This is something I’ve long wanted to do: photograph children at play and just doing what they do at playgroup, nursery and pre- school environments. It felt right to be putting a bit of bomb under what had been before - the  typical school photograph of child posing in the headlights of a setup studio background complete with cheesy grin.

How mad it is that these school photographs don’t seem to have really moved on.  Why on earth did anyone even begin to think that separating them off from their natural environment and putting them in front of a fake blue mottled background was a good thing?

Anyway, I finally got around to it in June/July this year when I had the privilege and the opportunity of  spending a couple of hours on 4 mornings with the children who attend  St Mary’s Playgroup in Woodbridge, Suffolk.

I had a lovely time and it was especially enjoyable observing and interacting with the children as my own daughter also attends. There were so many gorgeous children full of character that I photographed, and this was effectively 3 shoots in terms of shooting time, so I’m going to blog my favourites in 2 parts. Here are a few that I loved  from the first couple of sessions: