Norfolk Woodland Family Photo Shoot

Blyth woods is one of my favourite local woodlands to take families as there are four ancient fallen trees that are such great spots to have photos taken, and are great fun for the kids as I tell them stories about how the dinosaurs knocked them down! The fallen trunks never fail to raise a smile from even the most stubborn of kids so when Janie told me that they wanted a forest backdrop and that her baby was a little older, I knew that this was the perfect destination for a family photo shoot with a young baby. I fired over some examples of this woodland to Janie and she was instantly sold as it's hard not to love the beauty of this spot and the convenience for people who live in Norwich.

Janie contacted me about booking a family photo shoot involving their baby as she had missed the chance to get newborn photos done due to covid. It's a sad but harsh reality of the pandemic and too many of us are missing out on vital life moments, like weddings, funerals, christenings, milestones, birthdays, christmas and countless more sentimental events that we all wish we'd been able to attend. As a lifestyle photographer, it makes me sad to hear of all the things that people have missed or wanted to do, and it's always one of the first topics that comes up in conversation these days - "How was your lockdown?".

Instantly sympathetic to Janie's situation, I got them booked in as soon as was possible to ensure we got the shoot done when her baby was as young as possible! As already mentioned, Janie chose Blyth woods after looking through my portfolio as her and her partner loved the woodland look. With autumn upon us, it was the perfect location for a neutral colour themed family session.

Due to the parents work commitments, we had to meet later in the day so we met at the woods as the sun was setting during golden hour which you can see in some of the images where the sunset is poking through the trees, The day was a little overcast so lighting was not ideal, the lighting was good for portraits in the open, within the forest but due to the overgrown tree canopies, you don't get a huge amount of light that penetrates through the leaves of the tall trees, but with a quick tweak within my DSLR camera, I had everything setup and ready to wrestle that low lighting!

Janie's beautiful little girl was so good during our session and we had such a great time. She was amazed by all of the sights, smells and sounds within the woods and it was beautiful tow atch her bright blue eyes sparkle with wonder as she took in the woodland as we went through our session. I'm so in love with the colours of their outfits, they all coordinated perfectly and the dark red matched perfectly with the autumnal tones within Blyth Woods.

We walked around the forest and found several spots where the lighting was good and the backdrop was stunning, each time stopping for a few photos to ensure that there was a good variety of backdrops. We threw leaves in the air for her and watched her eyes light up as she saw them gracefully fall to the ground - we had so much fun!

We barely stopped laughing or smiling - both Mum and Dad were so great with helping me to get the best out of the session and the images speak for themselves! I'm so in love with our forest session - the colours, the clothing, the babies big blue eyes!

If you're looking for a good spot around Norwich or Norfolk to get those instagram ready woodland photos, look no further than Blyth Woods.

Shooting: To shoot this baby photo shoot session I used a mirrored DSLR with a professional grade full Nikon system.

Lens: For this baby photography session, I used a 24-70mm f.2.8 Nikon Pro Lens

Editing: To edit, I used the widely renowned professional software Adobe Lightroom without exporting into Adobe Photoshop. All adjustments were done in Lightroom by hand with brushes and the new 'select subject' feature from the 2021 update. If you haven't updated your lightroom yet, do! It's so much better and it's a ten minute learning curve to get used to the new software.

Editing Style: The style of the editing for this session is natural warm with a mild matte look in the blacks and a little enhancement to the colours contained in the autumn leaves so that they 'pop'

Colour Correction: This album was edited in a natural warm style with my usual matte blacks, however, there were several adjustments to colours. Yellow was reduced and the hue was changed so that it closely resembled brown to enhance the autumn colours. Greens were subdued to a more natural tone and reds and oranges were nudged up slightly to enhance the leaves .

Beauty Retouching: Gentle and natural looking beauty retouching was performed. Standard retouching was maintained with gentle brushes to whiten teeth and enhance eyes.

Sharpening: These images were sharpened using the monthly subscription service software Adobe Lightroom.

Processing: The images were processed into super resolution and exported using Adobe Lightroom which currently sits at around £20 per month for the basic cheaper package.

Quality: A full 300dpi print quality album was delivered to the client with average file sizes of 15,000k but the images uploaded here are reduced to 1500k to ensure fast loading times with a minimal reduction in visible quality.

Clothing: I wore a standard autumn appropriate outfit with comfy walking shoes.

Time: We were at this location for a total of 60 minutes.

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About Blyth Woods: This stunning forest is both close enough to Norwich city that it's perfect for the locals, yet also far enough away from the hustle and bustle that you can catch a few moments of quiet here.

Address: Blue Boar Lane, Sprowston, Norwich NR7 8RJ

Size: Unknown

Trees: The woodland surrounding the heath contain a variety of native species that are regularly maintained to ensure that the heath remains a great walking and beauty spot. Silver Birch and Pine spring up around the heath, and where the sand starts to give way to a more neutral soil, there are several other types of tree species at Dunwich Heath, including Ash, Oak, Sycamore and Chestnut tree varieties. On the topped dead Elm trees, you can spot great nesting sites for Owls and Bats!

Wildlife & Cattle: As Blyth Woods are almost within Norwich city, there isn't a huge amount of wildlife worth noting here other than the usual birds, squirrels and insects.

Plants: Blyth woods is full of ferns, pine, scots pine, birch, beach, oak and other common trees.

Habitat: The habitat here is soft clay mixed soil with landscaped paths through the maintained forest.

History: This woodland used to stretch for miles before the recent deforestation to make way for new housing estates.

Time Of Year To Visit: The best time of the year to visit the woods is at any time - as this shoot shows, even in the colder months the woodland is still beautiful and well worth a visit! The colours pop particularly well in autumn and in the summer, there are large flowering bushes all through the woods.

Toilets & Refreshments: There is a garden centre within walking distance from the woods which has toilets and a cafe offering light refreshments.

Dogs: Dogs are welcome at this site with no restrictions and you frequently see them running around off lead.

Parking: There is ample free parking at the garden centre for busier days and a small car park at the woodland itself, but it does tend to get quite full as cars passing through the busy road sometimes use it as a layby.

Travel: Blyth Woods is 9 minutes away from Norwich city centre. The easiest way to find the woods is to go to Wyevale Garden Centre as you can't miss the woodland next to it. The garden centre is to the right of the woodland if you are looking into the woods car park.

Disabled Access: The car park has good wheelchair access but some of the woodland paths are not suitable with large roots growing through the floor that you will need to dodge. You could get a wheelchair around the more sparse areas within the woods, but you wouldn't be able to go along the smaller paths.

Things To Note: There are four large ancient trees that have fallen to the ground and been left there as a feature. The trees still have their canopies and roots attached. These are great fun for kids and make a great spot for photos with family members who are old enough to hold themselves up as they sit on the trunks. The trunks are so large that your feet won't touch the ground when you straddle it, no matter how tall you are!

The Walk: The woodland is a beautiful walk and is definitely worth a wander after your photo shoot just to take in the beauty around the woods.