A London photoshoot in the rain

It rains in London. Not the dramatic downpour people imagine — mostly a fine, persistent drizzle that stops and starts all day. If you have booked a photoshoot and the forecast has turned grey, here is what we actually do about it.

The first thing: we do not cancel

Rain is not a reason to call it off, and in our experience it produces photographs people like more than the sunny version. Wet stone goes dark and glossy. Pavements turn into mirrors. The streets that are impossible at 10am on a dry day are suddenly empty. An umbrella gives you something to hold and something to stand under, which solves the eternal question of what to do with your hands.

What we do change is the route. A rainy session is built around shelter, so you are in the dry for most of it and out in the weather only when the photograph is worth it.

Where we go when it rains

• The arches under Westminster Bridge. Stone, repeating curves, dry underfoot, and Big Ben still in the frame if you step out for a moment.
• Borough Market. Covered, warm, full of light and steam and colour.
• The museum entrances in Kensington. The Natural History Museum facade works as a backdrop from under cover.
• Covent Garden market building. Glass roof, dry, and pretty at any hour.
• Leadenhall Market. Painted Victorian ironwork under a roof, and almost nobody there at the weekend.
• Underground passages and station entrances. Tiles, lines, lights — a completely different look from the rest of the set.

What to bring

• A plain umbrella if you have one. Clear or solid colour photographs better than a sponsored golf umbrella. We carry spares.
• Shoes you do not mind soaking. Carry the nice ones and change for two minutes at a time.
• A coat you like. A good coat is an outfit in the rain, and it is what will be in most of the frames.
• Hair that survives damp. Whatever that means for you — just do not build something that collapses the moment the air gets wet.

A tripod of small tricks

Things we do without saying anything: keep you moving so you do not get cold standing still; shoot the moment right after the shower stops, when the ground is still wet and the sky is breaking; use the light from shop windows and street lamps once the sky goes dull; and photograph the umbrella from underneath, which turns it into a frame rather than a hat.

And if it is genuinely torrential?

Then we move you. Because sessions are booked as a time and a route rather than a fixed appointment at a fixed spot, we can shift you a few hours or to the next morning if there is space, and if there is not, you get your deposit back. Easy cancellation, easy refund — that is the whole point of booking with people who live with this weather.

In four years of shooting this city, the number of sessions actually lost to rain is very small. The number of clients who got a better photograph because of it is not.