Available light
A sodium lamp at 300 metres, a north window in February, the reflected wall of a stairwell. I meter for the shadow and let the highlight bloom rather than clipping the face into a poster.
Metered for shadow · halation kept02 — Point of view
Light is the only thing I direct
No strobes stacked against a window, no borrowed mood. I find the hour, arrange the conditions, and then wait for the person or the object to forget I am there.
Waiting
Most sittings run three hours and produce four usable frames. The first hour is conversation and nothing else; the camera stays on the table until the room settles. What looks like patience is really scheduling — I book the light, not the day.
Three hours · four framesSequence
A single photograph is an opinion; six in order is an argument. I edit on a physical contact sheet and deliver in runs — an opening frame, a turn, a close — so a story survives being laid out by someone else.
Edited in runs of six03 — Contact sheet
Three rolls, in order
Selected bodies of work. Each one began as a standing appointment with a particular kind of light and finished as a sequence.
Scroll the sheet · arrow keys work when the rail is focused
Frame 01 / 03
07 · 12A
Portraits · night work
Sodium Hours
Eleven portraits made between 10pm and 2am under street lighting, one sitter a week for a winter. Nobody was posed. I asked each person to stand where they usually stand and then waited for the lamp to warm through its full cycle — the colour shifts by about 400K as it does, and faces shift with it.
- Discipline
- Portrait sequence
- Light
- Street sodium, no fill
- Format
- 6×7, 400 pushed one stop
- Frames kept
- 11 of 214
Frame notes
Frame 12A is the one I open the sequence with: the sitter half-turned, the lamp flaring wide open at f/2. The halation around the bulb is optical, not added — an unmasked film base doing what it does when you overexpose a point source by four stops.
11 · 04
Editorial · documentary
The Long Table
One kitchen, every Sunday from November to March. The commission was a single opening image; I argued for a sequence instead, because the story was the repetition — the same four plates, the same shuttered window, a different set of hands each week as the family grew and thinned.
- Discipline
- Editorial sequence
- Light
- Shuttered window, 14:40
- Format
- 35mm, tripod at 1⁄15
- Frames kept
- 18, laid out in runs of six
Frame notes
The shutter bands move about nine centimetres across the table between the first and last Sunday. That drift is the clock of the piece, so the edit is ordered by light position rather than by date.
03 · 27
Still life · studio
Dry Goods
Objects that outlive the people who bought them: a vinegar bottle, a chipped bowl, one egg. Shot on a single shelf over six weeks with two sources — a bare tungsten bulb and whatever the north window was doing — and never rearranged between visits. The dust is part of the record.
- Discipline
- Still life
- Light
- Tungsten + north window
- Format
- 4×5, f/11 at 1⁄8
- Frames kept
- 9, one per object per pass
Frame notes
Everything sits on the same shelf mark, so the shadows lengthen frame to frame as the weeks go on. Printed small — around 18cm — because the objects are small and the pictures lie when they are big.
04 — Commission paths
Three ways to work together
Different commissions need different amounts of waiting. These are the three shapes the studio takes, described by how a day actually runs.
Path 01
Portrait sitting
One person, one location, one window of light chosen in advance. We talk for the first hour with the camera on the table. I shoot in three short runs as the light drops, and stop when it goes.
Best for authors, makers, founders and anyone who dislikes being photographed. Suitable for press use, book jackets and profile features.
- Half day
- Location scouted first
- Sequence of 6 edits
- Press + print files
Path 02
Editorial assignment
A story shot over several visits, delivered as an ordered run rather than a hero frame and filler. I work from the brief but bring a proposed sequence back with the edit, including the frames I think should open and close the piece.
Best for features, long-form reporting, annual reports with a spine, and anything where repetition is the subject.
- Multi-visit
- Proposed sequence
- Captions written with the edit
- Layout notes for the desk
Path 03
Catalogue & campaign
Studio still life and product work under the same rules as the personal pictures: mixed available sources, hard honest shadows, no retouched vacuum. Tests first, then a shoot list agreed frame by frame so nothing is invented on the day.
Best for makers, independent labels, furniture, ceramics, food and publishers who want a look that survives being printed small.
- Test day included
- Agreed shot list
- Consistent light across a range
- Print + web exports
05 — Process log
Brief to edit, frame by frame
The same six steps run on every commission, whether it is one portrait or a winter of Sundays. Nothing here is billed as a surprise.
Frame 01
Reading the brief
A conversation, then a written page back from me: what the pictures are for, where they will be seen, how many are genuinely needed, and which parts of the idea will not survive real light. If the brief wants something I cannot make honestly, I say so here rather than at the edit.
Frame 02
The light walk
I visit the location at the hour we intend to shoot, not at a convenient hour. Meter readings, a compass bearing, and a note of what the walls are doing with the light. Half the decisions for a sitting are made on this walk.
Frame 03
The sitting
Short runs with long gaps. People are photographed in the second half of a session, once the novelty of being looked at has worn off; objects are photographed in the first half, before the light moves off the shelf.
Frame 04
Contact sheet
Everything gets printed small and laid out flat. I mark with a chinagraph pencil, not a mouse, because scale changes judgement. You see this sheet — including the frames I have crossed out — so the edit is a shared decision.
Frame 05
Selection & sequence
The chosen frames are ordered into runs with an opening, a turn and a close. Captions are written at this stage, while the day is still specific — what the light was, who was there, what had just happened in the room.
Frame 06
Delivery
Retouched to the level of a good darkroom print and no further: dust, dodging, burning, and grade. Files come as print-ready masters with web exports, a caption sheet, and the sequence order written down so a layout can be rebuilt later.
06 — Contact
Tell me what the light is doing
The useful first message is not a brief. It is the room, the month, the hour you are free, and one picture you keep coming back to. From that I can tell you whether there is a photograph in it and which of the three paths it belongs to.
The studio takes a small number of commissions a season so that waiting stays possible. If the answer is that someone else should shoot it, I will say that too.
Studio note This template ships without a contact endpoint on purpose. Add the studio's own address, phone or booking route here before publishing — no form, tracker or third-party service is wired into this page.
Working hours Sittings are scheduled around light, so hours move with the season. Enquiries are read once a day; replies take up to three working days during a shoot week.