Our first blog for the studio

Just started this blog for the studio, nearly August and things are picking up a bit after a quiet couple of months. We have loads of stuff planned for the rest of the year, including a load of different photographic courses and workshops. We are also looking for model wanting to do studio days, and photographers and models interested in syndicating their images. if you are interested please give me a call

The Works Studio is one of East Anglia’s largest hire studios, a fully self contained photographic facility with much more to offer than just a large white studio area, we have a client meeting rooms and a large multi-purpose room, that can also double up as two more studio areas. The studio is available for hire to professional and amateur users alike, whether you are a model, photographer, designer or make-up artist The Works is the perfect place to work. Hire charges start at £25 per/hour, with discounts for students and longer bookings.

The Studio area measures 30foot x 36foot with a ceiling height of 20 foot, (This is no converted spare room or garden shed!) with a 16foot wide x 10foot high infinity cove providing nearly three times more space than the average colorama backdrop studio.
Our studio is quite different from many studios that have been painted plain white. All white studios are great for some types of photography such as hi-key work, but it is virtually impossible to shoot lo-key in one. Whilst hi and lo key lighting can easily be achieved in our studio. The same cannot be said for creating lo-key, lighting with hard shadows in an all white studio. Quite simply, the light gets reflected off all the walls and kills any shadows. At the Works studio we have carefully created the perfect balance of white infinity cove, surrounded with dark walls and ceiling to allow shadows to be created and controlled.

The studio is a converted 1930’s factory and we have left much of the old factory ‘feel’ in the building, we have not replaced the rather distressed old wood flooring with shiny laminate, and the walls have been kept in their original industrial condition, when you first come in to the studio you may feel the building a slightly dilapidated compared to the shiny new studios build in modern factory units, but as soon as you start to be creative the building comes to life. We are a professional studio and do not have ‘room sets’, if you want to shoot in a room set why not just use a real room! If you are looking for an amateur glamour studio The Works is probably not for you, however if you are a creative photographer looking for total control of your lighting, then we feel we are the best studio around, we don’t just have big soft boxes, we also have specialist lighting such as 70cm beauty dishes with honey combs, and Quadmatic spotlights that can be fitted with gobos to create silhouettes and shadows, we have the latest Bowens ring flash pro. Or if you prefer we have a set of five 800w Photo Beard Redhead tungsten lights, and a RRB 1Kw broad light, ideal for recreating the 1950’s feel, from before the days of studio flash. If we were to liken our studio to anything we would say it’s more like something from the film ‘Blow Up’ than ‘America’s next top model'
We understand many of our customers also want to shoot on colour backgrounds, so if it's a colorama background you require we also have them, our system is fitted to our balcony allowing rolls to be changes safely and easily at waist height, (no going up ladders in this studio) at 8feet high the balcony overlooks the infinity cove so can be used to shoot down on to the cove area. Underneath the balcony is a fully equipped model's changing room with four make-up stations and the latest Iwata airbrush makeup system. The studio is all on one level with no steps and has good accessibility through double doors from our large car park making it easy to unload heavy equipment or props directly in to the studio. We have gone a long way to making all our facilities wheel chair friendly and we welcome disabled visitors.