The story behind us

Pixel Juniper started in 2018 out of a spare bedroom and a single camera body. Callum Padgett had spent the previous few years shooting product work for an outdoor gear brand, which paid well but left him photographing objects rather than people. He started taking portrait commissions on weekends, mostly for friends of friends who needed a decent headshot and couldn't afford a big studio. Word got around faster than expected, and by the end of that first year the spare bedroom had become a proper base of operations, with a second camera body and a waiting list.

The turning point came in early 2020, when a local arts organisation asked Callum to document a community mural project across several neighbourhoods over three months. That commission changed how he thought about photography. It wasn't just about making good individual images; it was about building a body of work that told a story about a place and the people in it. After that project, Pixel Juniper started taking on more editorial and documentary work alongside the portrait and brand commissions, and the community angle became a deliberate part of how the studio operates.

Callum Padgett picked up his first camera at a flea market in 2011 and spent three years assisting a commercial studio before going solo in 2018. Before Pixel Juniper, he shot product catalogues for a mid-size outdoor gear brand, which taught him how to make objects look honest rather than aspirational. He started Pixel Juniper because he wanted to photograph people and places the way they actually are, not the way a brief tells you they should be. He reads a lot of photobooks, keeps a darkroom journal even though he shoots digital, and is quietly obsessed with the quality of light between 4 and 6 pm.