The Roth Read household is full of giddiness after snagging the Prestige Portrait Photographers of the Year 2023/24 award. Hoorah!
The Prestige panel carefully assessed our on-location portrait photoshoots, recognising not only technical aspects but also the unique locations, the collaborative relationship with our clients, and the guidance provided throughout each session. Every business seeks a distinctive quality that sets them apart, and ours lies in the dedicated time invested in our client’s sessions. It’s truly rewarding to see that aspect recognised and appreciated.
It’s been a fair old trip since we left our IT contracting roles in the NHS in 2017 to set up our photography business. The passing of our dads, within a year of each other, served as the calling card to live a life we love.
Photography has featured significantly in both our lives, tracing back to our early teens when anything digital only turned up as a plastic prop on Star Trek. From using a parent’s Box Brownie to a tiny Kodak Extralite 400, progressing through the earliest digital cameras to our latest Canon 5D mark IV’s, the fascination of capturing a moment in time has remained.
Turning that love into a business presented its fair share of challenges, especially as we had no idea how to kickstart or run a business. Our starting point was to build a portfolio, inviting friends to be photographed in our kitchen against a simple black or white backdrop. We took those images, created a website and waited for customers. Alas, no calls, no emails, no idea!
Naturally, coming from NHS backgrounds our identity as photographers was unknown, and we found ourselves buried under a stack of Google pages. The turning point came when someone introduced us to networking, sparking a steady climb. We gained momentum, successfully built our brand, established a studio and identified our ideal customers.
Everything was going swimmingly until the world shut down for Covid. In total, it set us back around two years, since we were amongst the last businesses to be released from lockdown. Bouncing back took some effort, but we’re grateful that we did.
Now here we are! Our business growing, with Portrait, Commercial and Event shoots flowing in – and to top it off, a cool award to celebrate not just our pictures, but our hard work, resolve and enduring love of photography.
And we’ll continue photographing people and weaving their stories into framed wall art, because the idea that our images will spark conversations and evoke emotions across generations, affectionally connecting the present to the past, is a sheer privilege.
Lincoln & Perrin.