Rory Lewis is a portrait photographer whose work is held in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, and who has won Portrait of Britain four times. He photographs soldiers, actors, heads of state and public figures in a single, low, classical light drawn from the Old Masters. Over five days in London he opens that practice to a small group: three days building the portrait in the studio, one day reading the tradition inside the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery, and one day at Windsor among the royal portraits.
The week turns on one idea. A great portrait is not lit brightly. It is lit truthfully, from one direction, so that shadow carries as much of the picture as light. This is the language of Caravaggio and Rembrandt, and it is the foundation of everything you will make here.
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Dates. Monday 1 to Friday 5 March 2027 Location. Farringdon Studio, 2 Bleeding Heart Yard, London EC1N 8SJ, for the studio days; the National Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery and Windsor Castle for the two guided days Format.Three studio days, two days in the field with Rory Group size. Kept deliberately small so that every participant works with the light and directs a sitter under Rory's eye
Day one · The single light and the shadow
Studio
The week begins where the tradition begins. Rory sets out the art history the work rests on, from Caravaggio's tenebrism to Rembrandt's fall of light across a face, and shows how a Renaissance eye translates directly to a modern sensor.
Morning. Reading light on the face. The single source, and why one direction beats many. Distance, feathering and fall-off, and how to build a low-key set from nothing but one modifier and the dark.
Afternoon. Your first sitter, drawn from the military, in the lineage of Rory's Heroes in Focus portraits. You learn to photograph stillness and bearing, and to let a uniform and a held posture speak without direction. By the end of the day you can light a face so that the shadow side is the strongest part of the frame.
Day two · The National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery
In the field with Rory
A day spent learning to see, standing in front of the pictures themselves, before you return to the studio to apply it.
Morning, National Portrait Gallery. Rory walks the British portrait tradition and the room where his own work sits in the permanent collection. What makes a portrait outlast its sitter, and what to steal from four centuries of it.
Afternoon, National Gallery. Rembrandt and the Old Masters, read as a photographer reads them. Where the light is coming from, why the eye lands where it lands, and how to carry that back to the studio the following morning.
Day three · Directing character
Studio
A portrait is a collaboration made in a few minutes. With the tradition freshly seen, day three is about what you do with a person once the light is right.
Morning. Working with a sitter from stage or screen. Range, the eyeline, the shift between two expressions half a second apart, and how to hold a room quiet enough to catch the real one.
Afternoon. A sitter from public life. The honest portrait of authority, made with restraint rather than flattery. Reading a face, the small correcting instruction, and using silence as a tool. You direct, not just observe.
Day four · Windsor Castle and the royal portrait
In the field with Rory
The fourth day steps out of the studio and into the royal portrait tradition Rory's own commissions belong to. At Windsor, among the royal portraits, he sets state portraiture in its long history, from the painted image of power to the photograph, and talks through his own work for the Royal Collection. You return to the studio for the final day with the highest form of the genre in your eye.
Day five · The complete portrait and the print
Studio
The final day takes a portrait the whole way, from an empty set to a finished print you carry home.
Morning. A contemporary sitter, and the problem of presence for today's lens without losing gravity. You run a full sitting from first frame to last.
Afternoon. Rory will sup up the week and take final questions.
£2,500/ $3,360per person.
Who it is for
Photographers who already know their camera and want to make portraits of real weight. The week suits working professionals sharpening a classical style, serious amateurs ready to step up, and anyone drawn to portraiture in the tradition of the Old Masters rather than the bright modern studio.
What is included
Three days of studio instruction with Rory
Invited sitters across the studio days
Two guided days with Rory at the galleries and at Windsor
All studio lighting and equipment