East London
Shoreditch is where I’m based, so East London jobs rarely start with a drive. Most days it is a short walk to a shoot in Hackney or Bethnal Green. This is where I do most of my branding and product work: start-ups on Old Street want their office looking lived-in rather than staged, and exposed brick with a 35mm lens does that without much effort from me.
Canary Wharf is the opposite job entirely, corporate headshots and conference photography inside glass towers where security passes take longer than the shoot itself. Stratford brings event and family work around the Olympic Park. I would rather book photography in East London for a weekday morning than a Friday evening, when Shoreditch High Street turns into a car park.
Central London
The City, Soho, Mayfair, Covent Garden and Westminster each want something different from a camera. The City wants clean, formal corporate photography before 9am, while the building is still quiet enough for a tripod in the lobby. Soho and Covent Garden mean restaurant and hospitality work in tight rooms and low light, a fast 35mm and flash bounced off a low ceiling more often than not.
Mayfair jobs tend to be product photography for smaller retail brands, shot in daylight through big windows rather than trucked-in lighting. Westminster is mostly events: conferences, receptions, the odd wedding reception in a hotel with strict rules about flash during speeches. Whatever the postcode, photography in Central London means working around tourists, traffic wardens and buildings that shut their loading bays by 10am.
North London
Islington and Camden are where most of my North London bookings come from: social media content for independent shops, headshots for people who work in Angel and do not want a backdrop that screams corporate. Highgate and Hampstead are a different kind of job, family portraits in Victorian houses with high ceilings and not much floor space, where a fast 35mm earns its keep more than a zoom does.
Hampstead Heath itself is a favourite for engagement shoots when the light cooperates, which in September means finishing before 7pm. Bookings for photography in North London tend to come further in advance than East London ones. Residents plan; passing trade doesn’t really exist up here.
South London
Brixton and Peckham bring the same energy as Shoreditch did a few years back, independent restaurants and small brands wanting content that does not look like a chain shot it. Clapham is mostly headshots and corporate work for people commuting into the City who’d rather not cross the river for a session.
Greenwich and Dulwich are quieter and more residential: family photography, the odd newborn shoot in a period flat where I have learned to ask about lift access before I book the slot. South of the river has fewer venues with their own AV teams, so photography in South London often means bringing my own lighting rather than relying on what is already there.
West London
Kensington and Chelsea are where the interiors and architecture bookings cluster, period conversions with cornicing worth photographing properly, and owners who want the flat to look larger than a wide-angle lens can honestly make it look. Notting Hill work leans towards branding and portrait photography, often for people in the creative industries who already have opinions about how they want to be lit.
Fulham and Richmond bring family and newborn work, and more outdoor space than anywhere else on this list, which changes how I shoot: more available light, less bounced flash. Jobs booked as photography in West London usually mean a longer drive than East or Central, so I build that into the timing rather than the price.
Getting to you: travel, parking and the charges
The Congestion Charge runs 7am to 6pm on weekdays and covers most of Central London and the City. ULEZ covers a much wider area, most of Greater London within the North and South Circular. Both are absorbed into my quote rather than added as a surprise line later, a decision I made after one too many clients queried a bill.
Parking is realistic in most of the outer boroughs and close to impossible in the City, Soho and much of Westminster, where loading bays are the best you will get and even those have time limits. For those jobs I travel by tube with kit in a backpack rather than fight for a space I won’t find.
A 9am booking in the City needs me leaving Shoreditch by 7.30am to clear security and set up; a 9am booking in Dulwich needs a car and a later start, because there is nowhere to lock a camera bag on a station platform for an hour.
Plenty of photographers quote a flat call-out fee regardless of postcode. I don’t think that’s honest: a City job and a Zone 6 job cost me differently in time, so I quote every service I offer the same way, travel inside the M25 included, travel outside it quoted once I know where and when.
Outside London
Weddings and larger events take me into Surrey, Essex, Kent and Hertfordshire regularly, and further afield for the right venue. These are quoted individually once I have the venue and the day, based on mileage and whether an overnight stay beats two lots of driving in a single day, usually the case anywhere past Guildford, Colchester or Tunbridge Wells if coverage starts before midday.
For a small event forty miles outside London, though, I sometimes say plainly that a good local photographer will save you the travel cost and probably do just as well. I’d rather lose a booking than take one that does not suit the client. See prices, with travel included for what is covered and what is quoted separately.
Send me the postcode and the date and I’ll tell you plainly whether the job is straightforward or needs a call first. Expect a reply within one working day, every time.