Assorted | Sarah Deane Photography Studio Newcastle

YMCA’s Urban Mushrooms Product Photography

10 July 2020/0 Comments/in Assorted, Commercial, food and drink photography /by Sarah Deane

Growing For Good

You may remember seeing some interesting pictures of mushroom kits on my social media just before lockdown, it was a really fun and dynamic commission by YMCA Newcastle’s Calvin Bateson. Calvin is Marketing Communications Officer at YMCA Newcastle and he got in touch with me needing product photography at my studio in Newcastle for the Urban Mushroom project. Urban Mushrooms pioneers ethical and sustainable food production and provides jobs and training to disadvantaged young local people thanks to investment from Sage Foundation and Social Investment Business Group. Production was booming before lockdown and the team needed updated imagery for their website.

The enterprise has been developing it’s tried-and-tested approach to urban farming here in Newcastle with used coffee grounds to produce new, speciality hot pink oyster mushrooms to join their pearl-grey mushrooms in the fresh cap and grow-at-home kit product range. They’re also developing dried mushroom products along with a line of speciality powders and salts. Urban Mushrooms are also supplying ‘chog’ (or stalks) of the oyster mushrooms to Field and Forrest- a producer of vegan convenience food as a meat-alternative. Many of the products supply our local restaurants in Newcastle for high end dishes and creative menus.

Previous to this Urban Mushrooms product shoot, I had captured documentary images of the mushroom production, portraits of the youth employees and volunteers on the urban farm. The brief for me this time was to capture images of the produce and so Calvin arrived with a basket of the weird and wonderfully shaped, colourful mushrooms they grow at the YMCA Mushroom farm. Below are a select few images from the shoot that show the mushrooms ‘in situ’ of food prep, display and macro close up shots of the fungi as the main event! Just feast your eyes on this lot of fun-gi! Soon to be on the Urban Mushroom’s website.

Portraits of a Scientist

16 June 2020/0 Comments/in Assorted /by Sarah Deane

Nuchido’s Dr Nichola Conlon

I just love this woman. She is really quite incredible! She is a Molecular Biologist Scientist, a Dr, a mother, a business founder and a lovely friend of mine. She is so mutuitalented I even saw her on Instagram this weekend driving a speed boat! I first met Nichola in Clavering House’s kitchen when we were both making like minded lunches. We became friends and in the subsequent years Nichola has gone on to launch the brand Nuchido to develop products designed to stimulate the body’s own self-repair systems. Essentially a genius anti-aging pill! What’s not to love!

This Sunday Nichola featured in an article in the Sun’s Sunday Supplement Fabulous Magazine highlighting female empowerment. It focussed on women working in male dominated industries with stories of where they are today, often having being told they were in the wrong profession. There are unfortunately a number of people who have the opinion that women need to choose between being a mother and their career, that they can’t have both. What rot! I built a successful career as a single parent and did Nichola, alongside many other women and it’s proof we can succeed as business women whilst being fabulous mothers too!

Nichola has used my Newcastle Photography services for various images over several years including product photos and portraits so she asked me to be her photographer and capture these pictures with a clear brief from her team. I’d suggested the fantastic new development Newcastle Helix as it is a collection of modern, shiny and bold architecture giving a dramatic backdrop for eye catching editorial portraits.

Unluckily the shoot was on the windiest day EVER as a US storm was passing over the UK so each photo was captured during millisecond breaks in the wind. We had to stop when the grit flew in our eyes and made us wince. It was pretty antisocial! However the results were fantastic, almost serene with not a hair out of place together with very ‘sciencey’ glass and geometric patterned backdrops. Here are a selection of the best from the shoot and obviously I had to post some outtakes! You will see how aggressive the wind really was. Didn’t we do well?

It’s a fantastic article and can be seen here and more information about Nichola and the company can be found on the Nuchido website here

Small Plates at Arlo Jesmond

7 October 2019/0 Comments/in Assorted, Commercial, food and drink photography /by Sarah Deane

Newcastle Bar Interiors and Food Photography

Small Plates and Big Drinks!

This summer Arlo of Jesmond launched it’s yummy new small plate menu served from 6pm along with a diverse range of delicious cocktails, artisan gins and local craft ales to accompany a brand new refurbishment.

Newcastle people who are Arlo regulars are likely to know the dynamic, warm and truly lovely owners, Lucus and Susan. I met the family around 7 or 8 years ago capturing family portraits of their children at a pop up studio of mine in Gosforth.

We have stayed in touch ever since and a short while after their family shoot they launched Arlo on Brentwood Avenue, West Jesmond. It’s been a fantastic success as a perfect stop off for school running parents in need of coffee, students after a brunch to cure the mother of hangovers and oldies like me loving all things easy and local, live music and great food.

I am always flattered when they bring me on board for their food and drink photography, asking me to capture new menus, staff portraits, themed evening events and interior design for their website and marketing as they expand and grow. I love feeling part of their dynamic team.

A highlight for me was scoffing cake and coffee one morning and spotting my interior photos on posters in their windows. This was illustration photography of Lucus’ story telling nicknacks that adorn Arlo’s walls and shelves. So this summer when they announced their refurb and the wonderful new bar installation I was thrilled to be there at the launch party.

The new look and feel is consistent with their well established brand being a cosy, friendly and inviting atmosphere. Materials throughout are natural and inviting much like the food. The rich conker coloured leather upholstery, textured solid wood bar and the soft glowing lights on the metalwork are the perfect Autumnal setting for a sophisticated tasty small plate.

The food is so fresh it’s absolutely the energy of the place with breakfast, daytime and then an evening menu of small plates designed to eat at the bar with a colourful tipple alongside. I photographed a selection which I sampled afterwards (obviously) so I can vouch they taste as great as they look.

The Japanese Salmon Gravlax is delicate and generous slices of sake wasabi cured salmon with wasabi mayo, torarashi spice and pickled cucumber to make your mouth zing and tingle.

JAPANESE SALMON GRAVLAX
sake wasabi cured salmon + wasabi mayo + torarashi spice + pickled cucumber

The Mini Poke Bowl, its roots in native Hawaiian cuisine boasts a beautifully seared piece of tuna sitting on an interesting and diverse eastern base of matcha rice, edamame, avocado, wakame, tofu and a pink grapefruit dressing to boot.

MINI POKE BOWL
seared tuna + matcha rice + edamame + avocado + pickled cucumber + wakame + tofu + pink grapefruit dressing

And for the veggies there is the most yumtastic Buratta. This is a fresh Italian cow or buffalo milk cheese made from mozzarella and cream. The outer shell is solid mozzarella, while the inside contains stracciatella and cream, giving it a gorgeous melt in the mouth, soft texture. I’d mistakenly thought it a poached egg, but it’s way more sophisticated than that.

BURATTA
Italian burrata + tomato salad + fennel seed + peach dressing + toasted sourdough

The full menu can be found on their website here

Of course the food is great but so are the drinks, equally as colourful as the food and well worth sampling. The cocktail menu is creative and interesting and the gins on offer include two North East made, poetic Licence Picnic Gin from Sunderland and Hepple Gin from Northumberland.

The bar staff are skilled and will whip you up cocktail with a smile, the three potions I photographed were Elderflower Spritz, Arlo Summer Breeze and Espresso Martini. There are also great ales with Camden Hells, Sierra Nevada and lovely local Tyneside Blonde.

How fantastic to see local food made with local ingredients served with locally brewed specialist drinks and all shot by a local photographer of course! Arlo is a wonderful place to eat in Newcastle bringing a buzzing food and drink community together making many of us feel so proud to live and work here. A big bravo to the North East and well done to Arlo!

Arlo Summer Breeze (Strawberry, Elderflower, Rhubarb & ginger gin)

Elderflower Spritz (Elderfower, Prosecco, Soda)

Espresso Martini (Vodka, Kahlua, Espresso)

Introducing Emma!

6 December 2018/0 Comments/in Assorted, Commercial /by Sarah Deane

Wowee! 2018 has been absolutely phenomenal! I can’t tell you how grateful I am that I have amazingly lovely repeat clients who are such a delight to work with such as Centre for Life, John Lewis, RTC North, Guide Dogs for the Blind and AHSN NEC and not to mention fab new relationships with Millie’s Cookies, Fentimans, The Helix and last (but certainly not least) Greggs (oh yes, oh yum)! There is not a day that goes by where I don’t thank my lucky stars for the success of this biz. Pardon my French but I bloody love it!

So with all this busy biz as you can imagine I have seriously needed a helping hand. When Emma Cheng, a Photography graduate from Leeds Arts University, returned to her native city of Newcastle this summer she got in touch asking for a intern position at the studio. I was delighted! Emma’s photography work is fantastic, beautifully executed with creativity, sharp graphic compositions and superb retouching and edit skills. Her work really stood out amongst the many emails of requests for work experience I receive from students and graduates.

Emma specialises in product photography and her eye is a fab match for mine. This studio in fact now has not two but FOUR very arty eyes!! So after a few months of training and learning the ropes over these Summer and Autumn months Emma has recently become my assistant on a regular freelance basis. Emma’s role currently supports me behind the scenes, helping edit my shoots turning around hundreds of raw images a day, as general studio assistant and will be supporting my clients when I take two weeks off in January 2019. As Emma’s role develops we plan to progress and promote the studio’s product photography together so please watch this space for updates and new work. You see now she is held captive in my basement studio at Clavering House in Newcastle city centre and I am certainly not letting her go!

Emma and I are having a great time getting to know one another, sharing a silly sense of humour, educating each other on ‘good old’ and exciting new editing techniques (I am a dinosaur) and old and new music and radio while we work- yes I like radio 4 Woman’s hour and she likes Kisstory and Radio 1! Emma is of tremendous support to me and and this year it feels celebratory, I’ve worked so incredibly hard on building my photography business, celebrating 8 years this spring, that she is the winning prize! I can’t tell you what a relief it is to be out shooting on location knowing my clients work is being edited with skill and care back at the studio by Emma. I am excited to see her how her skills excel, her role develops and how my business grows, so here she is….. introducing the delightful Emma, please give her a big wave and a giant smile!

Branding, Website and Studio Refresh

27 July 2018/0 Comments/in Assorted, Commercial /by Sarah Deane

This year has seen some big changes at my photo studio and the way I approach my work. As I am now non stop with corporate photography Monday to Friday I have restricted my weekend work and ceased wedding shoots altogether. It’s exactly where I aimed to be so I’m delighted and have celebrated with an updated logo to reflect my focus on Commercial Photography. This all celebrates 7 years in business which feels fantastic!

London based Studio hb who had designed my original branding were briefed to update the typeface to something very ‘me’. A new fresher tone of green has replaced the old and we have ridded of the black and dark greys and switched to a fresher cleaner white. The new font Bella Regular has a similar friendly, approachable and creative feel to the last, but with a new simplistic SD and circular icon. I love its newness and to me it represents progression and celebration that I am still here 7 years on! Hurray! The new logo is now stripped though my website, my marketing materials and up on my studio walls so have a gander and see what you think…

As well as my branding refresh I have refitted my beloved studio with a built in desk space beautifully designed and fitted by A. Lister Carpentry and Joinery, a local lady who knows her stuff when it comes to bespoke office creations in uneven underground whitewashed caves!

Clients often visiting my studio at Clavering House for portrait headshots, comment on how my photo studio looks like a house in Santorini, the bar in an early Star Wars film or an igloo. Whilst young visitors here for family portraits often ask ‘do you live here?’ as it is so cosy and homely. Thankfully there is time after work to go to my real home!

The studio space accommodates website product photography, headshot staff profiles, fashion and family celebrations whether Graduations, Wedding Anniversaries or Bumps and Babies now with even greater ease and I have space for another staff member too! I’ll be updating you on this fab addition soon.

My website has also had a revamp (yes I was VERY busy this June & July!) and has a whole new set of professional/corporate portraiture galleries, featuring Studio Headshots, Staff at Work, Meet the Team and on location portrait photography. I also have afab selection of performer profiles and model portfolio images. Check it out on http://www.sarahdeanephotography.co.uk/professional-portraiture/

So here are the before and after- from store cupboard in 2015 to a glorious space in its 2018 newness. I am loving it!

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