I did not start as a photographer. I started as someone who wanted to get better at one thing. Three years later, that one thing turned into a brand, a business, and a body of work shot across London's wettest mornings and busiest corners.
Where It Started
In July 2023 I picked up a Canon 2000D with the kit lens and started walking around London taking photos. No plan, no audience, no idea this would ever be anything more than a hobby. A friend who shoots dogs for a living, Szilárd, took one look at what I was doing and told me to put the kit lens down and get a 50mm f1.8 instead. That one piece of advice changed how I saw a frame.
This was never meant to be a business. It started as practice.
The Journey So Far
2023
First camera, first frames
Canon 2000D, kit lens, zero technique. Shooting purely for the sake of getting one frame slightly better than the last one.
2023
Learning to see, not just shoot
Switched to a 50mm prime and started treating editing as half the craft. Taught myself Lightroom from scratch, frame by frame, mistake by mistake.
Along the way
A style that people started asking about
The moody, cinematic tone I was developing for my own street and portrait shots started showing up in comments and DMs: "how did you edit this." That question became the business.
Elysium, Lucid, Multiverse
Turning the look into presets
Built and released three full preset collections, each one a different take on the cinematic look I shoot with every day. Elysium is still the one I reach for most.
Now
Eclipse, and building this full time
A fourth collection launched, a fifth already in development, and Pattakespictures is now a full time business, not a side project with a nice Instagram grid.
The Look
Dark, moody, cinematic. I shoot mostly on the street and in portraits, usually in London, often around Big Ben, Westminster, Bank Station, Regent Street and Hyde Park. The best conditions for this look are the ones most people avoid: rain, grey skies, early mornings when the light is low and the streets are empty. That is deliberate. Flat, moody light is easier to shape into something that feels like a film still.
London
Not an Overnight Story
Most of what you see from photography accounts is the result, never the process. I try to do the opposite. The before and after edits, the masking breakdowns, the "here is exactly what I changed and why" posts, they exist because I would rather show the documented path than sell a fantasy of instant success. If you are earlier in your own journey than I am, that is the whole point of following along. Nobody starts with a good eye. You build one.
What This Is Today
Pattakespictures is the preset packs (Elysium, Lucid, Multiverse, Eclipse, and more on the way), the free resources and guides I put out alongside them, and an audience that is genuinely learning Lightroom with me rather than just liking photos. That is the version of this business I set out to build, even if I did not know it at the start.
Shoot the Look Yourself
Try the presets behind every photo on this page
Four cinematic collections, built from three years of shooting London's streets in the rain.
Shop the Presets