Every photo should tell a story. And every story has a setting. Every setting has a time and place. So as a story-teller, it’s my job to make sure a photo happens in the right time and place to tell the story it’s supposed to tell. Here’s some of the ways I go about finding the right setting for the story.
Guiding Principle
Ever notice how outer space always happens to look a lot like California? There’s what’s called the “thirty mile zone,” a circumfrence around Los Angeles beyond which the various guilds and unions in Hollywood require studios to pay cast and crew MUCH more than within the zone. The result is that so much of Hollywood movies look so much like Southern California, and creativity suffers drastically.
Don’t be like that.
Don’t shoot in the same places everyone else shoots. You’re better than that! (At least I try to tell myself that.) Be more creative! Go to the places that aren’t so well known. Shoot in unique places so that people will say, “Oh wow . . . where’d you take that?” when they see your photos.
(See @insta_repeat for an interesting exploration of this problem.)
Use your tools
Google Maps and Google Street View are amazing tools for finding an area you want to start your search in. I know there once was a time when photographers had to go out and do all their leg work with their actual legs. I’m glad I’m not one of them. So use the riches of the interne to help, but DON’T STOP THERE!
As useful as Google Maps is for finding place, PhotoPills is an amazing app for Android and iOS for, among many other things, helping you discover the right time. One of the most amazing features of the app is an Augmented Reality tool that will help you see where the sun will be in the sky and any given day and time. I love using it to pre-visualize what the light will look like at a given location.
Once you’ve found a promising area, go there in your car. Drive around. Look around. Then get out and walk around. Get a feel for the shots you can get.
You can also use other photographers for finding awesome locations, but not in the way you’d expect. When you see a great photo, and you can either tell where it is, or the photographer just tells you, put it on a list of places NOT to go. Don’t take pictures that have already been taken! Force yourself to be creative! . . . but logically, a list of places NOT to go will help you generate a list of places you SHOULD go because you won’t be wasting your time of the former.
Turn around
We can be so myopic sometimes! We’re always just looking forward, but that often means we miss what’s happening behind us. Good news, though! There’s a simple solution to avoid that: Turn around. Don’t leave or shoot in a location until you’ve seen the whole location. That means you’ve got to turn around and see it from the opposite perspective than the one you had when you stepped into that location.
Be patient, Look harder
Don’t take the first shot you see. Don’t do what’s obvious. Part of a photographer’s job is to see things differently than everyone else. That takes time and creativity because, at the end of the day, we’re not that different than everyone else. What sets a good photographer apart is the patience to take the time to see things differently.
Often, in a new location, I’ll intentionally leave my camera in the truck, or I’ll make a point of turning it off. I’ll even put the lens cap on if I’m feeling particularly rushed. That way, I’m forced to actually see the place where I am before I start trying to take a picture of it.
Be efficient
When you plan a shoot, look for locations with a lot of variety. In the video above, you’ll notice in the shoot with LanĂ© that we had, in the space of about a single city block, 4-5 drastically different scenes. That’s what you want to look for. That way you spend less time walking, driving, finding parking, etc. and more time shooting.
These kinds of locations are actually more common than you’d think, though. So when you find a single scene you like, look around the edges of that location for different kinds of scenes. A great example from the video is the parking garage next to the park. You’ve got a very urban scene next to a very nature-oriented scene so that the whole shoot had a lot of variety to it.
Be different
I just want to take a moment to repeat myself: don’t do the obvious thing. Don’t take the obvious shots. Don’t go to the obvious places. Don’t go at the obvious times. To be creative, we have to strive to be different. The best photos I’ve ever scene were in unusual places at unusual times. Night time, bad weather, early in the morning (which IS different than sunset. I can’t explain how. Wish I could. But it just is.) are all times when 99% of people aren’t taking pictures because they’re not out at all.
Places off the path. Shooting from environments that might not be dangerous to you, but ARE dangerous to your camera. Getting close to things that people normally see from far away. Getting far away from things that people normally see up close. Shooting from very low, or from very high, all make for great photos because most people don’t see things that way.
Don’t over-use a location
I have a rule to force me to be more creative: I do not shoot in the same place more than twice in a single calendar year, and I do not shoot in that place at the same time of day twice. Creativity comes from restrictions, and this is a way that I force myself to continue to scout new locations and to keep growing and doing different things rather than the same thing over and over. It’s a rule I use to make sure I remain an artist rather than a robot. Feel free to adopt it!
