family portrait photographer – Sarah Furniss Photography

Photography business

Today is one of my photography days and it’s going to be a busy one. But I’m feeling pleased with myself, having finished off some vital admin this morning, and it’s not even half past 9! No rest for me though, as I must complete some editing for a recent job, and to end the day, I am looking forward to a shoot this afternoon with a lovely repeat client. In many ways, things might still feel tenuous out there, but businesses do seem to be picking up and I am definitely open! So do get in touch if you are planning to update your website and looking for new photography.

In the meantime, here is an image I look last week when I was off for a few days and we visited the coast – I’ll admit, I could have spent way more time down there!

A Wedding at the County Arms in Wandsworth

I know I am in a similar boat to many other photographers who have endured a year and a half of barely any events to photograph! However, I am happy to say that work is beginning to trickle back. And what better way to reintroduce myself to the wedding scene than to share this beautiful occasion. Liz and Bayly are a wonderfully thoughtful, kind couple who went out of their way to hire local contractors and make their intimate wedding an opportunity to support local business, as well as celebrate their vows with close family and friends. Thank you to both of them for sharing their day with me and allowing me to share it with you. Below are a handful of moments from the event, some of which I’ll definitely be adding to my website.

In the meantime, do enjoy these pictures of this lovely family having a wonderful wedding in Wandsworth!

All images ©SFurniss2021 (formerly SJField)

South London Photographer: End of the year, end of Christmas, and end of the decade images in Richmond Park

We love a winter walk and are fortunate enough to live close to several open spaces in or very near to South London. Just before sunset this afternoon, we traipsed about Richmond Park and almost ended up being locked in! Worth it though for these images. Incidentally, the yellow gloves were for magnet fishing – it’s a thing, apparently! (c)SJField2019 (click on individual images)

South London Photographer: Family Photoshoot in Kent

I was thrilled to be invited back to photograph a family I worked with a couple of years ago. We’d all had such a lovely time before and ended up with a great collection of images. It was no different this weekend, and I hope everyone loves these pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them. And what an amazing bunch of stylists everyone in this family seems to be – I might need to borrow their terrific style for all my shoots.

Get in touch for information on family shoots and event photography at photo@sarahjanefield.co.uk or on 07581694934.

All images (c)SJField2019

South London Photographer: Not quite singing in it, but certainly enjoying the rain!

Clients always tells me they hope for lovely weather when we have shoots, but don’t completely write off rainy days for photography. The light is generally much nicer and easier to manage than when it’s bright, and cloud cover is a brilliant diffuser. I’m not sure the kids are quite as enthusiastic as me, and perhaps if it had been a bit more stormy this morning they’d have had something to say about being dragged up to Wimbledon Common. Nevertheless, they were content enough to go for a walk in the drizzle, providing hot chocolate and marshmallows were on the agenda, and even let me grab a few snaps of them as I we did. Here are a handful. (That’s my woolly hat, he’s wearing, by the way…)

Despite the weather there are definite signs of spring in the air! And to celebrate I am currently offering a 5% discount off the cost of a family shoot (as specified on my site, valid until the end of April, T&Cs apply.) Get in touch for more information.

Have a great week. SJ x

Images (c)SJField 2017

South London Photographer: Albums

I spend so much time studying photography, practising as I go about my day and also working for other people as a photographer that I have not made time to create any personal family photo-albums for a few years, which is something I always did in the past. I decided to rectify this and am now eagerly awaiting a book I ordered this morning with just a few pictures covering the months since last December up to this one. It’s a great way to look back and take stock of all the things we’ve done together.

One of the things I feel really strongly about is the way in which we approach photographing families. These are our memories and we have this fantastically wonderful ability to record moments, so when we make the time to print images, our children will be able to look back at objects they can hold and feel in years to come. They might look at these pictures in times of sadness or big changes in their future lives. But so often when I work with young children I spend a good deal of time trying to overcome their desire to say “cheese!” because we are all so conditioned into thinking that’s the appropriate thing to do and the conditioning starts really, really young. I know it’s great to have smiley pictures to remember the happy times, and I love capturing genuine moments of joy, but life is about so much more than “cheese!” And there are much more interesting emotions to capture rather than forced smiles. We want our children to look at these pictures and see that we loved every part of them; the quite moments, the pensive ones, the cross times too. We want them to know we accepted them for who they really were and didn’t make them feel they were only acceptable when wearing weird smiles on their faces. I am also quite careful about what I Photoshop out of photographs. Cleaning up a dirty face might be the thing to do, but equally it may be that keeping in all the grubbiness makes the picture.

The other big problem we have nowadays is choosing which images to include. I take so many pictures it’s impossible to get right but one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned since studying is ‘less is more’. While editing my photo-album I was pretty ruthless, and not only because I’d have ended up spending a fortune if not, but also because we stop looking when there are too many images together, or too many of the same thing. It’s hard to edit when the pictures are of your children but try to avoid printing everything you’ve captured!

Here is a very small handful of the sort of images I would include in my own album. If any potential clients think this is something I could help you and your family with, do get in touch.

Images (c)SJField 2016

South London Photographer: Working in Kent

About a week ago I swapped my three boys for three little girls when I headed down to Kent to capture some of the lovely expressions in these images. I had such a laugh with everyone and could have spent a whole weekend with them. I was also treated to a lovely Sunday roast with friends who live in the area, and so by the time I returned home the next day I was really quite eager to see my own three children. “I miss you, mummy!” was the very warm welcome I received from my youngest child. I’m really not sure the others noticed I was gone. Although when they did finally put their heads up and see there was a different adult at the table with them, they told me that my mother respects them more than I do. “Really? Really?” I said sceptically. It struck me they might have been doing the same sort of thing Daisy does in a children’s series of the same name, where she and a babysitter collude with each other over what sort of mischief Daisy manages to get up to while her mother is away. Suits me, though. As long as I don’t know what is actually going on here between the four of them and I do manage to escape occasionally …

Here are just a handful of shots from my afternoon in Kent.

Enjoy, SJ

Images (c)SJField 2016

South London Photographer:A brand new year

Yes, that’s right. I’ve decided to make September the start of my new year. Bollocks to January! It’s grey and cold. No-one has any money and nearly everyone I know gives up drinking too, which always makes me feel vaguely guilty for not doing so. But come on, didn’t you hear me? It’s grey and cold, and surely everyone can see that’s the worse time to give up – unless you’re really dependent, then anytime is obviously good. But in September, it’s still sunny and mildly warm, even baking hot on some days, and while no one has any money after all those summer days out and camping trips and pizzas which still cost a fortune even with the 30% off voucher, having no money anytime at all is the new reality for most of us, regardless of the month. So, far better to mark time passing, to celebrate the communal endings and societal beginnings, when the brats return to school and we all get to go back to what ever it is we spend our lives doing when they’re not around. Even if that something is simply sitting and enjoying a moment of peace for five minutes without someone yelling, “Mum, wipe my bum!” Or else banging on and on and on about a new game that the whole world is playing on their phones which seems, frankly really boring, except for the fact that since everyone is wandering around holding their phones up to their faces, anyone taking surreptitious street photographs with one can kind of get away with looking like they too are simply playing a game and not being a weird creepy pest, as my eldest son likes to call me.

Hang on, is that peace and quiet I hear? It’s been such a long time since I last experienced anything along those lines, I’m not sure if I should trust my ears along with the slow sense of returning to something approximating a relative type of equilibrium. Oh, yes… I think it is. Allowing it to creep in and take hold of me feels …’oozy’, a bit like the sensation of cool mud squelching between my toes. I like it! And it gives me a chance to come up with a new year’s list of things to consider going forward. Because they do say writing things down is good for something or other, not sure what, but here it is

Create something brilliant and award winning
Have realistic and achievable goals
With reference to point 2 adjust point 1 and internalise point 2
Keep telling youngest son he mustn’t randomly grab a women’s boobs
Or anyone else’s for that matter
Nor lift my skirt up in the high street to show everyone passing my knickers
Or even my T-shirt in the supermarket to show everyone my post-3-children stomach
Nor should said small child carry on thinking its acceptable to swear really loudly in public
Or quietly
Or at all
Sit and do homework with middle child even though he’s a whiny pain in the arse about it
Try to remember point 11 for the whole of the academic year not just week 1 of term 1
Force oldest child tidy to his room occasionally even though he’s going to be taller than me very soon and already has much bigger feet than me – especially so perhaps since I won’t be able to for much longer
Be nice to kids generally
Be stricter with kids generally
Try hard to reconcile points 12 and 13
Make some money
See point 2

And with that I must get on and order things and answer emails and work. Oh yes, now I remember. That’s what I do when those small people are at school. I work!

Have a great week!

29204825456_d0f651e28d_o — Street photography taken on my phone. Did they they wonder what on earth I was doing photographing them, or did they assume I was playing a game featuring these crazy little virtual reality critters? I have a friend who has given up his smart phone altogether. I said I would like to do the same thing but for the camera and he said, heh, here’s a crazy idea, why don’t you use one of those actual non-phone cameras with the really excellent image quality you’ve got there? Good point!

Image (c)SJField 2016

South London Photographer: Fishy crisis

Oh dear, I think to myself. He’s really not very well at all. As I’ve been watching him for some time now, I have to admit it’s abundantly clear, indefatigably true, undeniably apparent that something is fundamentally wrong with him. His little black fins flap furiously as he tries to right himself. But just as he’s been doing constantly since I noticed, he gives up, floating to the top of the bowl where he bobs listlessly. And upside down too. Until the next time he musters enough strength to try yet again. Poor thing. He’s quite, quite unbalanced.

Oh, my god, I cry, I think I’ve killed the fish. Somehow, as I prepared to clean the water, I must have damaged his fin or something. Because now, this poor little creature, whose name incidentally is Joseph, can’t help but float upside down at the top of the fish bowl. I peer closer and notice his tummy. Is it fat, I wonder? Yes, I think it’s fat. Maybe Joseph is pregnant. Oh, Mary, mother of …. Little fish, we’ll have little fish. What will we do with little fish? And how many little fish?

Hang on a minute, do fish even give birth? No. They lay eggs. I do remember that much. And how fat does a goldfish with a stomach full of teeny, weeny tiny eggs get? I may not be that ‘up’ on fractured fins. But I know about reproduction. And I don’t ever recall hearing that pregnant fish swim upside down, (even though the experience may well have turned your own life upside down; it did mine). So, it probably won’t be pregnant, will it? As always in times of confusion nowadays I reach for my phone and type into a search engine, ‘upside down goldfish’. My eyes fly eagerly through the links and rest on something looking vaguely relevant. After just a few moments it is more than obvious I’ve probably not harmed Joseph at all. Phew! And, he’s almost certainly not expecting. That’s good too. What’s most likely is that poor old Joseph has a bad case of wind.

Joseph just needs to fart. Really badly, it would seem.

Yes, that’s awful. It’s not usually fatal, but a tummy full of trapped air is dreadfully uncomfortable, as everyone knows. So, for the next day or so I feed Joseph tiny pieces of chopped up defrosted peas as instructed on the web, and before very long he has righted himself and is no longer looking like a very pregnant, albeit upside, Josephine. No births. But no deaths either. “It’s alright, boys,” I report, “No need to euthanise the goldfish this week.” They look up from various screens, grunt at me and life continues as before. Which, in Joseph’s case, is truly great news.

Story: just one of many moments from our summer holidays. Pictures: taken in France near the town of Cap Ferret, where we went camping this summer. A beautiful part of the world. And good for fishing apparently although I’m not sure Joseph and his friends would agree.

For all those heading back to school this week, have fun.

SJ x

Images (c) SJField 2016

South London Photographer : By the seaside

I remember much of what I have written about in this post because of the photo albums which I avidly used to keep up to date, meticulously recording and documenting our lives. Two children and one early pregnancy later, everything got far too busy and crazy. My photo albums stop at that point and it’s harder to piece things together without the visual reminders. I’m pretty sure the last time I went to Brighton I was heavily pregnant with No 3. Hang on a minute, I can’t have been heavily pregnant because he was born in March and we went in the summer. Oh yes, I remember, I looked heavily pregnant from about day 2 of that pregnancy, so that by the time I was just 3 months gone, I looked like I was about to pop. I do know for sure I ate a family pack of Wotsits and felt sick in the car going down – aaah, you might think, therein lies a possible reason for having been so incredibly big. In fact, it’s impossible to forget just how very sick I felt for most of those 9 months, and I suspect the salt in the Wotsits probably helped keep the nausea at bay. I also recall flooding my bag with a broken bottle of water and destroying my phone on the way home. But I wouldn’t have taken any photographs during that visit because just holding my phone, or a camera, significantly and palpably added to the feeling of nausea. Most people reminisce about how they couldn’t drink tea, alcohol or orange juice when pregnant. I remember I simply couldn’t take a photograph. It just made me want to hurl. Which, as you might image, is a truly depressing way to spend your time when you once loved taking pictures of your kids.

It was a weird aversion and I never experienced it during my other pregnancies. But thanks to the albums, I know for certain that we had a lovely day out in Brighton during my pregnancy with No 2 too. I like looking at those pictures. No 1 is still very young. I have a short gamine hair style, which suits me and my large belly well, and we all look really happy sitting in a fish restaurant, and then later on the beach, throwing stones into the sea. (Here’s an image from that visit. I photographed a picture from the album, using my phone, and uploaded it to Instagram a while ago – so a great combination of old and new technology.)

Thankfully, the pregnancy hormones have long gone, No 3 is running around outside my belly causing chaos, and the aversion to technology has dissipated. I started thinking about lenses again when No 3 was roughly 4 months old, so I knew then that me and my photography would be OK. When we recently visited Brighton again (sans any pregnancy) during half term to see old friends whom we’d not seen in years and years, I was able to really enjoy my love of photography and record our day out with my usual enthusiasm. No 1 was very keen to recreate the image I’d posted to Instagram, which I’d taken when he was 3 years old. We had a play and eventually he told me he’d rather wait until he was 18 to do that but he did very patiently let me continue trying out new scenarios.

Here’s a selection from our day. I used my Fuji X100s which is the camera I tend to carry around because it’s light and easy. I really must get back to albums of one sort or another because they’re great for holding and looking through when you have a spare moment, and terrific for future generations to have.

Get in touch for family photography sessions, mentioning this post and I’ll include 5 A4 prints to your booking for free*. That way you can also think about creating old fashioned albums for you and your children to look at in years to come.

Incidentally, I was recently introduced to Light, a camera company that is aiming to change the way photographs are taken with a new compact camera that has DSLR quality in a lighter and more convenient form! One of my photos will be submitted as part of their Vantage Point project.

Back to school tomorrow. And onwards with work in a slightly less disruptive manner (and breath….)! SJ x

Images (c)SJField 2016, *T&C apply – see website for details