The Set Up + The Shot | What You See VS What I See | Whitney Beth Photography
 

If you've ever driven with me anywhere, you'll find me randomly saying how, "that'd be a good spot for pictures!" Normally I'm met with a blank, questioning stare as I've just pointed out an empty lot next to a Walmart. After years of training my eye to see light and anticipate how it'll hit things and fall across others, I've got a pretty good handle on the potential a location can bring. Which also brings me to say that I have yet to find a "bad" location - it all depends on how you interpret light. To help prove my point, and demonstrate the way I see the world I asked my little sister and brother to help me out with this project. I swapped my boys for them at my mom's house and away we went. Everything I shot was within 5 minutes of my parent's house. There were two points behind this; 1. That you can find "good" locations anywhere and not just after delving deep into the canyon, and 2. Since I drive the area a lot I had a good list in my head of where I wanted to shoot, and I know my model's limitations (aka I've got about half an hour before they lose interest [ha]) 

First up is the water shed "house" in my parents' neighborhood. It has these amazing lilacs that I envy every spring. If you can time the sun right light we did, it'll be high enough that the rays can make it over the wall and into the bushes. I snapped a photo of it with my cell phone to show you the entire scene and what most people would see. 

The first thing I'm drawn to is the light. I know I can angle and position myself and model to utilize it and block out the gravel and houses behind it. These are some of the images we got. 

Honestly if I didn't have other places on my list I could've shot here a lot longer. We spent 5 minutes, if that here.

The second location was this walking trail near the crosswalk. Upon first glance it doesn't look like much and the yellow bars are really distracting. But once again, I'm ignoring everything else and looking for my light. 

I positioned my brother in a ray of light and got all these in less than two minutes. Even Kenny said, "wait, that's it?" when I told him we were moving onto the next location. 

Lest you think my "go to" plan is to shove my siblings into bushes (lol) I pivoted and had Kenny move to a full shade spot to show the potential. 

Next we crossed the street to the other side of the trail where I knew some purple weeds were growing to the side of the path. 

This is the spot that I was met with the most sceptic looks from Hailey and Kenny. This spot was all about how I could use my angles to get the sun to give me my desired result. 

It doesn't even look like the same spot, right?!

Last there's an empty lot next to the Larkin that will eventually house plots and graves - but for now it's just wild and overgrown sagebrush with the ever present construction happening behind it. 

You might think I'd beeline it for that luscious looking grass - and you'd be wrong. I actually don't like perfectly cut and manicured lawns for pictures. I'd rather have a more "wild" and "rugged" look. Instead I took my siblings around the fence, electrical box and telephone poles for the bare - weed riddled dirt and used the sun to block out (aka overexpose) the construction site happening behind Kenny.  

Just for fun, I moved my position and took some High School Musical pictures of Hailey and Kenny without positioning the sun the way I had before so you could see how prominent the construction site really is. 

See? Even though these are fun pictures, your eye eventually will find it's way to the new house being built behind them. Despite the beautiful lighting going on behind them. 

If you thought this was pretty cool, let me know in the comments and I'll make a follow up of these with different locations and lighting scenarios.