What commercial photography covers
“Commercial photography” is the umbrella term for six kinds of work I shoot regularly, and this page is the parent of all of them. If you already know which one you need, the link takes you straight to the page with full detail and pricing.
Product and ecommerce
Clean shots for a website, a marketplace listing or a catalogue: product photography from £300 covers packshots, lifestyle sets and the retouching a listing actually needs.
Food and hospitality
Menus, delivery apps and press packs need images that make food look like food, shot fast before it goes cold. See food photography from £400 for the detail.
Interiors and property for brands
Showrooms, offices and hospitality interiors shot for marketing rather than a sale: interior photography from £350, usually with a tilt-shift lens to keep verticals straight.
Fashion and on-model
Lookbooks, ecommerce model shots and campaign stills, priced and covered in full further down this page.
Advertising and campaign
Fewer final images, far more setup: casting, styling, art direction and a longer approval chain than any other commercial job.
Corporate and people
Staff portraits, office culture shots and leadership images for a report or a website, usually booked alongside a headshot session.
Commercial photography prices and day rates
A half day starts at £350. A full day runs £650 to £900, depending on the setup and how many finished images you need. Below is how that breaks down; for every other service on the site see full pricing across every service.
| Booking | What it covers | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Half day | Up to 4 hours, one location, standard licence | £350 |
| Full day | Up to 8 hours, multiple setups | £650–£900 |
| Multi-day campaign | Day rate x number of days, agreed before booking | Quoted |
| Agency rate | Day rate plus agency terms and approval rounds | Quoted |
| Second shooter / assistant | Added when a brief needs an extra pair of hands | Quoted at booking |
| Studio hire | When a shoot needs a backdrop rather than a location | £45/hour |
| Extended licence | Paid media, out-of-home or third-party use | Quoted against usage |
| Buyout | Full exclusivity, no usage restriction | Quoted |
A “day” means my time on site, not the travel either side of it. If a shoot overruns because the space was not ready, that’s on me. If it overruns because the brief changed halfway through, we agree an extra half day on the spot instead of arguing about it afterwards. For how any photographer actually builds a day rate, how a photographer’s day rate works covers the mechanics.
Usage rights and licensing — read this before you brief
This is the section most competitors skip, and it is the one that causes the arguments. A standard licence, included in the day rate, covers your own channels indefinitely: your website, your social accounts, your printed brochure. It doesn’t cover paid media.
A standard licence does not cover:
- Paid media: running the images as an ad, boosted post or PPC creative
- Out-of-home advertising, from a bus stop to a billboard
- A third-party supplier using the images for their own marketing
- Resale or licensing the photograph on to another brand
Each of those is usage I quote separately, once I know the media plan.
A buyout costs more than the shoot itself because you are not paying for my time on the day; you’re paying to remove every restriction on how the images get used, by anyone, for good. Most brands do not need one. Most need a standard licence and perhaps six months of paid social use, which is a smaller add-on.
I’d rather raise licensing at the enquiry stage than after delivery. A photographer who doesn’t mention usage before the shoot will mention it after, usually once you have already spent the media budget, and that conversation is worse for both of us. For the legal detail, how image usage rights work in the UK goes further than I can here.
Working with agencies
Most agency bookings arrive with a brief, a mood board and a shot list, which is the easiest way for me to quote accurately. I need to know how many finished images you want, where they will run, and who signs off before it is final.
Art direction on the day is normal and welcome; I would rather shoot to somebody else’s reference than guess. Approval rounds slow a shoot down more than anything else, so build time for them into the schedule rather than the shot list itself.
One thing I would push back on: the common advice to have the client attend every shoot “just in case.” It rarely changes the outcome, costs someone a full day, and usually means more people making decisions on set than the brief needs. Remote approval by gallery link works for most bookings.
To send with an enquiry:
- The shot list or a rough idea of what you need
- Where the images will be used, and for how long
- Your deadline and any fixed dates
- Whether anyone needs to attend and approve on set
Send those four and I’ll usually quote within one working day.
Advertising and campaign work
Advertising work looks like less: often five or six final images against forty for a product catalogue. It shoots like more, with casting, styling, a set build and an approval chain that runs through several people before anything ships.
Fashion photography from £450 covers on-model work when a campaign needs it, from lookbook stills to full advertising sets. Casting is usually the client’s call, though I can point you towards agencies and models I have worked with before if you are starting from nothing.
Any shoot involving a model needs a signed release before the image goes anywhere near a media plan, and it is worth sorting well before the shoot day rather than scrambling for signatures on set. If you are not sure whether yours applies, when you need a model release explains it in full.
For budgets, timelines and how a typical campaign schedule runs in this city, advertising photography in London goes into more depth than fits here.
Commercial photography London: working with brands across the city
The studio’s in Shoreditch, EC2A, and I shoot on location anywhere inside the M25: a Hackney Wick warehouse, a Fitzrovia showroom, a Park Royal distribution unit, whatever the brief calls for. Travel anywhere in London is built into the day rate, not billed separately afterwards.
Congestion Charge and ULEZ are both included in the day rate you are quoted, not added as a surprise afterwards. Parking is usually the harder problem: a loading bay booked ahead of a product or interiors shoot saves more time than anything else I can control on the day.
For examples of finished work across product, food, interiors and brand campaigns, see commercial work for London brands.
When you need a specialist instead
I would rather say this than take on a booking that isn’t right for me. A jewellery catalogue needs a macro specialist with a proper lightbox and years spent keeping reflections out of tiny facets; that is not a generalist’s job, mine included.
A car needs a studio built with the floor space and lighting rig for it, which mine is not. Large-scale food styling for a national campaign usually wants a stylist and photographer who work together every week, not for a single booking.
If your brief is one of these, ask whoever you are considering what they shoot most weeks, and ask to see three recent jobs in that exact category rather than the best image they have ever taken.
Tell me what the images are for and where they’ll run, and I’ll come back with a day rate the same working day. Send me the brief and the intended usage and I’ll confirm a date once I have both.