In July 2025, shortly after Meow Lounge opened in Hitchin, I was commissioned to create a new library of commercial photography and video for its website and social media.
The finished project included more than 50 edited photographs and three separate videos designed to rotate within the header of the Meow Lounge website. A year later, the content is still being used across the business’s online presence.
This was not simply a shoot involving some café interiors and portraits of cats. The brief required interior photography, natural lifestyle imagery, branding details, exterior photographs and video content that worked together as a consistent visual library.
The commercial photography brief
As a newly opened business, Meow Lounge needed professional content to quickly show potential customers what set the venue apart.
The photography needed to cover:
- The design and layout of the café
- Customers interacting naturally with the cats
- Individual personalities of the resident cats
- Drinks, signage and branded details
- The exterior and location within The Arcade in Hitchin
- A mixture of wide photographs and closer lifestyle images
- Content suitable for the website and ongoing social media use
This kind of project falls under a much broader definition of corporate and commercial photography. Rather than concentrating on one hero photograph, the aim is to build a useful collection that can support different parts of a business’s marketing.
Creating a complete image library
A business website needs more variety than a handful of attractive photographs.
For Meow Lounge, I photographed the venue from several angles before concentrating on the smaller details and interactions that gave the space its personality.
The completed collection included:
- Wide interior photographs
- Exterior and entrance photography
- Natural photographs of people using the venue
- Individual and environmental photographs of the cats
- Food and drink details
- Signage and branding
- Furniture, lighting and interior design details
- Images with space available for website text and graphics
Photographing all of these elements during the same project created a visually consistent library rather than a mixture of photographs taken at different times, in different styles or on mobile phones.
Interior photography in a challenging venue
Although Meow Lounge has large front windows, the interior receives relatively little natural light.
The café also contains strong artificial lighting, darker corners and several different colours and textures. The challenge was to retain its atmosphere without allowing the photographs to become excessively dark, noisy or artificially bright.
For the main interior photographs, I worked with the camera on a tripod. This allowed me to use slower shutter speeds and retain cleaner image quality while keeping the lines and compositions carefully controlled.
The objective was not to make the café look bigger or brighter than it really was. Good commercial interior photography should make a space look its best while still representing it accurately.
For photographs involving people and moving cats, I switched to a handheld approach with faster shutter speeds. The camera settings had to respond to movement rather than remain fixed throughout the shoot.
Working with real people rather than professional models
The people appearing in the photographs were members of staff, friends and family of the owners rather than professional models.
That was useful for this particular brief. They already felt comfortable around one another, understood how the venue worked and interacted naturally with the cats.
My role was to provide enough direction to create strong compositions without making the photographs feel staged. This included moving people into better light, adjusting where they sat and suggesting interactions, then allowing the moments themselves to happen naturally.
The same approach can work well for workplace, recruitment and brand photography. Real staff and genuine customers often provide a more believable representation of a business than hired models.
I used a similar real-people approach when photographing TUI’s Smiling Faces campaign, although that project was delivered on a considerably larger scale.
Photographing cats without forcing the moment
Cats are not particularly interested in photography schedules.
They move quickly, change direction without warning and will often ignore whatever composition has been carefully prepared for them. Patience and observation were therefore more important than trying to direct every photograph.
For active moments, I used faster shutter speeds to reduce motion blur. A quieter shutter mode also helped me work without unnecessarily distracting or startling the cats.
I looked for natural behaviour rather than trying to force reactions. Some of the strongest images came from waiting for a cat to settle into the right part of the frame or interact naturally with one of the people in the café.
The wider photographs also needed to show how the cats moved through and occupied the venue. That helped explain the experience more effectively than producing a collection made up entirely of close-up cat portraits.
Solving reflections across the café frontage
One of the more difficult parts of the project was photographing Meow Lounge from outside.
The café sits inside The Arcade in Hitchin, and the glass frontage reflected the surrounding shops, windows and overhead lighting. Those reflections made it difficult to see into the café clearly.
I returned for a second visit with a polarising filter and a large black backdrop. The filter reduced some of the glare, while the black material helped block unwanted reflections directly around the camera.
This produced much cleaner photographs of the frontage and interior through the glass.
It is a good example of why commercial photography sometimes requires more than arriving with a camera and pressing the shutter. When an image is important to the brief, the practical problem needs to be solved rather than accepted.
Creating three videos for the website
Alongside the photography, I created three separate videos for Meow Lounge.
The website was designed so that a different video could load within the header each time someone visited. This added some variation to the homepage while keeping the overall visual style consistent.
I filmed the footage at 50 frames per second. This allowed selected clips to be slowed down during editing while retaining smooth movement.
The slower footage suited the café's pace and gave the videos a more controlled feel. It was particularly effective for subtle moments such as a cat moving through the room, someone reaching out to stroke it, or drinks being placed on a table.
Creating three completed edits rather than a collection of unedited clips also meant the content was ready to be added directly to the website.
Cameras and lenses used
I photographed the project using Canon EOS R5 and R6 camera bodies.
Using two cameras allowed me to move quickly between wider venue photographs and closer lifestyle images without repeatedly changing lenses. It also provided backup equipment throughout the commission.
My main lenses were:
- Canon RF 24-105mm f/2.8
- Canon RF 50mm f/1.8
The 24-105mm provided the flexibility needed for interiors, groups and changing compositions within a relatively confined venue.
The 50mm f/1.8 was useful for close-up photographs, low-light situations, and images where I wanted greater separation between the subject and background.
The equipment supported the brief, but the more important decisions involved understanding how the content would be used and adapting to the available light, moving subjects and reflective surfaces.
What I delivered
The final delivery included:
- More than 50 professionally edited photographs
- Interior and exterior venue photography
- Natural lifestyle photographs
- Staff, friends and family interacting with the cats
- Individual and environmental photographs of the resident cats
- Branding, signage, food and drink details
- Three completed videos for the website header
- Content suitable for website and social media marketing
The photographs were selected and edited as one consistent collection, giving the business enough variety to use the material across multiple pages and campaigns.
The result: content still being used a year later
One of the clearest measures of successful commercial photography is whether the client continues to use it.
A year after the shoot, the photographs and videos created for Meow Lounge remain on their website and in their online marketing.
That longevity matters. A properly planned shoot should create more than enough material for a single launch announcement or week of social posts. It should provide a business with a flexible content library that remains useful as its website and marketing develop.
Commercial photography for cafés, venues and hospitality businesses
Hospitality photography needs to do more than show what a room looks like.
Potential customers also need to understand the atmosphere, experience, people, products and details that make the business worth visiting.
A combined photography and video shoot can create content for:
- Business websites
- Social media
- PR and press releases
- Online listings
- Recruitment
- Printed marketing
- Launches and seasonal campaigns
- Future promotions and announcements
I provide commercial photography for businesses and organisations across Hertfordshire, London and throughout the UK.
For typical starting rates and an explanation of what is included, see my guide to corporate photography prices in the UK.
Need photography or video for your business?
Whether you run a café, restaurant, visitor attraction, retail space or another customer-facing business, I can create a practical photography library built around how your content will actually be used.
Based in Hertfordshire and working across London and the wider UK, I provide photography for websites, social media, PR, advertising and ongoing marketing.
Discuss your commercial photography project.
Frequently asked questions
What does hospitality photography include?
Hospitality photography can include venue interiors, exteriors, food and drink, staff, customer experiences, branding details and natural lifestyle photographs. The exact content should be planned around where the photographs will be used.
Can photography and video be created during the same shoot?
Yes. Photography and video can often be produced during the same commission, provided enough time is included in the schedule. Planning both together also helps maintain a consistent visual style across the finished content.
How do you photograph a dark café or venue?
The approach depends on whether the subject is stationary or moving. Interior photographs are often taken with a tripod and slower shutter speeds, while people and moving subjects require faster shutter speeds, higher ISO settings, or additional lighting.
Do we need to hire professional models?
Not necessarily. Staff, customers, friends or members of the organisation can often create more natural and believable photographs. Clear direction and careful planning are more important than professional modelling experience.
If you do decide you want professional models, I can introduce you to agencies, including smaller, boutique, family-run businesses.
How much does commercial photography cost?
My commercial photography currently starts at £499 for a half-day and £799 for a full day. Larger projects, combined photography and video commissions, multiple locations and more complex usage requirements are quoted individually.
Read the full guide to commercial and corporate photography costs.
How long can commercial photography remain useful?
Well-planned commercial photography can continue supporting a business for several years. The key is to create a varied image library rather than a small collection tied to a single campaign. The photographs and videos from this Meow Lounge shoot were still being used on the client’s website a year later.
About the author
Lee Charlton is a commercial photographer with more than 16 years of professional experience photographing businesses, people, workplaces, events, interiors and destinations.
He spent nine years as Global Photography Manager at TUI, where he was the company’s sole in-house photographer and created imagery used throughout its international business.
Lee also worked as Photography and Digital Asset Manager at the Royal Horticultural Society for four years, managing photographers, commercial shoots and large-scale digital asset workflows.
His photography has been used by organisations including TUI, the BBC, M&S, National Geographic and the RHS.
