marie ended up with over eighty images in the proofing folder and I was pleased with all of them.

Having asked Marie for some feedback a few days later she seemed really pleased with the shots but felt the session went on a bit too long and I’d agree with that. The paradox is that some of my favourite images on the day came from the end of the session.

This was a learning experience though and with what I took away this time I think I could easliy compress the next session down to an hour which would be more than long enough for most children, and me!

All in all a great days photography and I’m now on the look out for some more willing stooges.