Hackney - One London Borough, So Many Studios

12th April 2022

If anything goes to show that many of London’s creatives live and work in East London, it’s the sheer volume of studios and shoot spaces that have grown up to accommodate the requirements of all the film and photographic shoots undertaken in the area.

Hackney ranges from Shoreditch, on the fringes of The City of London, to the flat expanses of Hackney Marshes in the east and to Stamford Hill in the north, home to Europe’s largest population of Hasidic Jews.

Hackney epitomises real London in the 21^st Century. It’s culturally diverse and vibrant with a working class spirit and a bit of an edge. Over the last twenty five years as a new young generation has moved in, gentrification has brought with it consequences good and bad.

The gentrification started in the Shoreditch area where the creative industry was lured in by the old warehouse spaces. Ground Zero, Hoxton Square is now one of the most expensive creative districts in the world, which is very different to when the artists and photographers arrived back in the 1990’s. Despite the changes, Shoreditch has retained its old character and identity. Graffiti is ever present, Brick Lane still has its Indian Restaurants and Bagel Shops and Columbia Road Flower Market is as wonderful and colourful as ever.

Hackney has continued to change and develop rapidly, with the major developments brought about when the borough played host to the Olympics in 2012 and more recently the construction of the London Overground. Again, despite all this the borough retains its character and charm. Broadway Market, that curves down from London fields to the Regent’s Canal, is still lined with market stalls on a Saturday. Hackney Empire, built as a music hall in 1901, is thriving again as the venue for live music, comedy and variety in the East End of London. In amongst this bustling London scene a diverse range of studios and shoot spaces have been created in the many old factories and warehouse spaces scattered across the borough.

First Option Location Studio at Perseverance Works in the heart of Shoreditch was a Victorian zip and suspender factory and has been a highly acclaimed creative location for over thirty years. They have two studio spaces with London Stock brick walls and wooden beams, ceilings and floors. The split level studio offers both regular studio space and a bespoke kitchen set built by one of the last cabinet makers in old Shoreditch.

Rocket Gallery occupies a part of a new development near Broadway Market. The lower ground floor gallery space at Rocket offers a distinctive, discreet and inspiring environment with its architecturally clean lines and simple concrete and white aesthetic.

Rocket also has a very cool Bookstore space.

Shoreditch Studios has three railway arches, all sympathetically converted to create high specification photographic studios, each with a cove.

Dalston Pier is a drive in studio with high vaulted ceilings with A-frame rafters and two rows of skylights providing great natural light. It’s a bright and versatile warehouse style studio in the middle of Dalston.

YoYo Photographic Studios offer a concrete and white aesthetic with a white cove that flows both into the floor and ceiling. The studio is in the Dehavilland building, and art deco industrial building that was constructed in the 1930’s for manufacturing aircraft.