JOURNAL | AWARDS & PARTNERS
CLUSTER PHOTOGRAPHY FAIR 2025

HORTON-STEPHENS

INTERVIEW

Horton-Stephens has produced over 10,000 shoots with a century of collective experience—how has this extensive history shaped your approach to each new project?

We've discovered that 'typical' doesn't exist in production. Each project is unique, shaped by the photographer's individual style and the client's vision. Some clients prefer a pared back approach, like Marco Mori's recent campaign for West Midlands Buses. He captured authentic moments with everyday passengers on “live” buses, using just a camera and his charm to produce over 15 finished executions. This spontaneous method, while refreshing, requires a client who trusts the process and embraces the unexpected. Conversely, other clients prioritize meticulous planning and control. For these projects, every detail is carefully orchestrated, ensuring a polished and precise outcome. Our role is to understand each client's preference for spontaneity versus structure, and to act as a seamless bridge between their needs and the photographer's artistic approach, while proactively navigating the trapdoors!

As a small, agile team known for being a "safe pair of hands" and expert problem solvers, what core values or practices do you believe set Horton-Stephens apart in the industry?

I think it boils down to a blend of old-school reliability and a real drive to keep up with the times. We have a core team that has over a hundred years of combined experience. It does sound a bit like we're from the Jurassic period, but honestly, that experience is invaluable.

Even though it’s not our first rodeo, we're not stuck in our ways. We're constantly evolving. Every year, we look at what our clients need and adapt. We've certainly seen some changes. Fax machines? A distant memory. Working with actual film? That's a real treat these days. And in terms of clients’ requirements for detail, it feels like pre-production documents are doubling in size every two years. Current record, of 289 pages!

But amidst all that change, some things are constant. The creative industry still strives to deliver excellence and effective communication has always been a complex and subtle thing. And with pre-production becoming so complex, we're finding ourselves working closer and closer with agency teams. We really enjoy getting involved early on, becoming a part of their process. It just makes everything smoother and more efficient.

What tip would you give to a photographer who is looking to get an agent?

Specialise and have a USP.  Easier said than done, but the most fundamental and critical task is identifying what your chosen area of photography is, as soon as you can and then build your folio on it.  Maybe outside the city, being a jack of all trades is sensible.  In the city, to pursue the best commissions in any given genre, you must be a master of that area.  Photographers continually question why they didn’t get a particular job, “because they could have done it” but the truth is that photographers get chosen when their whole folio shouts a single cohesive message, be that topic area or style.  It’s not enough to have a couple of food shots that by chance turned out alright and expect a food shoot gig.  The food client wants someone that shoots nothing but food and understands every aspect of it, reliably delivering and bringing their experience to the table. So yes, a folio full of what you have settled on is best. Show only the best work even if it means the folio is short. Remember that shots that you think add breadth, can also be tangents that take your folio off message and confuse the viewer.  Oh, and don’t judge your own folio, get someone else to do it. As the photographer, you have too much baggage attached to the image to be objective.

Every shoot brings new challenges—can you share a recent experience.

Maybe we should tell a story of recent failure! Sometimes a production problem does surface and when it does, we’re defined by the way we react to it.  Very recently, we completed a shoot to discover that a model had a history that conflicted with the client brand. Although in our paperwork we’d said that the client should themselves make whatever background checks they require, our client relationship is paramount, so we didn’t even bother referring to this get-out clause.  We re-grouped and all our very loyal team pulled together to reshoot within a matter of three days and we absorbed the cost. We could have been at loggerheads with the client, but instead we cemented our close relationship with them. In this sense, the challenge is always the same; the need to retain and enhance our client relationships and all industry professionals should keep that in mind.  It’s a very small industry!

Looking ahead, how do you see Horton-Stephens evolving to meet emerging trends in photography and visual production while maintaining the reliability and expertise your clients value?

We’ll continue to evolve to keep providing the essence of what we do, but it isn’t just photography, it’s stills and motion image creation and it uses all the latest tools, including AI, to deliver our artists’ vision.  That’s what serious clients will continue to need and in a world wrapped up with NDAs, insurance and warranties, delivery specifications and contractual obligations, they will increasingly continue to seek the reassurance that working with a very well established player brings. A lone artist / operator can’t so easily offer this. There’s a reason that we’ve produced well over 10,000 shoots; we deliver on brief, on time and on budget and our clients are right to rely and depend on that. In terms of emerging trends, we need to see and embrace everything that’s new so that we can best provide good advice.  AI is a good example.  It is divisive, terrible and amazing all at once.  We can’t advise clients about its use, unless we understand it ourselves and in this fast-moving area, we are re-educating ourselves most days!