Location, Location, Location

In real estate, they say there's three things that are important: Location, Location, and lastly, Location. This is because the actual location for the property is more important than anything else. The same building in two different locations can have drastically different prices depending on the surroundings.

In photography, the location for a portrait can be as important as the lighting. Obviously, studio portraits take away the issue of location by substituting a simulated environment for a natural one. I tend to prefer shooting outdoor, environmental portraits to studio work for two reasons:

1. It forces me to go outside.


2. It allows me to capture my subjects with interesting surroundings that I could not easily capture in a studio.

I've chosen two environmental images here to illustrate what I mean. In the top photo, Gaea is lounging in one of the most amazing locations I've ever shot at, Building Resources in San Francisco:


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Building Resources can best be described as a thrift store for construction materials. They have piles of recycled construction materials sorted by type: a pile of bathtubs over that way, some windows there, and a pile of steel right here. Could I have gotten a great picture of Gaea in the studio? Yes, of course. Would it have the same feeling and contrast between a pretty girl in a vintage dress against an industrial background? Probably not. The steel draws you in to the subject in a way I don't think I could achieve indoors.




Here's another location shoot, this time in a rural environment. Meredith is an excellent hooper, and I wanted to capture her somewhere you wouldn't normally see a girl hula-hooping. Why not on top of a pile of round-bales? Again, I could have shot Meredith in the studio and gotten perfectly controlled lighting, but what draws me to this photo isn't just the girl, it's the surroundings.