Family Photography at Eastham Country Park

This quiet park on the Wirral is such a lovely location for a family portrait session with little ones!

It was introduced to me by one of my favourite couples after I had photographed their wedding and their first son’s christening. They wanted some new family photos and suggested we meet at Eastham Country Park. Despite having grown up just a stone’s throw away, I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t think I’d ever visited until the day we took these photographs!

With a great mix of wooded and open space across this 40 acre site, there’s plenty of opportunity to include a variety of backdrops. It’s also a brilliant place for children to explore their natural surroundings; searching for woodland flowers in Spring and collecting acorns and pine cones in Autumn.

Bizarrely the site was once home to a Victorian theme park and zoo, which was reportedly home to a white camel, a black swan, several monkeys and a brown bear called Bruin whose 15’ deep pit can still be seen there today. This little man was keen to explore this spooky hangover from yesteryear and I’ll admit the light levels in this shaded spot were a challenge for my 400 ISO film!

This session is shared from my archives and this little boy is not so little any more, which makes these photographs all the more precious.

That stage where you hold on to your little one as they bravely traverse a wobbly fallen tree trunk is a fleeting one; before you know it they’re no longer reaching up for your hand. Banking these memories by capturing natural moments like this in frame-worthy portraits is SO important.

If these images have inspired you to update your family photos this year then I’d love to hear from you!