ON SALE NOWINSTAGRAMWITHYOURSELFMARKETINGIf you’re still not convinced by Instagram as a
marketing tool, the recent relaxation of image
formatting rules might persuade you...NOVEMBER 2015 _ PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY _ 75WEtown, but the marketplace has changed dramatically over t he past 24 mont hs to t he poi nt where we on ly used to work f rom a n apa r t ment t hat we have i n
now only see a couple of clients each year face-to-face – we usually speak to them on Skype now – so it seemed daft to run an apartment just for seeing
clients. So we decided to let the apartment and set up a n of fice at home i n October last yea r. We completely gutted the space, took out the
ceiling and put some Velux roof windows in. They’re designed so that we can completely black out the office or have diffused daylight streaming in. My wife
Sarah, who is also a photographer, needs the daylight for album work and for assessing prints. I need the darkness for working on images.
when the room is blacked out. This ensures our image editing is incredibly consistent, no matter when A Solux lamp provides daylight-balanced light for
pictures are being worked on throughout the year.The windows are designed to allow for^1
the room to be blacked out, or for the lighting to be diffused 2
When the room is blacked out, the Solux lamp gives daylight-balanced light
The white cupboards have been altered to fit^3
all the papers, album leaves, overlays, mats and inks. Hiding all the
messy bits makes for a better working spaceWe use original Apple Cinema displays. They’re^4
quite old, but they match our printer better than any other monitors 5
I’ve got a 30-inch monitor connected to a MacBook Pro. I use Lightroom a lot, which
is very much a one-monitor program 6
Because Sarah does other things, such as album designs,
marketing and social media, she prefers to use a two-monitor setupMY SPACE
Top wedding photographer around his workspace in the North of EnglandJeff Ascough guides us1
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The white cupboards hold everything regarding work – papers, album leaves, overlays, mats, inks. It’s sor t of bespoke – it was boug ht of f-t he - shelf,
but we had a joiner come in to do some alterations to make sure it fitted and worked. We wanted to have everything hidden so that we had a clear space to
work in and, because the office is still part of our home, we wanted to avoid work-related stuff spilling out into our private lives.
displays. All three of the monitors are quite old now, but they work very well, and are very closely matched We’re still using the original Apple Cinema
with our printer. If it’s right on the screen, we know that it will look fantastic from the printer.We use the large-format printer for all of our
printing. This is mainly wedding album photographs and wall pictures for our clients. We don’t print anything under 9x6, and we don’t print anything on
sta nda rd photog raph ic paper ; it’s all on fi ne -a r t papers. For an average wedding we do about six met res of pr i nt i ng, so mu lt iply t hat by 20, plus ot her
bits and pieces, and we use up to around 140m of paper a year. Having the ability to print our own work was always a priority for us and working out the best
place for installing quite a large piece of gear was a bit of a headache initially – it has its own room!We don’t have any wedding pictures on the walls;
we look at wedding photographs all day so it is good to have something different in our space. The atmosphere is really important because we spend
so much t i me i n ou r of fice ; lit t le t h i ng s like bei ng able to stream Spotify music add to the enjoyment of working from here. It’s turned out far better than
I ever imagined it would. http://www.jeffascough.comThe pictures on the walls are by other^7
photographers. We’ve got one of Antonin Kratochvil’s pictures
up, and some Tony Ray-Jones printsIn 2012 I was in the South 8
of France mentoring Don McCullin for a film project on his first steps into digital capture. The
highlight was seeing his face when I showed him his first inkjet prints 9
We print around 140 metres of paper a year, so the 24-inch large-
format printer is an important fixture in our space67
58992 PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY NOVEMBER 2015 NOVEMBER 2015 PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY 93
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