Dorset concentrates some of England's most extraordinary outdoor landscapes into one county. The World Heritage Jurassic Coast — 95 miles of fossil-bearing limestone, chalk, sandstone and shale cliffs from Exmouth to Studland — is the most geologically varied coastline in Britain. The Dorset heathlands — the fragmented lowland heaths of the Poole Basin, the largest remaining lowland heath in Europe — are a nationally rare and visually distinctive ecological landscape. The Purbeck Hills, Cranborne Chase, and the rolling Dorset chalk downs provide inland portrait settings of pastoral English countryside. For family photography, Dorset offers locations that work for every age group from toddlers to grandparents, from accessible beaches to upland ridge walks.

Durdle Door

Durdle Door — the natural limestone arch on the Jurassic Coast between Lulworth Cove and Ringstead Bay, accessible on foot from the National Trust car park at Newlands Farm — is the most iconic coastal landform on the south coast of England and one of the most photographed family photography locations in the country. The limestone arch, the turquoise water of the west beach, and the dramatic chalk headland of the Bat's Head beyond provide family portrait settings of coastal Dorset grandeur unlikely to disappoint. The site is steep (the descent to the beach involves metal-edged wooden steps); it is best visited at dawn in summer before the tourist coaches arrive, or on clear autumn and winter mornings when the light is low and the site deserted.

Studland Bay

Studland Bay — the 4-mile National Trust beach at the mouth of Poole Harbour, facing north across the Solent — is Dorset's most family-accessible coastal portrait setting. The gently sloping sandy beach (the finest and safest in Dorset for young children), the backing dunes of Shell Bay and Knoll Beach, and the views across the harbour entrance to the Sandbanks peninsula, to Brownsea Island, and east to the chalk stack of Old Harry Rocks provide family photography with a quality of horizontally open light unique to this position on the Dorset coast. The late-afternoon light in summer on the Studland dunes looking north across the harbour is among the best family portrait light in southern England.

Corfe Castle

Corfe Castle — the ruined Norman castle on its chalk knoll in the Purbeck Hills gap, one of the most recognisable castle ruins in England — provides Dorset's most dramatic architectural family photography setting. The silhouette of the ruin against the blue sky, the village square of Purbeck limestone cottages below, and the surrounding panorama from the Purbeck ridge (south to the Isle of Purbeck coast, north to Poole Harbour) give Corfe a family portrait backdrop of medieval landscape drama matched in Dorset only by the Jurassic Coast itself. The castle is owned by the National Trust and the approach walk from the village is suitable for children of any age.

Dorset Heathlands

The Dorset heathlands — Wareham Forest, Canford Heath, Stoborough Heath, Hartland Moor, Arne RSPB Reserve, Upton Heath — provide family portrait settings of open moorland character with the purple of August heather as the dominant seasonal colour. The Arne RSPB Reserve on the Purbeck peninsula, looking across Poole Harbour to Brownsea Island, is the most photogenic of the eastern Dorset heaths for family portrait sessions — the combination of harbour view, reed bed, heathland, and pine woodland provides a varied natural-portrait canvas within a short circular walk. The free-roaming Sika deer of the Wareham Forest are a regular (and unpredictable) addition to heathland family portrait sessions in that area.

Lyme Regis

Lyme Regis — the Regency and Victorian coastal town at the west end of the Dorset Jurassic Coast, where the famous Cobb harbour wall meets the fossil beach below Black Ven cliff — provides the most intimate and town-centred coastal family photography setting in Dorset. The Cobb (the 13th-century breakwater now listed as a Scheduled Monument) is the setting of the final scene of The French Lieutenant's Woman and the opening of Persuasion's 1995 film adaptation; the stone harbour, the fishing boats, and the town's seafront Georgian and Regency architecture provide a family portrait backdrop of small-town Dorset coastal character very different from the open cliff and heath settings. The fossil beach at Charmouth, 2 miles east of Lyme, provides an additional family session element that engages children of all ages.