“Black and white holds the essence of who people are”, says household photographer Helen Bartlett

We had a colour darkroom at home when I was growing up, so I had experience of working with colour, but it never resonated with me.

I fell in love with monochrome because the pictures my dad took of my brothers and I were in black and white. I knew they looked good when I was young, they looked good when I was a teenager and they look good today.

Some of them are still on the wall with pictures I’m taking now of my nephews and nieces, as well as ones of my parents taken in the 1950s when they were children.

These photographs all hang together well; monochrome is timeless. The notion of timelessness is important to me because I’ve built a business on having repeat customers. I need the pictures that I take now to fit together with those I have taken in the past and with those I take in the future.

I have some clients that I photographed as children at the beginning of my career who are now hiring me to photograph their own children, so I’m working with the second generation within a family. I need to know that my pictures will all work together and black and white is a key part of this.

Colour can be amazing, obviously, and there are incredible colour photographers out there. It’s not that colour is bad and black and white is good. It’s just the way I see the world.

If I look at a black and white picture, I don’t immediately think about what I’m wearing, what the weather is doing or what the interior design trends and fashions are.

Whereas if I look at a colour photograph, I’ll notice I’m wearing a blue jumper, and that particular blue was a popular colour in 1993 and looks a little dated now.

I feel black and white holds the essence of who people are, what they’re doing and where they are at this time in their lives without the distractions that date a picture.

There’s a gallery on my website with pictures of the same family taken over the past two decades from newborn until now, when the eldest is at university, and it just works.

For me, this is what family photography is all about: long-term relationships with my clients, telling their stories over time and knowing that the pictures I take of children now will still work for them when they’re adults.

I have my cameras set to the Monochrome picture style; it’s one of the main benefits of mirrorless – the EVF viewfinder means I can see the pictures in black and white all the way through the process.

That’s good because you focus on different things when looking at things in colour. As well as the placement of your main subject, in black and white, you are looking at tone, light and the graphic shapes of the environment as you build a composition.

I find it easier to see the light, and to focus on emotion and interaction in monochrome.

I usually start with some group shots, so I’ve got those in the bag, then I just see what happens. If you ask ‘What do you like to do, where do you want to go?’, and they say ‘There’s a table tennis table over there’ or they want to show you their best climbing tree then, when they get the photos back, the pictures are about them and their lives.

Often, working in public places, you can’t really plan because sometimes you turn up and there’s all kinds of stuff going on, and I find that a fun creative challenge. The light might be good in a particular place so we’ll start there, but then the kids will go and play somewhere else, so I have to rethink what I’m doing and find a new angle.

It’s a lot of quick thinking and really fun for the clients; they never get bored. It’s also energetic so I always recommend getting a good night’s sleep, having breakfast and starting early – usually at 8am – to get everyone at their best and brightest.

I like to do long shoots, which generally go on until around 1pm, so we have time for different activities and locations. If the weather’s good, we’ll often go out to a park first thing, then come back for some pictures at home towards the end of the morning.

This way, my clients will have a lot of variety, and I want to give them as many different types of photos as I can from the morning. I want them to have an incredible visual document of their children at this time in their lives, doing whatever they like to do, and I want them to have a brilliant time along the way.

When I started family photography, I did a couple of shoots in a studio and it wasn’t for me. So much of the importance of my work is creating memories and it’s quite hard to create a memory in a studio as it’s a neutral space, whereas my clients are choosing where to go.

These are places that are important to them and even if sometimes it’s not the most photogenic place, it’s where they like to go. Then, when the kids look back on the pictures when they’re in their 30s, they’ll say ‘Do you remember when we used to go to that little park around the corner?’ That’s what my work is all about, incorporating aspects of family life in my photographs.

Including the environment I’m shooting in is a challenge because there are different things going on and I need to simplify the world around me.

I have to create a compelling portrait with a sense of time and place – all of which has to work visually while not including people out doing a parkrun.

In 2003, I was about to buy myself a Hasselblad, but then I met a guy at a party. He said, “Don’t do that, film is dead and the future is digital. You need to get yourself a Canon and if you do buy one, I’ll help you set it up.”

I thought, “Well, he’s nice and I want an excuse to call him.” So I called him, bought a Canon and married him. It’s all gone very well since.

That’s how I moved to Canon and I’ve been with Canon ever since. The cameras are incredible. I started with an EOS 10D then, over the years, moved up to what I have now, which is a pair of EOS R5 Mark IIs.

Back in the DSLR days, I was using two EOS-1D X Mark IIs before I swapped one for an EOS R. When the EOS R5 came out, I got rid of my 1D X Mark II and moved to mirrorless, and from there on to the EOS R5 Mark II.

I wouldn’t go back to a DSLR now. There are things I miss about them, like the fact you could bang in a tent peg with the 1 DX Mark II and it would still work fine afterwards, but mirrorless is incredible.

Canon cameras are fantastic – they’re intuitive to use, the quality of the files is superb, the autofocus is amazing, and I can find my way around the menus really easily.

The new technology opens up more opportunities for creative photography every year. They are the perfect cameras for family photography.

I’m mainly a prime lens photographer and tend to shoot with an RF 35mm f/1.4L VCM, a Canon RF 50mm f/1.2L USM and a Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L USM. That’s my basic kitbag.

I’ll use the Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8L if I know I’m going to be on my feet a lot and want to travel a bit lighter, but usually it’s either the 35mm and the 50mm or the 35mm and the 85mm.

I find I work much quicker when I’m shooting on primes because I know those focal lengths incredibly well and I work with two cameras at all times.

I also have some more specialist lenses, such as the Canon RF 100-500 f/4.5-7.1 IS USM, which I will use if the situation requires a longer focal length – for example, if the children are riding horses or on a boat.

One thing I like to do every year is to try out a new lens – I’ll either hire one or borrow it from Canon – just to shoot outside my comfort zone.

I used the new RF 100-300mm f/2.8L IS USM for a couple of weeks last year, just to shoot something completely different. It isn’t a lens I’ll be adding to my kitbag because it’s massive, but it did give me a different perspective.

Mainly available light in the summer, but it depends on the time of year. In the depths of winter, I use my Kino Flo Celeb 200, which is a big LED light that’s 10 or 12 years old. It works brilliantly because it creates soft, even light that brightens a room.

When I’m working, one minute, I’ll be by the window, shooting into the light, and the next, the children will be playing hide and seek in a cupboard – there are fast-moving scenarios in my shoots, so an LED panel works perfectly.