Portrait Photography: Why You Should Shoot in Ugly Locations (sometimes)
The ugly location challenge was super trendy on YouTube throughout 2018. Besides being a bit of a flex in terms of trying to show they could take great pictures anywhere, I think there was actually an accidental lesson contained in these videos. That lesson being that shooting in ugly locations can help you to get better at your photography.
The Idea
When shooting portraits, we often try to find a beautiful location and take some stunning shots of our subject there. When we do that, though, I think we might often let the location do too much heavy lifting for us and not work at utilizing lighting, posing, and composition to create the image we want instead of merely capturing what is in front of us because it’s pleasing enough. Coming from a background in travel and street photography, I’m absolutely guilty of this. My own personal style has been about having people sort of interact with the locations to have a bit a documentary sort of feel to my portraits.
I felt like this area had a metropolitan look and captured Lori looking like she was about to call a cab.
In this location, I felt like the flowers and Lisa’s Obi worked well together and just had her touch the plants to capture this one.
When we photograph in an “ugly” or at least nondescript location, on the other hand, we’re forced to concentrate on what the light is doing, how our subject looks, and how we’re framing them in the photograph to a much greater extent. I find when I photograph in plain or ugly locations, I spend much more time posing the models I’m shooting and I develop a better understanding of people’s bodies and how they translate into an image.
The light was harsh and the location was kind of just a grassy area, but it made me take the time to really work out Elizabeth’s hand placement, and expression to create a photo I like.
Photography and all creativity is like exercise. Our ability to capture a moment, our ability recognize and utilize great light, and our ability to pose our subjects are all like muscles that need to be used to get stronger. Depriving ourselves of a beautiful or interesting location now and then is like training with weights on to strengthen our creative abilities. Do it a few times and taking great portraits will come much more naturally.
What Now?
Take your cousin, sister, brother, friend or whoever and go take some photos. The best thing about this is that ugly locations are around every corner; backyards, parks, parking lots, the grocery store. It doesn’t need to be a planned thing even. Just shoot. Take the time to try to make your photos interesting and figure out how. Reflect on your photos after the fact as well. What makes them interesting? What angles suit what person? What might you try next time in terms of framing them?
Then, once you go to an interesting location, you’ll be able to take even better images.
