The Works Studio Ltd. – Cambridgeshire

Finally Studio Two is finished and we have had our first studio day there with the fabulous Amber Tutton, the studio worked exactly as we expected, and we only need to make a few very small modifications, the studio ante-room is still a little bare and we need to get some props in there and generally make it a bit more homely. but all in all the basic design seems to be pretty much spot-on.  Probably one of the best achievement is we managed to create a fairly large studio which we can heat we had the heating running on almost the lowest setting and the studio was very comfortable.

We have renamed the Studio Two Ante-room “The Salon”

Floor Plan of The Works Studio – Studio Two

The Ante-room (now called the Salon) has a 8ft ceiling and is painted grey, the studio has a 12ft ceiling and is totally painted black, ideal for low key photography and product shots, especially things like glass and shiny plastic. attached to the ante-room is the changing room with ample power sockets and two mirrors with make-up lights. one of the unique features of Studio Two, is the back drop system, behind the studio at 8ft high there is a platform that gives access to a hatch in the ceiling of the studio, where back drops can be fixed safely without the need to balance on a ladder, this hatch which is 2ft deep and 10ft long runs almost the full length of the rear wall and can also be used to shine over-head spot lights through allowing hair lights to be used. the ceiling has also been constructed the opposite way to a conventional domestic ceiling, with the joists underneath the ceiling and the boarding above, this leaves all the beams exposed and can be used to clamp lights to.

Studio Two is finally finished. We did a test shoot on Friday 27th Jan and all works well, as people who have been following the blog will know, Studio Two is our Black Hole studio, the studio is 16ft wide and 36ft deep with a 12ft ceiling over the studio area which is 16 x 16 the rest of the room is 20ft x 16ft with a 8ft ceiling. the only thing that has not been done yet is we have not put the carpet down in the ante-room we are leaving this for a while as we don’t want to ruin it while we are building Studio One.

We are quite excited as Studio Two is nearly finished, today we put all the insulation in the roof and finished painting the walls of the ante-room tomorrow we will be painting the actual studio black and hope to be painting the floor on Sunday, it will need a day or so to dry and we will be ready to open. The final job will be to lay the carpet in the ante-room, but we will probably leave that until we have finished some of the other work as we don’t want to walk all the dirt and plaster dust on the new carpet.

Christmas is now firmly behind us and we are well in to the new year, and looking forward to opening the new studio. We were planning to open in the first week of the new year, indeed we did have a booking, but as it was so cold we decided to build an annex to Studio Two to allow us to heat it much more efficiently and make if a lot more comfortable for our clients.  The original design of Studio Two was a single room 16ft x 16ft with a 12ft ceiling and open on one side, when we tried out the studio just after Christmas we found it was very difficult to heat because the building was so large, so we have now built an ante-room on the open side, 16ft wide and 20ft long with a 8ft ceiling making the total size of Studio Two now 16ft wide and 36ft long with a 12ft ceiling over the studio area and a 8ft ceiling over the photographers part of the studio. This design brings some unique facilities to our studio, obviously it has made a much easier to heat space, it has also provided much more privacy for models, but probably the most important thing is, it has created the perfect area for teaching, and holding club events.  Studio Two should be ready for hire around the end of January 2012 and we hope to be hosting a lot of events including model days and various club nights (more on that later).

The studio area is painted totally black to eliminate any reflections providing the perfect space for lo-key work and creative lighting, however as anyone who has worked in a totally black studio will know whilst they are great places to control light, they do make some things a bit more difficult like changing lenses and generally seeing things, for this reason we have painted the ante-room a mid grey, this will reflect a bit of light making the space nicer to work in but should not reflect enough light in to the black area to change the exposure very much. The model’s changing room opens directly in to the ante-room creating a totally self-contained studio.  The ante-room can also be used as  additional changing space.

To the rear of the studio is the workshop area, which is equipped with wood and metal working equipment, allowing our clients to assemble props.  The workshop has a large sliding door 16ft wide and 16ft high so large vehicles can be driven in to the workshop, allow them to be unloaded in the dry, this is ideal for fashion photography when the photographers need a large quantity of clothing or is photographing people or products they wish to be kept confidential.

Work is going well at the studio, we have now finished the cafe, and are currently working on the kitchen, Studio Two is almost finished and we hope to have the Cafe, Kitchen and Studio Two finished just before Christmas.  In the new year we will be making a start on Studio One.  Studio One is going to be our main studio and with nearly 2000sq/ft of floor space and  12ft of head room, will make it one of the largest studios in the South East (outside London). The studio will have a massive 30ft long and 10ft tall cyclorama,  painted white which will be perfect for car, bike, dance and large group photography. Both Studio One and Studio Two have their own separate changing rooms.

The Works Studio has been designed to provide all the facilities any photographer would want, this is a professional studio, with professional gear, and the sort of space needed to create professional images, however we are open to any photographers not just professionals. we will be planning our program over Christmas and hope to be able to publish it in the first week of the new year.

We are all very excited as the end of the building work is now in sight. This has been a mammoth project and nearly eight months since we moved out of the old studio, initially we were planning a much smaller studio, which would have opened in October however since we found this building we decided we did not just want another hire studio, we wanted “The Works” this studio truly lives up to it’s name it really is the works, not only have we got a super space, we are also in the country in the middle of a 5,000 acre farm, with plenty of scope for location shoots in the summer