Ugly Location Photoshoot

So this idea has been used a number of times before but when you find yourself on YouTube for hours, it’s a great source of inspiration. So today my sister and I went to 6 locations. My sister was in 5 of the locations and I was in one of them just for our amusement. You’ll see what I mean in a few but I will say that if you do laugh, that’ll be a win for me.

So I’m just going to jot down some things for you guys to get an idea of what went on in my head planning this.

There were 6 Locations:

1. Bridge
2. Ally Way
3. Fence
4. Gas Station
5. Trash Bin
6. Movie Theatre

All shots except for mine were taken with my canon rebel t6i camera. My location was shot with my iPhone. The 11 pro if you want to get specific.

The initial plan was to shoot everything within 2 days. Like a legit photo shoot and not some amateur in an ally way with a camera. So it was supposed to be like 3 locations one day and the last 3, the next day. But 5 locations were done in 1 day. Not a big deal but the perfectionist in me is screaming. Gotta make do with the changes.

The goal was 2-3 good shots in each location

And I’m gonna throw in a before and after shot for the purpose of showing that editing makes a difference. That and your girl spent hours editing but I mean that’s not important right?

First we have the bridge. There’s this hiking trail near me that has this bridge that you can walk through and at first I took the photos just for the hell of it because when am I not taking photos but it definitely serves a purpose in this shoot.

This is a before and after shot. I’m not kidding when I say that editing makes a huge difference and I wouldn’t have liked either of these photos without it. Although my sisters pose in this last one is actually my favorite and you’ll know why in a second.

So next is the ally way. This location was one of the first ones I had in mind. If I lived in New York this would’ve been even better. Maybe when I get there, we can recreate these.

So here’s a few. My favorites are the 2 in the middle. I love how those turned out. Even though they’re very similar, the angle in the first one of those two and the shadows make it look like we’re not so amateur. Progress here. I wish I got some behind the scenes photos of me getting angles like that because I think we all would have a good laugh and the struggle was real.

The last one was not my favorite but not all of them are going to come out great. Agree or disagree? I actually want to know. I love my sisters pose but the angle seems off and the fence cuts off so I should’ve had her move further in or something. And the first one actually came out cool. I wasn’t too excited on using that wall but my sister convinced me. The door definitely makes it interesting though and the brick. I love a good brick wall.

Okay moving on. We have the fence. Before I reveal this. I just want to say that I had such a vision for this and I was actually worried that it wouldn’t come out cool. I saw something like this on Instagram once and I was like ok let’s try something cool like that but then I thought my skills are nowhere near up there. For a nonprofessional I think it looks so freakin cool. I’m just going to stop talking though and you can be the judge.

Now there’s only one here but like are we proud of it? Hell yea. At least I am. Vision successful. Remember when I said that pose of my sister under the bridge was my favorite? Well as we can see my sister is very serious when it comes to her “modeling career.” Not complaining just observation and I appreciate the professionalism because then I can get stuff done. But as the more fun sister I really try to get her past the serious vogue model all the time.

So the moment we’ve been waiting has come. My model debut. I can’t even take that seriously. Actually laughing right now. So I included myself because the perfectionist in me is real. Bless the man who ends up marrying me. The one thing I don’t take too seriously is photos of me. We literally have an album of funny photos of me that my mother plans on playing for my wedding as like a slideshow. Pray for me. Seriously though I figured that if I can purposely look like a fool in public then why should I care about trying to make everything else in my life perfect. Serious moment there so let’s just get into already.

So I picked the gas station. Don’t ask why other than it is ugly and I was like I hate getting gas for my car but I would be down for a photo shoot. Weird, right?

Clearly I shouldn’t be a model but on a serious note, the more serious ones like these didn’t come out too terrible. Like the first one makes it seem like I can smile. And actually there was a cute guy near us and that’s like the perfect smile right? Well he didn’t notice so that was a real bummer. But we’ve got a model ish pose in second one and this last one is actually my favorite. New profile pic or what? Lol I hate myself. But let’s some more funny ones because you know I have em.

Ok I’m actually dying. Like I can’t believe I’m showing these. You may wondering if we got some stares from people and the answer to that is a big fat yes. Totally worth it. Especially that last one. Like that is a rare site. It’s me ADULTING. Woah. Can I just ask why the hell am I cheesing so hard in the second though?? My mom asked me how am I going to explain these photos to my future husband and I was like he can either read this or just accept that this needs no explanation.

I think we should move on though. So we have trash. That’s one way to describe me. But seriously this was one of the more easy ones.

Now the hard part was deciding which trash bin to use was tough. As we can see the color of this one sold it for me. I try to be funny and honestly I should stop. Please tell me to stop. Seriously though this actually looks cool because it doesn’t look like straight up trash. Since there’s 2, it was a tight squeeze to get this shot like I need to lay off the ice cream.

Last location would be the movie theater. Now I picked this because I thought it would be empty because of covid but it’s actually open so let’s pretend I wasn’t right about that.

So this last one is literally just a blue wall that’s obviously part of the movie theater. That’s the cool part of it but it reminds me of a school picture but like slightly cooler if that makes sense. The first 2 were taken in front of one of the movie covers. Definitely another one of my favorites. It looks like some cool backdrop. Don’t ask me what movie because I forgot. I chose that one because I liked the colors and the font was different looking. Not much thought behind that.

So that’s all the locations. In all seriousness it was really fun working on this, even my photos. Let me know your favorite and least favorite ones. Actually curious and also helps to know for future shoots. Gotta improve somehow. Until next time.

-L