Here are a few favourite portraits we photographed in the grounds of Thrive. Autumn is an interesting time for portrait photography outside. When the sun is out this time of year it can be very contrasty with harsh shadows. I generally prefer my portraits to be lit with a softer, more flattering light so we sought some shaded areas of the garden for the photography. The autumn colours are of course a bonus at this time of year.

The course was run by Raymond Blanc himself and it was really interesting to photograph. Here’s a few favourites from the day.

The beautiful hotel and restaurant.

Some pictures from the kitchen. The small cups contain different concentrations of salt to help train the chef’s awareness of salt as an ingredient.

Here’s a portrait photoograph of Raymonde Blanc that I shot after the session in the kitchen.

Here are a couple of favourites from the shoot.

The natural lighting, casual clothing, great expression and relaxed posing all help to convey a positive image for Chris. Rather than a studio backdrop, the photograph was shot in an office to strengthen the ‘real life’ impression of the headshot photograph.

If you are interested, you can view all the images from this short portrait session by clicking here.

If you are interested in our brand of relaxed business photography, please call 0118 9885088 or email.

I had the pleasure of photographing close up magician Rob James recently. Rob’s one of the country’s leading magicians and has worked all over the world at weddings, corporate events and parties. Hyperbole aside, he performs incredible things at his fingertips right in front of you that will have you doubting your senses.

Here we shot some studio portraits using natural light. There are subtle differences in artificial photographic lighting and the light that enters a room naturally. It can be trickier to use but gives a result I really like for business portraits. We took the opposite tack with the exterior shots and used supplementary location lighting to create a slightly edgy, unreal look to some of the images which I think works really well.

Here are a few favourite images from his business portrait session.

Here are a few favourites from the shoot.

To keep a light, flexible feel to the pictures we used an off white background which can give a slightly less stark look than a pure white backdrop. It also has the advantage that white clothing doesn’t blend as much with the background and retains a little separation.

Quite often due the availability of personnel, we are working to a tight timescale. In this case we had around 45 seconds per person (!) which isn’t a lot of time to shoot a photographic portrait. One thing we always do is make sure everything is set up before the subject arrives. Lighting and camera settings are standardised so the time taken is minimised. Another little time saver is a piece of tape on the floor showing our subjects exactly where to stand.

These measures ensure that we can shoot a significant amount of headshots for your website, brochure or other marketing materials in a surprisingly short time. If you have a project in mind, please drop us a line for further details.

A relaxed and approachable impression was essential to the feel of the pictures. Here’s a few favourite images from the portrait session.