A quiet room, one big window,
and time to get it right.
Peak & Shutter opened above a print shop on Tai Ping Shan Street in the spring of 2014. Adrian had spent nine years shooting weddings across Hong Kong and Macau and wanted something slower: a small studio where a family could come in, sit by the window, and leave with a handful of pictures that felt like them rather than a catalogue.
The room hasn't changed much since. There is one tall north-facing window that does most of the work, a few plain linen and paper backdrops in stone and off-white, and a kettle that is almost always on. We shoot on daylight, occasionally a soft bounce when the sky over the harbour turns flat, and never the harsh studio strobes that flatten a face.
Most of our work is close to home: newborn and hundred-day sittings for young families in Sheung Wan and Kennedy Town, three-generation portraits before Lunar New Year, graduation photos from HKU up the hill, and headshots for the small design and law practices that fill the walk-ups around Hollywood Road. We also do quiet, respectful shoots for older parents whose children want a proper picture of them while there is still time.
We are a team of three, we answer our own phone, and we still hand every retouched file over on a proper archival print if you would like one. If you want a big glossy production, we are probably not your studio. If you want to look like yourself on a good day, come up the stairs.
