Family photography in France

A family session is not a portrait session with more people in it. It is seventy-five minutes governed entirely by whoever is smallest, and everything else — the order of the frames, when the group shot happens, how long anyone is asked to stand still — bends around that. Photographers who fight it get one good photograph and an hour of tears.

The location is chosen on practical grounds before aesthetic ones: can a pram get there, is there shade when the sun is high, and is there a way out within two minutes if it all goes wrong. Those three questions rule out most of the picturesque spots people suggest, and they are the reason the session usually works.

Group frames and loose ones come in whatever order the children allow, which in practice means the posed photograph is taken early, while patience lasts, and the rest of the time is spent letting them be themselves. Forty retouched photographs arrive in a private gallery within 48 to 72 hours.