From Lab to Set: What My Science Background Changed About How I Shoot Beauty Photography

I spent years in biochemistry before I picked up a camera professionally. People tend to find this surprising. Photographers aren't supposed to have pipettes in their past.

But the more I work in beauty photography, the more I think the two disciplines have in common — and the more I suspect my scientific training is quietly doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

Precision isn't a personality trait. It's a practice.

In a lab, a misaligned variable ruins an experiment. On set, a misaligned prop, a single stray hair, or a slightly off-axis light ruins a shot. The instinct to notice — and fix — these things before they become a problem isn't fussiness. It's method. Science trained me to treat consistency as non-negotiable, and that transfers directly to a shoot day where a brand needs fifty e-commerce images that look identical.

Reading a brief like a protocol.

A scientific protocol exists to remove ambiguity. So does a good shoot brief. I approach client briefs the same way: identify the variables, anticipate where things might go wrong, and build a plan that accounts for them before anyone's standing in a studio wondering what happened to the props. The result is fewer surprises, faster shoot days, and images that actually match what the client asked for.

Understanding what you're shooting.

Skincare, in particular, rewards someone who understands what's actually in the bottle. Knowing the difference between a hyaluronic acid serum and a facial oil isn't just trivia — it affects how you light the product, how you handle texture, what the image needs to communicate. The science is in the marketing, whether brands realise it or not. I do.

It's still about the image in Beauty Photography

None of this is to suggest beauty photography is a technical exercise with good lighting bolted on at the end. The creative instinct matters enormously. But I'd argue that the rigour underneath frees up the creativity on top — when the production is tightly run and the brief is properly interrogated, the shoot day can be calm, focused, and collaborative. Which, in my experience, is when the best images happen.

My studio is in Kentish Town, London. I work with skincare, cosmetics, haircare and jewellery brands on campaigns, e-commerce and editorial, with full-service production available. If you have a project coming up, I'd love to hear about it!