My gorgeous friend Petrea recently asked me to do some photographs of her with her family and with her baby bump as she is “due” shortly. Anyone who has looked at my blog might remember that I photographed Petrea and her husband Steve’s wedding in Rosneath. I have hardly seen Petrea and Steve since, and this was my first chance to meet their first child, Calum. This made for a particularly lovely visit for me.

This first picture shows Petrea holding a just awake Calum. He is simply lovely, and in our few hours together, was just amazingly good company. No tears, lots of happy play, just a great kid. Just a wee bit wary of the stranger with the camera here though!

The timing for the photographs was a little unfortunate, as it was an overcast day, and darkness was falling fast, so we had to go out and make the best of such light as was available. This meant the light was a bit flat and uninteresting, so I have indulged in more post-processing than usual to keep them interesting. This one was using the last of the real light with a little fill flash through an umbrella. The colours are nice and such light as there was was at least soft. Thank goodness for the 5D Mk2 and its big light gathering sensor!

This one with the same light but including Steve. Steve is not only a very handsome man, but he has the most easy going and gentle nature. Calum and bump 2 are very lucky with their mum and dad!

While Calum played I grabbed a few shots of Petrea to show the bumpette.

Calum is the must amazing climber for a boy who isn’t even 2! He is basically a monkey. Look at these eyes here in this classic extreme angle shot. The colours were fine, but distracted from the strong shapes and leading-line curves.

Steve on his own, again the colours of the play-park distracted from Steve, so they had to go!

This one is just so lovely for me to see; I know how happy Petrea and Steve are with their growing family and this picture just captures that joy for me. I am so delighted for them.

Steve and Petrea’s backs are being tested to the limit with their tiny dynamo, but they are tough people. When the going gets tough, the tough start hugging!

Here we see the genetic source of the monkey tendency in wee Calum!

Seeing Petrea and Steve looking so happy together just thrills me, they are so well suited. As an aside, in the 1 minute it took to grab this shot Calum had managed to run about 20 miles away; just as well it’s a big safe park! How will they ever herd 2 baby gazelles/cheetahs; I think they they need to get a bigger park.

A bit of playful colour treatment to cope with the now very low light. If you look you can see the “buzzy bee” that is fascinating the young squire on the sunflower.

This is just pure photographic playfulness; I love these guys amongst the sunflowers.

It was getting so dark here that focus lock was becoming a challenge, but these logs just had to be used. Petrea looks perfect here with just a little remote flash again.

One more of Spidey playing. I could only get focus-locked on his eyes in about 1 out of 50 pics as he just doesn’t stop moving!

They will be foursome in just a few weeks now and I am thrilled. Maybe if I play my cards right, my camera and I could be heading to Edinburgh again soon…

Thanks for a lovely afternoon. x