Being a Bristol Photographer, having The Downs on your doorstep is a dream.  Not only are The Downs a wonderful place to stretch your legs and clear your mind but they’re also a perfect location for a family photo shoot.  Family portraits are always great fun but add a spot of greenery and splash of sun and it’s a recipe for some timeless pictures.

Too often when we think about family portraits we limit ourselves to pictures of new borns babies or toddlers. We never really think about the photography of teenagers, we slip too easily into the cliches of them being too miserable or self-conscious to want to get anywhere near a camera.  I also think that the teenage years are too often presented as years we’d all rather forget than a time we’d ever look back on fondly.

I think teenagers are amazing and I think this transition from childhood to adulthood is one of the most magical times to photograph.  I have precious few photographs of me when I was a teenager, but the ones I do have I cherish dearly.  Sure I had a few dodgy hair cuts and some clothing disasters but that was all part of it, it’s a time of experimentation and working out who you are and where you fit in, or perhaps don’t fit in!

There is a line from the wonderful song Sunscreen by Baz Luhrmann that expresses these feeling far more eloquently than I can:

‘Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not
understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked….’

The girls in this shoot were amazing, they were relaxed, confident, beautiful and a joy to be around.  Their parents must be very proud indeed.  If teenagers such as these are the future of our society then contrary to what the Daily Mail might what us to think, I believe we are in very safe hands indeed.

……..and the dog is the one and only Mr Charlie Brown.