I love shooting portraits in new locations around London, and recently photographed Roma Agrawal, aka Roma the Engineer, for a magazine feature in Chancery Coffee on Chancery Lane.
Roma featured in this year’s M & S ‘Leading Ladies’ campaign, and was photographed by none other than Annie Leibovitz, so it was fascinating to hear about the shoot!
Chancery Coffee is a small but perfectly formed cafe with exposed brick walls and striking red furniture, making it a great backdrop for the shoot. I supplemented the ambient light with with
modified portable flash to ensure the portraits were well-lit, but was careful to balance the two as I didn’t want to kill the shafts of sunlight hitting the wall.
Thanks to Roma for her time and to the staff at Chancery Coffee for being so accommodating – I’d highly recommend popping in for a caffeine hit if you’re in the area!
Here’s how the featured turned out.
The wall behind the counter was vivid, and I thought this would work well for a double page spread.
In addition to a headshot style portrait, I also wanted to try something different, so photographed Roma through the cafe’s window.
The following portrait was used for the front cover.