Studio Portraits of Yasmin and Marley

Yasmin and Marley stepped into my Bicester studio for some simple but stunning studio portraits. Here’s how we got on.

November 2018 Update: The above portrait has been awarded a Highly Commended Rosette from the Master Photographers Association (MPA). MPA Chairman Ray Lowe commented, “[I] love it. Gorgeous. Your light is in the right place, I love what you’ve added to the picture… lovely expression. Super hair. You’ve got lovely hair light coming in both left and right… It’s worked a treat; it’s worked perfectly.”

Yasmin (10) and Marley (5) are the beautiful, charming and playful children of Kate, from Lower Arncott in Oxfordshire. Kate runs Gerda Mobile Beauty, a thriving business that provides salon-quality beauty therapy services to clients at their homes. Kate brought her children to the studio for some timeless portraits that captured their character and personality at this stage of their lives.

Often, the simplest shots are the best. This image is all about Marley and Yasmin’s sweet expressions. I love their matching smiles, their straight-down-the-lens eye contact and how their heads are tipping gently towards each other. Looking at this, it’s hard to believe these two are ever anything less than angelic 🙂

With a great sibling portrait in the bag, it was time to capture some individual shots. We played some mini-games together, helping me to capture this full-on laugh just as Marley looked straight at me.

This matching portrait of Yasmin will look great on display with the two images before it. Yasmin has done quite a bit of modelling on adverting and commercial shoots, and it’s easy to see why. Both kids are incredibly photogenic, which made my job super-easy 🙂

Next it was time for something a little different. For any portrait photography enthusiasts reading this, this sequence of images was created using two gridded strip lights, one softbox and a tangle of fairy lights. The trickiest part was positioning the fairy lights so that they filled the frame nicely, while leaving a gap for Yasmin’s face.

Which of the three versions do you prefer? There’s the more serious expression of the first one (the featured image at the top of the blog post), the big smile and relaxed pose of the second, or the more traditional third version. My firm favourite is the first, as Yasmin’s beautiful eyes are at their widest, constantly drawing your attention back to her face.

Next we switched to a white background for some high key (light-toned) portraits. This cheeky smile was prompted by Marley’s attempts to negotiate some chocolate cake after the shoot. Well, if you don’t ask, you don’t get!

This sibling portrait is light, happy and full of life – a perfect portrait to gift to the grandparents! I love the kids’ big smiles, and the simple, timeless outfits which means your eye goes straight to their faces.

To finish off, I captured this shot of Yasmin against the white background. I love the confidence of her eye-contact and stance here, and this will look stunning displayed next to the one of Marley on the same background.

Afterwards, Kate said:

“Sarah is very professional. Her pictures are amazing. She is very patient and that what you need to be especially with my two energetic children. My children enjoyed very much having photos taken by Sarah. I’m already recommending her to everybody.”

If you’re interested in professional photography of your children and would like to find out more, please get in contact by emailing [email protected] or submitting the form below:

Sarah Plater is a qualified professional photographer based in Bicester, Oxfordshire.

(c) Sarah Plater Photography