Shoreditch venues and what they’re like to shoot in
Most of what I shoot near the studio is corporate work: launches, awards, staff parties and the odd charity fundraiser. Village Underground pairs bare brick with two decommissioned Tube carriages on the roof, and the yard up there holds usable ambient light until sunset before it needs flash. The Curtain’s members’ rooms have a low black ceiling that kills bounced flash outright, so I go direct and diffused there instead.
Protein Studios loses its daylight around 4pm because the upstairs windows face north-east. Netil360’s courtyard holds good light until about 3pm, then it turns artificial. The Old Truman Brewery’s Vaults, XOYO and Ace Hotel’s rooftop cover the rest of what gets booked here, each with its own quirks I scout beforehand.
This is event photography from £350 applied to rooms I already know. Being local also means I cover wider East London coverage without adding travel time, and recent work across London shows the range.
What you get
Three hours starts at £350. A full evening, reception through to last orders, runs £600 to £850 depending on venue size and whether a second photographer is needed. Same-night editing is included at every level, not charged as an extra.
| Booking | Hours | What it covers | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 3 hours | One photographer, full edited gallery | £350 |
| Full evening | 5–8 hours | Reception through to last orders | £600–£850 |
| Second photographer | Any length | Stage and floor covered at once | +£250 |
| Same-night edit | Included | 20–30 images within two hours of leaving | included |
What changes the price is hours booked and whether a second photographer is needed, not the venue’s postcode. See full pricing across every service for how this compares with everything else I shoot.
Same-night delivery
Twenty to thirty edited images land within two hours of me leaving the venue, usually culled and colour-corrected on a laptop in a quiet corner or on the Overground home. The full gallery follows within 48 hours.
A photograph posted at 10pm gets shared while people are still at the party. The same photograph posted the following Thursday gets a fraction of that reach, because the moment has already passed. I’d argue in-house teams undervalue same-night delivery, treating it as a nice extra rather than the whole point.
It needs a laptop, a mobile hotspot and fifteen minutes I can sit still in. It needs one thing from the client: someone who can tell me where that first set should go.
Lighting a warehouse or an arch
Industrial rooms have height, brick and, past about 4pm, almost no usable daylight. A 24-70 covers the room itself; a 70-200 stays on the second body for anything further back. Neither lens helps once the light has gone, and in October that can mean half past four.
Where a room has a low ceiling, I bounce flash off it so it reads as ordinary room light. Where the ceiling is too high or black, I go direct and diffused and accept some frames will look obviously lit. A fast 35mm handles the moments flash would ruin: a toast lit only by string lights, a speech caught from the back of a dark room.
What I need before the night
A shoot without a running order routinely loses its first thirty minutes to me guessing what matters instead of shooting it. Send me:
- A running order with times, rather than a rough agenda
- The three or four people who must be photographed, by name
- A contact on their mobile I can reach mid-event
- Any guests who must not appear in shots, for any reason
That contact matters. Plans change on the night, a speech moves or a guest arrives late, and I need someone who can tell me in real time rather than finding out once the gallery has gone out.
When you don’t need a photographer
A forty-person internal drinks with everybody already posting from their own phones probably doesn’t need me there. If nobody outside the company will see the photos and the point is just a good evening, phones already do that job well enough.
Where it is worth the money: anything going on a website, a press release or next year’s marketing, and anything built round a stage, a speaker or a moment that won’t happen twice. Ask first if unsure, and I’ll say so plainly when it isn’t worth it.
Get in touch and tell me the date and the postcode. I’ll reply within one working day with availability and a price.