Tilly Nelson Photo

Tilly Nelson Photo Kids Fashion & Headshot Photographer based between Vancouver, B.C & London, England.
236 818 7225 | Enquire about her availability.

Tilly is a Children’s fashion and portrait photographer with a unique ability to truly engage with children and capture authentic and impactful images. Tilly’s love for creativity started when she was young, her desk was always overflowing with pieces of fabric for her next project. She preferred to spend her time repurposing something old with her cherished sewing machine than to buy something ne

w. Tilly grew up in Nigeria and her Grandparents ran a fabric shop. She witnessed the time and care involved in creating one simple item. She developed a deep understanding of how every stitch in every garment counts. After witnessing how this could change a community through self sustainability and resilience, her passion for empowering women also started to grow. Equipped with this longing to connect fashion, photography and sustainability she sought out brands and businesses that took a similar sense of pride in their work. Her favourite projects are those where she is able to show the story of a garment from creation to final campaign with models and production. This ability to see the bigger picture is where she thrives, although anything relating to children’s fashion brings her great joy. Her work can be seen alongside names such as Harper's Bazaar, Tatler and Country & Town House, Baby London, Ivy Magazine and Marie Chantel. Tilly is available for fashion and portrait projects and divides her time between Vancouver, Canada and London, England.

Grateful for all that 2025 gave me.So many amazing projects only possible with amazing teams and cheerleaders. Grateful ...
01/05/2026

Grateful for all that 2025 gave me.

So many amazing projects only possible with amazing teams and cheerleaders. Grateful for the wonderful people I worked with behind and in front of the camera. I’ve somehow curated my job to be everything I am passionate about (something 18 year old me would have dreamed of) and it makes me so buzzed to see the what we achieved in 2025. Finding just a handful of photos to represent the year was basically impossible. Grateful for the tiny (and incredibly cute) human I grew in my belly whilst shooting some amazing and meaningful projects. It somehow made the work even more important to create. And to those that booked me time and time again, it’s been a joy. I’m so Proud of everything we created, we stood for and we have coming up. It’s going to be another amazing year ahead.

Something I don’t talk enough about on here are my kids portfolio/ headshot shoots that I do every month. I’m so blessed...
01/14/2025

Something I don’t talk enough about on here are my kids portfolio/ headshot shoots that I do every month. I’m so blessed to have a steady stream of industry and non industry kiddos book in for new images in the studio and I absolutely love it. These shoots are about having that 1-1 with the kids, removing all the noise of a big crew and client and just getting to play and create. It’s about me unlocking their personalities and finding a way to make them shine for who they are.
I think my favourite is when kids that have never been in the industry are ‘just seeing how it goes’ and end up flourishing and shining with so much personality and sparkle that 6 months later they’re not only booked with a brand new agent but also booked on an international campaign.
These images are about capturing a moment in time but also about creating portfolios for kids that are then used to open up possibilities.

I was watching a new show on Netflix last night and I basically spent the whole of the first episode pausing and rewindi...
01/13/2025

I was watching a new show on Netflix last night and I basically spent the whole of the first episode pausing and rewinding to see if I’d imagined it or if I was right and yet another actor/actress had a disability or visual difference. The inclusion was so subtle, wasn’t celebrated or made into the main storyline and was just normalized in a way that got me googling who had worked on it. It was fantastic, even down the the camera angles.

Seeing something like that is so exciting and makes me so passionate about pushing for more people to explore ways to increase representation in whatever they’re creating. This year I want to continue to create work that challenges and changes peoples unconscious bias. Why don’t we see people with albinism in international beauty campaigns that show joy and natural beauty? This body of work is part of an ongoing series that I hope might change peoples perceptions of how to cast people with albinism into their projects.

Photographed in London after partnering with the wonderful team at to make this happen.
⁠
Huge thanks to the whole team for making this happen.
⁠
Photographer: ⁠
Styling ⁠
Hair & Make Up .makeupartist⁠
Access Coordinator ⁠
⁠
Zebedee models:⁠

Shem 
Christelle ⁠
Sarah .salmean⁠
Raya ⁠
Elijah ⁠
Alistair 

A few more from an ongoing project celebrating individuals with albinism. I think this first shot of baby Raya might be ...
01/09/2025

A few more from an ongoing project celebrating individuals with albinism. I think this first shot of baby Raya might be my favourite from the project so far. This project was created after conversations I had with people with albinism that spoke about how the industry tends to cast them in the same way, with lots of white backgrounds, white clothing and with an almost otherworldly feel to the images. This body of work is aimed at fighting that stereotype and showing each person for who they are. One person told me ‘I want to fight against the stereotypes, I want people to see us just the way we are: as a normal human being showing our natural beauty.’

Photographed in London after partnering with the wonderful team at to make this happen.
⁠
Huge thanks to the whole team for making this happen.
⁠
Photographer: ⁠
Styling ⁠
Hair & Make Up .makeupartist⁠
Access Coordinator ⁠
⁠
Zebedee models:⁠

Shem ⁠
Christelle ⁠
Sarah .salmean⁠
Raya ⁠
Elijah ⁠
Alistair 

An ongoing project celebrating people with albinism. Last year I partnered with the wonderful team at in London to star...
01/08/2025

An ongoing project celebrating people with albinism. Last year I partnered with the wonderful team at in London to start a body of work that I’m so excited to continue to grow and take with me to all the different countries and cities I work in. After speaking with people with albinism about what they’d like to see change in the industry, the common response was that albinism looks different for everyone and yet the industry doesn’t represent that. The overwhelming response was a push for bolder colours not just white on white, more joy and showing how everybody with albinism is unique.
⁠
Huge thanks to the whole team for making this happen.
⁠
Photographer: ⁠
Styling ⁠
Hair & Make Up .makeupartist⁠
Access Coordinator ⁠
⁠
Zebedee models:⁠

Shem ⁠
Christelle ⁠
Sarah .salmean⁠
Raya ⁠
Elijah ⁠
Alistair 

Excited to be back in London in a few months time to shoot at .spaces . Love this one of ! Thanks for  for pulling the ...
04/12/2024

Excited to be back in London in a few months time to shoot at .spaces . Love this one of !

Thanks for  for pulling the logistics of this together.
makeupartist on hair and make up
 on assiststudios on styling
Shot @ .spaces

                     

Lifestyle | Fashion | PortraitsLast post of this trio looking back at 2023 and how my work sat under 3 headings this yea...
12/14/2023

Lifestyle | Fashion | Portraits

Last post of this trio looking back at 2023 and how my work sat under 3 headings this year; Lifestyle, Fashion & Portraits.

Portrait sessions for me are such a joy, it’s a chance to quiet out all the noise of a team and just focus on 1-1. It’s a chance to unlock the personalities, celebrate each person for who they are and hopefully show others how incredible the little human sitting in front of me really is. I got named in Vancouvers Best Portrait Photographers this year and it’s made me just so grateful that I’ve had the chance to work with so so many beautiful faces and inspiring kids.

Lifestyle | Fashion | PortraitsIf you saw my previous post, I’m sending out my end of year mailer this week and kept on ...
12/13/2023

Lifestyle | Fashion | Portraits

If you saw my previous post, I’m sending out my end of year mailer this week and kept on coming back to these 3 main focuses. Lifestyle, Fashion & Portraits.

My lifestyle work with organisations, foundations and people that are actively making a change in the world make up such a key part of the work I love. I was trying to think about why I love it and realised that it allows me to highlight the amazing people and the kindness that exists in this world. (Perhaps this is becoming a bigger focus in my work because of the sadness in so many parts of the world right now.) It’s the subtle bits like the connection between people, that adapted classroom that allows for laughter and the kindness that radiates from those who work for these organisations. I’ve spoken about the keywords that have come out of portfolio reviews and calls with photo consultants before, but alongside my lifestyle work came words like ‘empathy,’ ‘understanding,’ ‘narrative’ and ‘kindness.’ Looking back on the lifestyle work I’ve photographed over the last year I’ve realised these keywords not only reflect my approach but also cover the kind of client I love to work with. This was meant to be a bit of a recap for 2023 but actually perhaps it’s more about looking at who I want to be photographing for in 2024.

Lifestyle | Fashion | PortraitsI’m sending out my end of year mailer this week and kept on coming back to these 3 main f...
12/13/2023

Lifestyle | Fashion | Portraits

I’m sending out my end of year mailer this week and kept on coming back to these 3 main focuses. Lifestyle, Fashion & Portraits. It seems as if they’re 3 separate sections of my work yet they seem to blend and overlap in so many ways.

As I was selecting some of my fashion work to post, I kept on coming back to these ones. I did a number of portfolio reviews this year and we kept on coming back to the words like ‘playful,’ ‘colourful,’ ‘joy’ and of course ‘inclusion.’ I’ve realised it’s the kids fashion work that allows me to push for increased representation within the commercial photography space and that part of it lights a fire within me to push harder and harder to produce quality work that gets noticed. It allows me to show other brands, photographers, casting directors and industry contacts what is possible when hiring disabled talent and it excites me so much to be a part of that change.

It’s been so fun working with The Kindred Studio over the last year on multiple collections. It was almost impossible to...
09/29/2023

It’s been so fun working with The Kindred Studio over the last year on multiple collections. It was almost impossible to choose just a handful to share on the grid.

I was chatting with an agency the other day about a shoot we have coming up and I was asked about my requirements for pulling off something similar to these shots. There’s so much I could write about the answer to that but one of the most important parts is creating a space for models (especially kiddos) that allows them to flourish. To allow for movement and relaxed shots we pulled the lights back further than we needed to, we taped everything down to almost indestructible, used a backdrop that wouldn’t get easily damaged and allowed the models to move and be themselves.

Thanks to for all your magic on every collection and to your wonderful team .ca for being an endless delight to work with. Also to the amazing on assist.

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