A Greenwich Park Family Photoshoot. Twins, an Older Brother, and a Walk Through the Whole Park
By ANDREA WHELAN – a Greenwich Family Photographer
I live a few minutes from the gates and I’ve walked every path in this Royal park
Greenwich Park is my home turf. I’ve been photographing here for fifteen years. I know which corners catch the light at which time of day. I still find new favourite bits of it every time I come back with a family, which is saying something.
This session was for a family of five: mum, dad, twin girls and their older brother. We did the thing I love doing most in this park, which is properly walking it. We started up at the top by Rangers House. Then we came down through the long grass under the chestnut trees, and ended at the Queen’s House colonnade looking out across the lower park towards the river. Three completely different backdrops in one session. No rush. No driving between locations. Just a slow loop through a park that does an enormous amount of work for you.
The twins arrived in matching denim jackets and white floral dresses. Their older brother wore his varsity jacket and high-tops, looking, frankly, cooler than the rest of us. I always notice when families have thought about what they’re wearing without overthinking it, and this was one of those. The denim and white pulled the whole gallery together without anyone looking like they were in a uniform. Mum wore white jeans and a chambray shirt. Dad wore grey and white. It works because it’s tonal rather than matchy. That’s the difference between looking like a family and looking like a stock photo.
Greenwich Park
Rode Garden
Rangers House
Greenwich Family Photoshoot
We started in the Rangers House rose garden. The girls immediately found already fallen things to pick, buttercups, bluebells, a dandelion or two, the kind of small treasures that small children produce within ninety seconds of arriving anywhere with grass. I let them. Children with something in their hands are children who have forgotten there’s a camera, and I’d rather have that than a posed shot any day. The picture of the two of them crouched together examining a tiny bouquet, with the red brick of Rangers House behind, is the one I keep coming back to. Twins doing twin things.
Wild Greenwich
Then up the hill into the long grass under the chestnut trees, which were just coming into their candle blossom. This part of the park, between Rangers House and what I call the Wilderness, is where I always end up bringing families with younger children. The grass gets long enough by late May to come up to a four-year-old’s waist, the trees are old and generous, and there’s enough space that the children can actually run. Which they did. There’s a frame in the gallery where the twins are running ahead, the older brother is crouched looking at something in the grass, and mum and dad are walking behind with their arm around each other watching the whole scene. That’s a real picture of a family. You can’t pose that.
Family Moments
The black and white close-up came somewhere in the middle of all this. One of the twins, hair caught mid-flight, leaning in to whisper to her mum. Mum smiling under her sunglasses. I think about hair a lot when I’m photographing children outdoors, the wind is your friend, properly, because it does something to a portrait that still air never can. That picture would be nothing on a calm day.
Then down the long avenue towards the bottom of the park and the Queen’s House colonnade. This is one of the best architectural backdrops in any London park, Inigo Jones, white stone, those huge columns and the lantern hanging in the middle, and the whole thing opening out onto the view of the Royal Observatory up on the hill behind. We did the family walking down the steps together, then the three children sitting cross-legged in the middle of the colonnade hugging each other, which is the frame I’d put on a wall if it were my family.
Family of 5 photo session in
Greenwich PArk
Beautiful Architecture
There’s also a shot from the curved staircase at the side of the Queen’s House that I’m particularly fond of. The whole family coming down the steps, the twins in their denim and floral dresses holding mum’s hands, dad and the older brother behind. Greenwich Park does this thing where it can suddenly feel like Italy or France for a second, the white stone, the balustrades, the formal architecture, and then you turn around and you’re looking at the Thames. It’s a strange and brilliant park in that way.
Why Greenwich Park works for a family photoshoot
Greenwich Park is the oldest of the eight Royal Parks in London, and for family photography it’s genuinely one of the best locations in the city. The reason is variety. In a single ninety-minute session you can move between formal gardens, ancient woodland, long grass meadows, classical architecture, and wide views over the river — all without leaving the park gates.
The locations within the park I find myself coming back to most often:
Rangers House and the rose garden
On the west side of the park, the formal rose garden in front of the red-brick Rangers House gives you tidy borders, gravel paths and a beautiful Georgian backdrop. Lovely in late May and June when the roses are out, but the structure of the garden makes it photograph well year-round.
The Wilderness and the chestnut avenue
The northern edge of the park between Rangers House and the deer enclosure has long grass meadows and old chestnut trees. This is where I take families with younger children who need to run. The light through the tree canopy in late afternoon is some of the best in the park.
The Queen’s House colonnade
At the bottom of the park, the Inigo Jones colonnade connecting the Queen’s House to the National Maritime Museum gives you classical columns, a covered walkway, and stone steps leading down towards the lower park. Brilliant for both formal family groupings and more relaxed shots of children playing in the arches.
The Royal Observatory and the General Wolfe statue.
At the top of the hill, the view back across the Queen’s House and Canary Wharf is the most photographed view in Greenwich. Worth doing if you want a picture that says London without question.
The Flower Garden.
Tucked away on the south-east side of the park near Blackheath Gate, this is the quietest part of the park and rarely busy. Ornamental ponds, mature trees, and far fewer tourists than the central paths.
The park is free to enter, open from 6am for pedestrians, and pushchair-friendly on most main paths. Parking is available on Blackheath Gate side or Maze Hill, though I usually recommend public transport, Greenwich and Maze Hill stations are both a short walk from the park gates, and the DLR drops you right at Cutty Sark.
Booking a Greenwich Park family photographer
I’ve been photographing families in Greenwich Park since 2011. It’s the park I learned to photograph in, and the one I’ve watched change through every season and every kind of weather. If you live locally, or you’re visiting and want a session that puts a piece of London into your family pictures, Greenwich Park is one of the loveliest places in the city to do it.
I work in a relaxed editorial style, no stiff posing, no forced smiles, just a couple of hours of walking the park together, watching for the moments that show who your family actually is, and putting them in beautiful light. Twins, older siblings, toddlers, grandparents, dogs, the park accommodates all of it.
If you’d like to talk about a session in Greenwich Park, or anywhere else across South East London and the city, get in touch here.
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