A Whitley Bay family photo shoot: sunrise with the Ryders

Outside of Facebook, Maddy Ryder and I last saw each other when we went to school together at six-years-old. We’re now both 40, so how about that?!

Though in that crazy way that time and distance are relinquished on social media, when we came face-to-face and embraced in Whitley Bay’s Rendezvous car park at 7am on that freezing January morning for a sunrise photo shoot - it was as if we indeed had been hanging out intermittently for years. The chat between us was warm and easy and - just like that - I thought, yep, we’re going to be friends now. And I was right.

The shoot was with Maddy and her husband James and their gorgeous twin girls Esme & Cecily. The Ryder family don’t live in the North East, but Maddy is from here and they are back visiting regularly - pretty much whenever they can was the gist of it. Whitley Bay is a special place for this family and the beach there was the obvious place for them to have their photo shoot. We met at the Rendezvous and finished an hour later on the steps of the Spanish City.

As for the sunrise, boy did we luck out. It really was a slice of magic that felt special to share with them.

It was Maddy’s idea to have their session at sunrise and I could not have been more here for it. Particularly given, temperatures aside - winter is the kindest time of year for it as the sun, rises so much later than it does in the summer. I remember the moment that it dawned (pun intended) on me last year when trying to plan a sunrise session in Northumberland with a family that I was indeed going to need to leave the house at around 2am to make sure I was there in plenty of time…

Anyway I would absolutely love to do more photo shoots like this here on my local beaches of Tynemouth, Cullercoats, Whitley Bay & Seaton Sluice (probably not Northumberland though I’m afraid - I need some sleep! ha) - what a way to start the day!