As a commercial photographer I relish a challenge and when a brief requires a portrait photographer,a lifestyle photographer and a Food & Drink photographer I realised I was lucky to have found an almost perfect commission.

In early 2016 I was approached by Ragley and asked if I could look at a brief to produce an image bank for the marketing and communication for this world class Historic House and its great Estate.

Ragley is the Home of the Marquess and Marchioness of Hertford and their family. The Hall is one of the early British Palladian style houses and was designed by Robert Hooke in 1680.

Capability Brown had a hand in the design of the Parkland and like so many great british properties it is steeped in history.

These factors influenced the style and approach to producing photographs of the property, gardens, parkland and the extensive estate.

The images had to be contemporary but classic and they had to reflect the great history but also communicate the extensive events and the current manner that a major Tourist destination delivers.

Suitable for quality Print and many web applications. Social media such as Instagram & FaceBook are a great method of getting the extensive events and changes of seasons and special days, so an extensive image bank was required.

So every month I spent a day or more working with the management & family and photographed a comprehensive list of subjects.

From Family portraits to macro images of flowers. Early morning sunrises over the Lake to sunsets illuminating the House and gardens.Food photography for the cafe and corporate catering.Drinks from classic afternoon tea to summer Pimms on the Terrace.

Covering country sports including the historic livery in the 18th century stables.Fireworks and Spitfire Flybys to Shire Horses and Fairground rides. Portraits of Celebrity Chefs and reportage images of Rock bands.Hundreds of images were taken and delivered, an archive that should provide marketing material for many years.

The Estate has extensive Woodland with a Sawmill and extensive Farming that had to be photographed.Farming is a subject I have a great affinity with as I have always loved the rural farmed landscape and so the seasonal activities such as harvesting and lambing required contemporary updates of these traditional activities, these images have a historic value as they can be compared to Edwardian photography of the activities.

In September 2017 the new website www.ragley.co.uk went live and although there is material from other contributors and historic archive, most of the new images are mine.

As a subject Ragley could be a lifelong photography project but I have enjoyed the 'perfect brief' and hopefully I shall be back when required.

For more images at Ragley please visit my site gullachsen.com