Large family portrait in country house

About a year ago, shortly before I started doing photography full-time, I applied for a job as a waiter at Glenmorangie House. I didn't get that job, but last week I was up at the house in a different role, doing a portrait of a family who were there to celebrate their mother's 80th birthday.

From the moment I was booked I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve with this photograph. It couldn't be just a picture of the family, it had to be a picture of them with some part of the house or gardens as a background. The location had to be subtle, but it had to be there. I arrived two hours early with nearly every piece of camera and lighting equipment I own, and after scouting every conceivable location I decided to do the picture on the patio. The background would be the gardens and the sky which, I hoped, would be a nice warm colour at sunset when we would be doing the photograph.

As a back-up, in case it rained, I had also decided that we could do a nice set-up in the morning room of the house. And that's where we ended up doing it. By the time we were going to do the photo outside it was too cold, too windy and too grey, so I quickly set-up in the morning room and then the family came through. Two minutes later we were done and the picture is much better than it would have been if we'd done it outside.