Hilliers Photoshoots
Sat 8th and Sun 9th November
Official Hilliers Photography
Hi and welcome to the page of Caroline Jenkins Photography – the only official photographer at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens. As the only Hilliers photographer, it is my absolute pleasure to welcome you and explain all how about how my Hilliers photoshoots work. I have been photographing families at Hilliers for many years now and absolutely love working with everyone. We are so fortunate to have such fabulous grounds to run around and play in, explore and enjoy and I love being able to make the most of it with the families who I work with throughout the year!
Hopefully this page should explain everything, but please do feel free to contact me should you have any further questions.
I look forward to working with you!
Tell me more about Hilliers Photography…
I would hazard a guess that most local people have visited Hilliers at least once, probably many times if they need something easy and fun to do with their kids in a school holiday!
I have always said that Hilliers is so unique in that it seems to appeal to all ages whether it’s to study the extensive range of flowers or just run around and make use of the 180 acres of open space! There are seasonal beds to enjoy, a beautiful pond attracting a wide range of wildlife and play areas for the children. With a cafe at the entrance and then again down at the bottom by Jermyns House not to mention accesible paths throughout, it really does have something to offer all members of the family!
The photoshoots that I offer are 1 hour in length. They are held on specific weekends throughout the year and you can choose a time slot that suits you. The cost of the shoot also covers the entrance fee for all participating members of the party. You are able to book a shoot by following the link below. Upon booking, you will be invoiced, sent a client experience guide and a questionnaire. The invoice covers the time on shoot plus 5 digital downloads (although the full gallery can be purchased separately after the shoot). The client experience guide covers the shoot in detail (plus any tips and guidance that you may need). The questionnaire is so you can feed back to me as much information as possible about members of the party attending. This is so helpful to give me a heads up so I can be as informed as possible. Although it sounds like a long time, 1 hour isn’t long to get to know everybody and shoot amazing pictures, so the more information I have in advance, the easier it is!
How does a Hilliers photoshoot work?
I always start my shoots by asking my families what types of photos they want from this shoot. Quite often, people specify that want certain posed photos or certain unposed images whereas other want a mixture of both. The photo requirements can change the type of shoot it becomes, so is always good to know this from the start.
I try and get my families to walk around as much as possible to offer as wide a variety of images (and backdrops) as possible. This is dictated by accessibility though as well as those families that have many members to them. In these instances, I prefer to stick to maybe one or two areas and get more shots from those areas, as it would be a shame to spend all your time walking around and getting to and from the different locations.
The time of year (and time of day for that matter) dictates the routes I tend to walk, as a lot depends on the flowers that are currently in bloom and where the best colour (and potentially shade) is! Normally though, I try to take in Centenary Border as this is such a beautiful stretch and great for getting some posed shots. The pond is a spectacular setting all year round, but is an absolute must in Autumn as the trees turn a magnificent shade of orange and red!
Because I know how hard it can be to leave afterwards, I tend to avoid the play areas unless I am asked specifically for shots there! The beauty of Hilliers photoshoots though, is that the shoot covers your entrance to the Gardens for the entire day, so you can always visit these areas before or after our shoot together!
Pricing and other details
Once you have booked your slot onto a Hilliers photoshoot with me, you will automatically be sent an invoice for £160. This is part of an automated system so once payment has been received, you will then be sent a confirmation email along with a Client Experience Guide and a questionnaire. The Client Experience Guide should (hopefully) contain all the information you should possibly need ahead of your shoot but if there is anything that has been overlooked, or anything you need further clarification on, please don’t hesitate to ask! The questionnaire is just a brief introduction to the participants attending the shoot and any information that may benefit me knowing in advance so that we can hit the ground running!
Session Fee
- 1 hour photoshoot at Hilliers
- Full processing and editing of all images
- 5 digital images available to download
- Gallery viewing to preview your images
- Entrance fee for all participants of the shoot
- £15 credit
At the end of your shoot I will give you a Prints and Products booklet to take home. This lists all the products that you could possibly spend your credit on (as listed on my Prints and Products page but just in more detail). You automatically are entitled to £15 credit as part of your Hilliers package, which also includes entrance fee and 5x digital images!
7-10 days after our shoot (unless stated otherwise) you will receive an email containing a link to your gallery. This quite often gets sent to junk mail so please keep your eyes out just in case! You will see unstructions telling you to create a unique password so that you can enter this gallery and the once in, you will be able to view all the images (and share the gallery with anybody else from the shoot). To favourite your chosen images just click the heart on the images. Once you have decided upon (and favourited) your 5x chosen images, please just drop me a quick message to let me know that this has been done. I can then enable the dowload functionality for those 5 images and will remove the rest of the gallery. You will receive an email to let you know that this has been done and your credit applied. As per my credit blog post, you can then either email me (once you have decided on what you would like to spend your credit on) or you can do it through the shop and I will receive a notification.
If you can’t decide upon just 5x images to download and would like to buy the complete gallery, just let me know and I will invoice you for the additional £100. Then, once payment has been received, I will enable download functionality and you can download everything!
From the time that you contact me (with either the 5x chosen images or to ask for the complete gallery) you will then have 1 month in which you can access the gallery and the credit, both of which will expire after that time and you will no longer be able to access either. I made the decision to introduce expiration dates last year, as my gallery storage is always full because so many families accidentally forget to use their credit and then time ticks by.
Optional Gallery
Entire gallery of images from our shoot to download in high resolution
- All images in colour and black&white
My girls arranged a Hilliers photoshoot for my 60th Birthday which included 10 people ranging from 13 months to 61! Caroline was brilliant with the children (you can tell she used to be an ex-teacher). Caroline herself is personable and her enthusiasm is contagious. She definitely went the extra mile to get the right photos! The photoshoot was great value and the range of products was lovely. There was no pressure to buy which was very refreshing! Great natural pictures in a glorious setting!
Read my Hilliers Blogs here…
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Frequently Asked Questions
What should we wear?
I always advise my families that the most important thing in family shoots is that everybody feels comfortable. There is no point getting the children to wear their best clothes if they feel really awkward, because this will be written all over their faces.
If you really want to make the most from your shoot though, I always suggest that a similar theme of colours works brilliantly to tie you all together. The client experience guide that you will receive when you book a shoot, will contain links to seasonal pinterest boards.
Something that I strongly advise against however, is anybody wearing any clothes with motiffs or patterns on, as all this does is draw attention away from all of the beautiful faces!
My kids love the park areas - will we have time to visit there during our shoot?
I love capturing the kids in their ‘natural environment’ at the park and on the treehouse. All I would say is, in my experience, is that once the kids are there, it can be very difficult to tear them away again. For this reason, if you wanted to include the park areas, we will make a point of finishing our shoot there so you can stay and play as long as you want!
What do we do if the weather looks miserable?
I will keep an eye on the forecast in the days leading up to the shoot. If it looks to be a wash out, I will contact you to rearrange. If it looks to be just drizzle then we will try to go ahead and dodge the rain!
Please feel free to contact me and ask any questions – I would love to hear from you!
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