Houses of Parliament Event Photography | RHS Case Study

Photographing an event inside the Houses of Parliament

Photographing inside the Houses of Parliament involves more planning than arriving at a normal conference venue.

I had to go through the usual parliamentary security checks before entering with my equipment. This needed to be factored into my arrival time so that I was fully cleared and ready before guests and speakers arrived.

All of the event photography took place inside the Jubilee Room.

The historic wooden interior gave the photographs a strong sense of place, but it also created a challenging lighting environment. The room was relatively dark, with warm ambient light and limited opportunities to reposition people or control the setting.

I photographed using a Canon R5 with a combination of the RF 70-200mm f/2.8 and RF 35mm f/1.8 lenses.

The longer lens allowed me to photograph speakers and interactions discreetly from across the room, while the 35mm lens was useful for wider views, smaller groups and photographs showing the character of the venue.

Working without flash during the speeches

There was no formal ban on flash photography, but I made the decision not to use it during the event.

Although flash could have added more light, it did not feel appropriate for the setting. Repeated flashes during speeches would have been distracting for both the speakers and their audience, particularly during a relatively small event in a historic room.

Instead, I worked with the available light, using wide apertures, higher ISO settings and careful positioning to keep the photographs sharp while preserving the atmosphere of the room.

This is similar to the approach I use when photographing conferences in difficult low light. Modern cameras can handle high ISO extremely well, but the photographer still needs to manage movement, exposure, colour casts and changing light.

Using no flash also helped me remain less noticeable and photograph more natural interactions between guests.

Capturing the speakers and invited guests

The event included speeches from RHS Director General Clare Matterson CBE, Nature Minister Mary Creagh MP, Zoe Franklin MP and RHS ambassador Adam Frost, alongside other political and horticultural figures.

My aim was to create more than a series of identical photographs of people standing and speaking.

I looked for variation across the gallery, including:

• Tight portraits of individual speakers
• Wider photographs showing the Jubilee Room
• Speakers interacting with the audience
• Applause and audience reactions
• Conversations between invited guests
• RHS branding and report materials
• Informal photographs before and after the speeches

This combination gave the RHS a more useful final gallery. Press teams might need a clear photograph of a named speaker, while social media and website teams often benefit from wider, more natural photographs that communicate the atmosphere of the event.

Organising an unplanned group photograph

The final group photograph was not arranged in advance.

The exact guest list had not been completely confirmed beforehand, so it was only once everyone was in the room that it became clear who should be included.

I had support from the RHS team to gather the relevant people together while I quickly assessed the available space, background and lighting.

Group photographs can look simple, but they are often one of the more difficult parts of short corporate events. Senior guests may need to leave quickly, people are rarely the same height, and there may be only a few minutes available to arrange everyone.

The photographer needs to take control without slowing the event down.

Despite the limited light, I also needed enough depth of field to keep everyone sharp. That meant balancing a smaller aperture against higher ISO settings and the available shutter speed.

The resulting group photograph provided the RHS with a clear record of the people involved in the report launch and became one of the most useful images from the event.

Delivering a concise and useful event gallery

Approximately 30 edited photographs were selected and delivered after the event.

For a one-hour press launch, that was a more appropriate result than supplying hundreds of repetitive frames.

The final collection covered the speakers, guests, venue, interactions and group photograph without overwhelming the communications team with unnecessary duplicates.

Every photograph was edited for consistency, including:

• Correcting the warm mixed lighting
• Maintaining natural skin tones
• Managing noise from higher ISO settings
• Preserving detail in the dark wooden interior
• Cropping images for stronger compositions
• Producing clean files suitable for publication

The photographs were subsequently used across the RHS website, press releases and social media.

That variety of usage shaped how I approached the shoot. Press teams need clear, identifiable photographs, while websites and social media often require wider horizontal and vertical images with enough space for different layouts.