Viva Lewes Issue #112 January 2016

this month’s cover artists: photography firm
This year’s first cover comes from husband-andwife
duo Helen and Andrew Perris. Aided by
their small team, they run Photography Firm, a
commercial photography studio based in Cooksbridge.
We approached them to come up with
a concept for our ‘Apple a Day’ issue and they
just so happened to be working on a similarlythemed
project already. Helen explains: “We’ve
been working on a large series which plays
around with the idea of how we can change people’s
opinions on sugar. If you wrap up chocolate
in shiny paper and make it look really appealing,
of course everyone’s going to want to eat
it.” So rather than trying to make sugary foods
and sweets look less attractive, they decided to
focus instead on making fruit and veg look just
as exciting.
The project came about in part after having
three children of their own and noticing the
way that sugary foods are portrayed to children
in particular. But as they shoot a lot of images
for stock libraries, another important factor was
the current popularity surrounding the sugar issue.
“We do a lot of research into current trends,
using information that’s available to everybody:
half of it was just reading the newspapers and
half was research into what’s trending in the
microstock world.” In other words, finding out
what people are searching for online.
The duo work on the idea generation stage together,
and the chosen concept is photographed
by Andrew. Helen is a graphic designer, so her
next role is the retouching of the images and
producing the artwork. In a lot of cases they will
sell their work through agencies, so they won’t
always know where one of their images will turn
up. “Sometimes we do bulk private commissions,”
Helen says, “but when it comes to the rest
of our work we won’t know where it’s being used.
It’s a nice surprise when it pops up in a blog or a
magazine somewhere.”
During the coming year, the team are hoping to
fit in some time working on their own projects,
between commissions for their clients. When
they find the time, they want to start merchandising
and selling some of their own work, in the
form of limited edition prints, amongst other
things. Helen says: “These are the kinds of projects
that we look forward to working on, just for
the love of art and design.” RC
See more of Helen and Andrew’s work at
photographyfirm.co.uk
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