The last two photographs from this session were taken after the sun had already set.

I met the couple at Farmleigh on the ninth of November, which in Dublin gives you an afternoon that ends before five o’clock. We started around four. That is not a generous amount of daylight for an outdoor maternity session, and the honest lesson from the day is that it did not need to be, provided you decide the route before you arrive rather than wandering and hoping.

The pale Georgian facade of Farmleigh House with Virginia creeper turning gold around the columned portico, the couple small in the cobbled forecourt
Farmleigh, and the argument for standing well back

Starting at the House

Farmleigh is on the north west edge of the Phoenix Park, near the Castleknock gate, and the first thing you see is the front of the house: a long pale facade, a columned portico, and Virginia creeper running up the stonework that in early November is somewhere between gold and rust.

I almost always start a session with the widest frame I am going to take all day. It gets people walking rather than posing, and it puts the location on the record before anyone has relaxed enough for the close work.

Expectant couple walking hand in hand across the cobbled forecourt towards the creeper covered portico of Farmleigh House

The couple laughing as they walk across the cobbles in front of Farmleigh House, him in a green jumper, her in a navy coat
Walking towards the camera, which is easier than standing still

Walking towards a camera is the most useful instruction in portrait photography, and it is doubly useful in a maternity session. Standing still is when people start to think about their hands. Walking gives them something to do, and the bump moves the way it actually moves rather than being presented.

Couple holding hands at arm’s length in front of the mahogany door and stone columns of Farmleigh House

The front door does a lot of work: a dark mahogany door under a fanlight, stone columns either side, arched windows, and a wall lantern. It is a ready made frame, and the cobbles in front of it are neutral enough that nothing competes.

Expectant couple seated together on a white wrought iron bench on the cobbles beside Farmleigh House
The bench, and twenty seconds of sitting down

There is a white wrought iron bench along the side of the house that I would happily photograph at any hour. Sitting down changes posture, and posture is most of what a maternity photograph is about. It also gives a pregnant woman a break, which matters more than it sounds like it does in the third trimester.

The Parkland

Out from the house the ground opens into parkland, with a white paddock fence in the middle distance and a stand of beech that in November is the best colour in Dublin.

Couple standing in open parkland at Farmleigh, a large copper coloured beech tree and white paddock fence behind them
Room to breathe, and the colour doing the work

This is where I take the frames that will not date. No architecture, no fashion, nothing in shot that tells you what year it is except the leaves.

Close portrait of an expectant couple with both their hands resting on the bump, Farmleigh House soft in the background

Couple standing forehead to forehead on the lawn with Farmleigh House behind them
Close in, house held soft behind

Then in tight. An 85mm at f/1.8 turns the house into a wash of pale stone and leaves the two of them as the only sharp thing in the frame, which is the correct hierarchy for this kind of photograph.

Under the Beech

Couple kissing beneath a large beech tree, standing on a thick carpet of orange leaves at Farmleigh
The leaf carpet, which is the whole reason to book November

The beech had dropped a carpet of orange thick enough to read as a surface rather than as mess, which is a narrower window than people expect. Too early and it is still green underfoot. Too late and it is brown, flat and wet.

Expectant mother in a long oatmeal cardigan standing on the leaf carpet with her partner beneath the autumn canopy

Note the cardigan. The mum-to-be wore the same white roll neck for the entire session and simply changed what went over it: a navy coat, a teal coat, and this long oatmeal cardigan. Three looks, no changing room, and the fitted top underneath meant the bump read clearly in all of them. If you take one practical thing from this post, take that one.

The Scan Photographs

Every maternity session has a centre, and this was it. They had brought the scan images with them.

Partner kneeling on the autumn leaves with his hands on the bump while the expectant mother holds up her ultrasound scan
He went down on the leaves without being asked

Expectant mother in a navy coat standing among fallen leaves holding up her ultrasound scan photograph

Close photograph of a strip of five ultrasound scan images held taut between the couple’s hands, both wedding rings visible, the couple soft behind
Focus on the strip, everything else let go

That third frame is my favourite thing from the day. The strip of scans is held taut between his hand and hers, both wedding rings are in shot, and the two of them are deliberately thrown out of focus behind it. It is the only photograph in the gallery where the subject is not their faces, and it says more than the ones that are.

Couple smiling directly at the camera holding their ultrasound scan between them under the autumn trees
And then the straightforward one, because you want that too

Bring the scans. It costs nothing, it takes four minutes, and it is the set of photographs that goes to the family group chat first.

The Gardens

Behind the house the estate turns formal, and this is the part of Farmleigh that most people walking the Phoenix Park never get to.

Expectant couple framed inside an ornate wrought iron garden arch, a gravel path and pale pavilion beyond
A frame you do not have to build

Couple standing under the wrought iron arch, the path behind them running down to a garden pavilion

The wrought iron arch is the single best piece of ready made framing on the estate: scrollwork on both sides, an arched top, terracotta pots at the feet, and a gravel path running away behind it to a pale pavilion. You get depth, symmetry and a natural vignette without doing anything clever.

Expectant mother leaning against the wrought iron gate post with both hands cradling her bump, the garden path soft behind her
Her own frame, which every maternity gallery should have

Every maternity gallery should include photographs of her on her own. Couples sometimes forget to ask for these, and they are usually the ones that end up printed.

The open colonnaded stone temple with a verdigris copper roof in the gardens at Farmleigh, the couple standing beside it

There is a small open temple in the gardens, stone columns under a verdigris copper roof, with clipped hedging around it and the roofline of the house visible through the bare trees beyond.

Expectant couple walking a gravel avenue carpeted in russet beech leaves between clipped hedging at Farmleigh
Leaf litter as a lead line

The Avenue, After Sunset

We finished on the avenue of trained creeper covered pillars that runs down towards the pagoda, and by then the sun was gone.

Couple walking hand in hand towards the camera down an avenue of creeper covered pillars in gold and green

Wide view of the walled garden avenue at Farmleigh, the couple small in the centre of the path with the pagoda at the end
The last frame of the day, taken after the sun had set

This is the thing about November light that is worth understanding before you book. After sunset there is a stretch of maybe twenty minutes where the light goes completely flat and even, no direction, no contrast, no squinting. On an avenue with strong architecture and strong colour on both sides, that is not a compromise. It is the best possible light for a symmetrical frame, because nothing is fighting for attention and both people are lit identically.

The frames I would have taken at two in the afternoon, with the sun high and hard, would have been worse.

Planning a Maternity Shoot at Farmleigh

Here is the practical side, for anyone thinking about the same session.

Getting In, and What It Costs

Farmleigh is in the Phoenix Park, Dublin 15, near the Castleknock gate. Entry to the estate is free, the parking is free, and the grounds are open daily from 10am with last entry at 5pm and the gates closing at 6pm.

Two things to know before you travel. Farmleigh House itself is currently closed for essential maintenance works, which does not affect an outdoor session in the slightest but does rule out anything indoors. And because Farmleigh is a working Government building, the house and estate can close at short notice. Check on the day rather than assuming.

Permits

Worth being straight about this. The Office of Public Works licenses photography in the Phoenix Park through the Park Director. Wedding photography is listed as free of charge, and a portrait session like this one is treated the same way in practice, the OPW have never asked us for a fee. The licence charges exist for larger commercial productions rather than freelance photographers, and freelance rates are quoted on request; for reference the published figures are €125 per hour excluding VAT for commercial photography and €50 per hour excluding VAT for charity or tourism work. You need a minimum of three working days’ notice, the application goes through an online form, and the requirement includes €6.5 million public liability insurance with the Commissioners of Public Works named on the policy.

Give them the notice anyway. It costs nothing, it is the courteous thing to do on public ground, and the staff we have dealt with have been genuinely easy to work with, if slightly surprised to be told in advance.

Farmleigh is not covered by that same permit page even though it sits inside the park, so for the Farmleigh grounds specifically the sensible move is to contact the estate directly and ask. Rates and rules change, so treat the figures above as a starting point to check rather than a quote.

The November Arithmetic

The estate’s last entry is 5pm and the gates close at 6pm. In November the sun sets before 5pm. Those two facts land almost on top of each other, which means that from roughly the start of November the opening hours and the daylight run out together, and you cannot buy yourself more of either.

So the whole plan is the start time. Four o’clock worked. Three thirty would have been more comfortable. Five o’clock would have been a wasted trip.

In May or June you can be far more relaxed about all of this, and the estate closing at six becomes the binding constraint rather than the light.

Build a Route, Not a Shot List

Four backdrops, all within a short walk: the forecourt and front door, the open parkland with the beech, the leaf carpet, and the gardens with the arch and the avenue. We moved through them in that order, roughly fifteen minutes each, and finished at the far end of the gardens as the light went.

That ordering is deliberate. Put the wide, architectural, everyone-still-self-conscious work at the start when the light is hardest, and save the intimate close work and the symmetrical avenue for the flat light at the end. It is the opposite of how most people assume a session should run.

What to Wear

One fitted plain top and several coats, as above. Neutral colours, because the autumn colour is already doing plenty and a strong pattern just adds noise. Comfortable boots, since the leaf litter is soft and the gravel is not.

Thinking About a Maternity Session?

If you are due in winter and worrying that autumn light is against you, this session is the counterargument. The colour peaks exactly when the daylight gets short, and those two things are not in conflict as long as you start early enough in the afternoon.

There is more on how these sessions run on the maternity session page, on the county in the Dublin family photography guide, and on what comes next on the newborn session page. All three sessions are set out together on the family photography in Dublin page.

Have a look at family photography pricing or get in touch and tell me when you are due.