Toddler photography

On a hot summer's day in June, we ventured down to Flower Farm in Godstone, Surrey with two toddlers for some strawberry picking.

I was expecting some idyllic pictures of the toddlers carefully picking strawberries and depositing them in punnets with the rows of strawberry plants in the background. Instead, these two excited toddlers, having picked a couple of strawberries, found it far more entertaining to push each other about and throw hay at each other. So we ended up with squished strawberry covered shorts, hair tangled straw and flattened punnets. Which was far more fun and made even better pictures!

The kids' joy at running down the neat rows of strawberry plants playing catch, jumping over the stinging nettles, their beaming faces when they caught each other with fistfuls of straw, and screams of delight when on the few occasions they did actually look for strawberries and they spotted one, was priceless.

I think that however much you plan pictures, it's the unplanned ones where you just catch a moment that are by far the best.

Now, where's the cream...?