A studio day has a shape we keep to. It exists so that the hours in the middle, the ones with a person in front of the camera, feel unhurried. Everything either side is preparation and tidying up.
Morning: setting the room
We open at eight and start with the blinds. The north window carries the room until early afternoon, so the backdrop goes up facing it and the chair sits at an angle that keeps one side of the face in shade. Floors get swept, cables get taped down, and the kettle goes on.
Mid-morning: the first session
People arrive, hang a coat, and we talk for a while before anything is photographed. Clothes get laid out in the order we will work through them. The first frames are test frames and we say so, which takes the weight out of them.
Middle of the day: the long light
Around noon the window goes flat and even, which suits headshots and anything that needs to match across a set of people. Teams get booked into this window because it holds steady for hours and everybody ends up lit the same way.
Afternoon: the interesting hour
By four the light has moved across the floor and gone warm. This is when we shoot the looser frames, the ones with shadow in them. If a session runs long, it runs long here.
Evening: backing up and looking
Cards come off to two drives before anything else. Then we sit with the day's frames for twenty minutes without touching them, marking what stopped us. The edit begins the next morning, and the gallery goes out within the fortnight.
