This $5 coffee shop trick beats a $5,000 studio shoot and it's perfect for building your portrait photography career

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Photographers spend hundreds or more on studio time, but relaxing a client – and getting better results – can cost a lot less...

Woman looking to the side in edited portrait photo taken in a cafe
(Image credit: Ariane Sherine)
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As an extremely lazy person, my favorite shoot location is my kitchen. Clients travel to me, and all I have to do is move from my bed to the dining table, where there's most natural light. But I live out in London's Zone 3, and sometimes my clients are equally lazy (or just have hectic lives) and want to stay in Zone 1. So, as a compromise, I shoot in a coffee shop in Central London – a large and busy branch of LEON in the Brunswick Centre, Russell Square.

A reasonably wide aperture means the 'coffee shop background' isn't distracting. (Image credit: Ariane Sherine)

It might be most photographers' idea of hell. It's noisy, with the coffee machines grinding and whirring, and customers and staff shouting over the din. It has a ton of people walking around in the background. I don't have permission to shoot there. I've never asked for it, because why ask when the answer might be a no?

Then again, how many people do you see asking for permission when they use the best camera phones to take photos?

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The coffee shop is a refuge away from the wind and rain, which there is a lot of in the UK, especially in the autumn and winter months. It has great natural light from two whole sides of large windows. Conveniently, it also has a toilet where my clients can change their outfits, so all the photos from their shoot won't look the same.

When they arrive, I always buy them a drink so they can chill out before I start snapping away. As they sip their hot beverage of choice, I ask what they're hoping to achieve from the shoot – what vibe do they want? What will they use the photos for?

I also ask about their work and we have a good chat about nothing and everything. If they feel comfortable with me, they'll look more natural in the pics.

(Image credit: Ariane Sherine)

When I begin to direct my client into poses, the noise and busyness of the coffee shop actually works in our favour, because there are so many people that nobody's paying attention to them. And if the staff have ever spotted me taking pictures, they can't care much, as they've never stopped me. Perhaps it would be different if I'd just snuck in and started shooting without buying anything, but I'm a paying customer.

Sure, there are random people in the background of my shots, but I use an aperture of around f/1.8 - f/2.4, so they blur into insignificance – and I can always remove them in Photoshop using the AI Remove tool. I have been asked to remove the LEON sign before, which is fair enough; not everyone wants to advertise a coffee shop in their LinkedIn profile picture!

I'm profoundly grateful to LEON for turning a blind eye to my trade. It's my new favorite coffee shop, and that fact has nothing to do with the drinks, and everything with not having to pay to hire a studio. Plus, it's a more natural and less sterile environment – so what's not to love?

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Ariane Sherine
Ariane Sherine
Author and journalist

Ariane Sherine is a photographer, journalist, and singer-songwriter (under the artist name Ariane X). She has written for the Guardian, Sunday Times, and Esquire, among others.

She is also a comedy writer with credits for the BBC and others, as well as the brilliant (if dark) novel Shitcom.

Check Ariane Sherine Photography.

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