Yeshen Venema

My passion for craft and design objects led me to setting up my businesses. From the beginning I offered both Photography and Squarespace website design alongside education in the form of workshops and online training. I am proud to be one of the most recommended photographers in the UK for Designers, Makers and Artists. I was featured in the Brand Stylist’s 50 Phenomenal Photographers and 91 Magazine’s 25 UK-based small business photographers.

My work now covers Photography, Squarespace websites alongside my educational workshops, webinars and speaking engagements. I specialise in studio-based product and lifestyle photography and video for designer-makers and micro businesses. I also shoot on location. Our photography studio is a beautiful, first floor, light-filled space with high ceiling within Hackney Downs Studios, East London. It can be adapted to suit almost any style of shoot, from table-top ceramics to wider interior set-ups with furniture. I work with two highly experienced and talented Stylists, Jessica Jung and Emma Shipley. Together we plan each shoot to create the best possible images for our clients from studio sets to location houses around the UK.

We are proud to be based at Hackney Downs studios where sustainability is inherent in their regeneration work, they strive to enrich the communities in which their studios are based. Hackney Downs Studios now hosts the largest vegan market in London in collaboration with Fat Gay Vegan, while Netil Market makes space for independent grassroots creative businesses, now home to a community-lead radio station, Netil Radio. The waste collection here is 'Zero Waste to Landfill'. We re-use as much of the cardboard packaging we receive. We have a food waste composting at the studio and at our home studio. We encourage clients to come to our studio by public transport where possible and we travel to and from our studio by bike most days, on other days by public transport and if we need to use a taxi for larger items we aim to use Uber Green vehicles (full electric). Yeshen has lived in London for 25 years and never owned a car. In 2023 we produced a short animated film 'Darwin Story', part funded by The BFI Film Fund. As part of this process we underwent training and obtained certification from BAFTA albert, an environmental organisation aiming to encourage the TV and film production industry to reduce waste and its carbon footprint. We are proud to have worked with many independant businesses passionate about the environment including Mud & Bloom (www.mudandbloom.com), Angus Ross www.angusross.co.uk/) and Sebastian Cox (www.angusross.co.uk).

I hope that by joining Blue Patch we are able to network and work with a greater range of clients passionate about sustainability.