How to find good places for taking photos

For many reasons, photography is similar to advertising – you need to find the right location. If you want to have numerous customers through your shop, you should find an excellent location that will attract many potential customers. Amazingly, the thing with finding the best place for taking photographs is just as hard.

For landscape photography, location is everything – we have all seen a hill, a river, a waterfall. What most of us did not see are those spectacular views, which you are probably wondering about right now. Nevertheless, it is often hard to find excellent places for less pretentious pictures such as portraits or urban shots. Within this article, we shall discuss some methods based on which one can find interesting places for photography practice, based on photography category.

Where to shoot portraits?

As mentioned before, portraits are less pretentious when it comes to location. If the model is excellent, the location may as well not be the greatest in the world. Nevertheless, note that most photographs are made out of a series of factors – environment, pose, make-up, model, expression and so on. Everything has to be in tune to obtain the perfect result. Even so, you will find it infinite easier to find the appropriate location for your model compared to when you have to find a location for your landscape photography. If you live in a large town you can search for a studio, since numerous portraits look excellent with a backdrop and studio lights. If you want something urban, consider coffee shops or something that has a certain vintage look.

Where to shoot landscapes, waterscapes etc?

Obviously, this is a tricky question. I myself am a nature photographer, and I try to find as many interesting sites as I can. I do not live in an area close to mountains or large rivers therefore I always have to go out and find them. The first thing I do is search on the internet for beautiful places – checking discussion boards for beautiful places is often a great thing to do since people usually share their experience. Note however that you will have to travel a lot by foot sometimes, since most truly beautiful places are not accessible by car (maybe by SUV or off-roaders). Keep in mind that composition is everything here – find a peak if we are talking about mountains and hope for a clear, beautiful day. Use UV filters to diminish any interference of that kind.

Urban photography – How To Make It Look Different

The problem with urban photography is that it often looks the same – I mean, how many buildings can one shoot without becoming boring? Very few if you do not have imagination. Buildings should present weird architectural features, or at least features that are not very common to the viewer. Buildings in Sydney, Australia (commercial ones) are rather interesting, or those in Dubai. Yes, I know they are quite far away for the amateur photographer, nevertheless, you have to understand the concept of uniqueness and taking a look at those buildings will give you a clear idea of what uniqueness means in this case.