Meltham doorstep portraits

Family photography in Meltham, West Yorkshire

I’m a photographer in Meltham, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire and I thought I would share my thoughts about doorstep portraits. When lockdown started I was just like a lot of people, I had no idea what was going on, I didn’t know if I was allowed out and basically I felt completely lost. My social media is full of wedding photographers and I had seen that lots of photographers were going out and doing doorstep portraits.  I personally felt that early on this was a little too early in lockdown, it was debatable if this was breaking the rules. We were allowed out for thirty minutes of exercise and I wasn’t sure if doorstep portraits ticked this box, so I held off from doing them.  A good couple of months into lockdown I remember one weekend I was going absolutely crazy sat inside my house and could feel that my mental health was slipping a little so I made the conscious decision to start doing some doorstep portraits.  I had no intention of making any money for myself. My main driver was to get out of the house and meet folk.  A little bit of marketing in my village is never a bad thing. I also wanted to take the opportunity to help raise some money for a local charity. After asking around I decided to raise money for The Crossroads Centre, in Meltham which does an amazing job looking after people who are a little disadvantaged.  

I absolutely loved shooting the portraits, I would head over to peoples homes, give them a ring as I would make sure that I stood outside in the street. After a little chat and generally getting to know folk, I would then take a couple of pictures. I’m a great believer in always doing more and making things a little more exciting so I tried to encourage people to get a little bit creative. I had people playing instruments, playing cricket, dressing up, having brews. Some people had dogs, one family had one cat, four dogs, a guinea pig and a chicken which made things somewhat interesting. Everyone donated to the charity and I managed to raise £200 for The Crossroads Centre which is fabulous for taking a few pictures. In hindsight, I did start the project a little later and I could have had more people taking part but for me, it was great as It got me out, I met loads of lovely folk and we raised some money for charity.

Also, the pictures are going to be fantastic memories of lockdown and what happened in 2020.

Here are a few of my favourite pictures from the project, a massive thank you to everyone who got involved and donated.