Assorted | Sarah Deane Photography Studio Newcastle

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!

Profile pictures with feathers and silk waistcoats. Thoughts?

7 February 2017/0 Comments/in Assorted /by Sarah Deane

As a photographer I’m probably always going to have a critical eye when it comes to photo quality, but when I see profile photos on LinkedIn I put my business hat on and do tend to wonder whether some of the profile photos my contacts are using to present them as a professional in their field really work.

This week I’ve seen:

Women with bare shoulders (in bridesmaids dresses, evening gowns) and men in silk waistcoats obviously at a ‘big event’. So we all know we feel & look great at a wedding right? But endless selfies, couples & group photos later these images seem to often end up on social networks like LinkedIn or Twitter as the face of our business. But unless you tend to turn up to business meetings in an evening gown or top hat and tails, I wonder whether this is this the correct photo context in which to introduce ourselves yourself online.
‘The grey silhouette’ – whether you’re camera shy or just haven’t bothered, on LinkedIn particularly I think the lack of a profile picture could say something about you and your work.
Holiday backdrops- to have you looking relaxed and happy exploring a new city of mountain is great but again, unless your line of work is orienteering or travel guides, maybe the setting is not relevant and highlights time away from biz rather than you ‘hard at work’!

I really think that because internet profile portraits are a quick fire introduction to who we are often before we meet prospective clients, colleagues or future bosses in person, the power of a headshot photo is not to be underestimated!

Here are some of the things I share with my customers when they’re thinking about preparing for their headshot …

The psychology of first impressions is an interesting and important consideration when updating your professional profile shot. Research shows that we form a sense of whether someone is trustworthy within a tenth of a second of seeing them. So when skimming though faces on the internet you are often making ‘snap’ judgements (pardon the pun) without consciously realising and therefore others are judging you too!

“You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression,” says James Uleman, PhD, a psychology professor at New York University and researcher on impression management. “judgments are being made and impressions formed all the time.”

So with this in mind here are some points to consider when updating your own professional headshot picture online and thinking about the way you may be perceived in that fleeting scroll or click of a mouse. According to an article by Research Digest looking at the studies of first impressions, careful research indicates these points influence the viewer on that first glance of our faces and dress.

So next time you say ‘cheese!’ and crop out your bestie on a photo app, before uploading check it conveys the right message. If it’s not screaming ‘professional photo’ maybe think again! And if you’re still not sure, ask a colleague you can trust – or drop me an email on sarah@sarahdeanephotography.co.uk

To view ideas of clothing, poses, facial expressions and locations you can see more samples of headshot pictures on this gallery link; http://www.sarahdeanephotography.co.uk/portraits/professional-headshots/

Photography Summer School, Goldsmiths University, London

22 August 2012/0 Comments/in Assorted, Teaching /by Sarah Deane

This week was a special one as I was teaching a particularly lovely youth group for a summer project for a charity based at Goldsmiths in South London. The aim was to prepare the group for a shoot at an event this Autumn.

After inspiration trips to Central London galleries, practical lessons on handling a camera, its settings and managing light, the group applied their learnings to a portrait shoot out in the colourful and lively market of Lewisham. The results were absolutely amazing as they went from knowing very little about technical theory and composition, to having the confidence to approach people on the street and execute perfectly exposed, rich story telling portraiture.

On the last day we composed a few fun shots with timed exposures so we all had a memento of the week! The critique offered some fantastic imagery so IÂ have included their work in this post. See what you think…..

Thanks to the enthusiastic and very talented gang; Danielle, Rheanna, Evelyn, William and last, but certainly not least ;- ) Julian!

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