Lanni and Lily moved to London from Maine, USA. New city, new routines, a toddler in tow. Back home, sending family photographs is a tradition. They wanted to keep it going.

We spent an hour at Stephens House and Gardens in North London. It's a good spot for this kind of session: enough space for a small person to roam, enough greenery to make it feel unhurried. Just the three of them, getting on with being a family, while I followed at a slight distance.

Their son was not particularly interested in me, which is exactly what you want. He had his own agenda: things to look at, directions to wander, the general business of being small in a large world. Lanni and Lily moved around him the way parents do when it's become second nature. Catching him, redirecting him, watching him with that particular expression that's hard to name but easy to recognise.

That's the thing about family sessions. You're not really photographing people. You're photographing the way a family works.