Lead Fine-Art Photographer - Luxury Women's Studio

Meet Body & Soul. We’re a luxury women’s intimate portrait studio in East London. We help everyday women transform how they see themselves through powerful portrait experiences and artwork they keep for life. We’ve already guided more than 1,900 women through this journey. For many, it’s been the most important, confidence‑shifting thing they did that year. If you believe in high standards, hard work, and helping others win, you’ll feel at home here.

Studio Vision

We are building a house of world‑class women’s portrait artists and leaders. Every photographer who joins us starts by mastering her craft on the studio floor. The women who consistently hit our standards, lift the team around them, and embody our values grow into Senior and then Lead roles. We promote from within. For this reason, every Lead Photographer we hire has first proven herself in our junior and core photographer seats before being promoted. If you cannot run the experience, you cannot lead it. If you can, we will invest heavily in developing you as both an artist and a leader as we scale.

The Role

As our Lead Photographer, you own the studio floor and set the standard for every shoot that leaves our doors. You run your own intimate portrait sessions each day, while also leading, mentoring, and calibrating a small team of photographers to our timing, gallery, and guest‑experience standards. You’re the person we trust to keep our photography world‑class, our guests deeply cared for, and our photographer team continuously levelling up.

Who This Is For

• You are an experienced studio photographer who can hold a safe, grounded emotional space while you work, and you can teach others to do the same.
• You’re extremely hard working.
• You love directing real women (not models) and you’re patient, warm, and clear doing it, even when sessions are emotionally complex.
• You stay calm, read the room, and you care about the guest’s experience and team result above everything else.
• You enjoy mentoring other photographers.
• You want clear standards, honest feedback, and a place where great work and leadership are noticed and rewarded.

What We Offer You

• No sales…no editing…your primary focus is running powerful shoots and leading the photography standard on the studio floor.
• Structured 90‑day ramp with close coaching and clear milestones into full Lead Photographer responsibilities.
• Ongoing craft development through weekly gallery reviews, 1‑1s, and calibration sessions that you help lead.
• A clear path into senior creative leadership as we scale to multiple locations.
• A tight, all‑female studio floor team that genuinely wants you to win.

What We Expect From You

Responsibilities

• Run your shoots each day, starting and ending on time.
• Model best‑in‑class directing and posing of everyday women so they feel safe, supported, and genuinely seen throughout.
• Lead by example on set standards: keep sets, wardrobe, gear, and the studio floor immaculate every shift.
• Review galleries and give structured feedback to other photographers, helping them hit and maintain our standards.
• Log clear notes after every guest so the rest of the team can do their best work downstream.
• Participate in and often lead daily floor huddles; communicate actively with your HMUA, fellow photographers, and Studio Manager.
• Engage fully in ongoing training: implement feedback, help run gallery reviews, and support weekly skill development.
• Be a team player who raises the performance and professionalism of everyone around you.

Results

• Ensure 3 high‑touch emotional sessions per photographer per day run to our timing, gallery, and guest‑experience standards.
• Maintain gallery quality across the photography team that consistently gives each guest plenty of strong, saleable images to build artwork they’re proud to live with.
• Help maintain high guest satisfaction scores and strong downstream artwork sales through consistent image quality and experience.

Requirements

• 3–5+ years of experience in studio photography, ideally in intimate, boudoir, or luxury portrait environments.
• Proven experience directing and posing non‑models with empathy and emotional presence.
• Strong technical skills across exposure, focus, composition, and studio lighting.
• Experience mentoring, training, or informally leading other photographers is a strong plus.
• Excellent time management — you can run emotionally intense back‑to‑back sessions without rushing the guest.
• Open to learning and following a proven process before suggesting changes to it.

Location

East London studio, in-person only. Full-time, five days per week including most weekends.

Compensation

Base salary: £40,000. Monthly performance bonus once fully ramped, based on timing, gallery quality, and guest scores. On‑target earnings: £48,000–£50,000, with additional upside for consistently exceptional performance. Strong performers typically earn in the top end of this range.

Due to the intimate nature of our work with female clients, this role has a genuine occupational requirement for female applicants under Schedule 9 of the Equality Act 2010.