Childhood should be carefree and a time to explore. Each time I get to photograph children, I strongly believe that it should take place in their world and show what they naturally do best. When I woke up on a Sunday morning in July, I was already looking forward to this. I knew that I’d be hanging out with five cousins aged five to ten years, I also knew that I was going to experience all the right ingredients for a perfect morning’s play date. So If you add lashings of warm sunshine, a long-grassed meadow and not to mention a pretty awesome treehouse…then it has to be said that my job doesn’t get any better!
I arrived to find the kitchen table awash in rainbow-coloured loom bands that had been crafted into the most amazingly intricate bracelets, floral bouquets and animals. Now my own looming skills haven’t really progressed passed the triple looped bracelet, but these creations left me wide-eyed with wonder. I was given an on-the-spot masterclass in how to make an octopus…a bit too advanced for me I fear.
A loom band making masterclass, a summer meadow and clambering up into a tree house is just a normal day in the office for me.
The treehouse at the bottom of the garden was home to a bunch of armed and wild outlaws. Swinging between the two wooden towers by means of their trusty old rope, high above the vast and dangerous crocodile valley below. In my new role as Indiana Jones, I really had to draw upon my climbing skills to survive, not to mention having to tend to war wounds, splinters and fending off savage beasts.
Tucked around the corner of their house, at the end of the lane is the most beautiful meadow. We got to play in the long grass, look for crickets and enjoy the start of this gorgeous Welsh summer.