RJ Bradbury Photography
Unit 1 Ground Floor, Woodbank Works
Turncroft Lane, Stockport SK1 4AR
UK
Call: 07763 418 761
Email: rick@rjbradbury.com
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RJ Bradbury Photography
2026
All Rights Reserved
I had a question sent via DM on Instagram from agent called Nick.
Nick asked “ Rick, in terms of lighting for my little studio That’s 4m wide I’m thinking 1 to 2 citi 300 and 2 pika 200s. That should do it?”
In the video below I go over how I would approach this question and it may not be what you would think.
Portrait photography? If we look a the basic definition on Wikipedia it is
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant.
That said I feel that portrait photography today has become more of just an image of a person or an image to follow a tread be that a technical one or one of post-production… instead of being an actual portrait of the person on set which has been crafted via collaboration, getting to know and breaking down the often larger than life persona that we all put up in today’s world (especially online).
We need to refocus on the making of a portrait and less on the technical or what the next person down the road is doing? Trends will come and go but good colour and simple black & white will always be here to stay. A good portrait shows part of the real person, a real moment. something genuine and it should in my opinion not need to rely on the postproduction to carry it forwards.
The hardest thing to learn in portrait photography is learning the psychology of it all and building relationships and rapport on set. Sure we need the technical knowledge but that need to be nailed so it gets out of the way so we can focus on making the portrait.
I go into this in more detail in the video below and would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.
Thank you for reading and watching.
Rick
This blog and my YouTube channel have been pretty quiet for some time. The truth is I could not figure out which direction to take them in.
Do I go back to basics and start from the top with camera and photography 101? - Nope already got that t-shirt.
I needed to focus on my main areas of strength which are Portrait photography and teaching techniques / lighting based around portrait work. Sure, some fundamentals will be covered but I will be focusing on portrait work both the technical and philosophy side of it going forwards.
If you would like to see any in particular covered let me know in the comments below or over on YouTube.
Rick