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Photographer Challenges Herself To Shoot In ‘Ugly’ Location, And Results Prove That It’s All About The Skill
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Photographer Challenges Herself To Shoot In ‘Ugly’ Location, And Results Prove That It’s All About The Skill

Ugly Locations, Pretty Portraits: Photographer Goes To Lowe’s To Prove That Location Doesn’t MatterUgly Places, Pretty Portraits: Photographer Proves That You Can Take Good Photos Even In Places Like Lowe'sUgly Locations, Pretty Portraits: Photographer Proves That You Can Take The Best Photos In The Most Ugly LocationsPhotographer's Experiment Proves That You Can Take The Best Photos In The Most Ugly LocationsHow Differently The Same ‘Ugly’ Location Looks To A Professional Photographer Vs. AmateurPhotographer Challenges Herself To Shoot In 'Ugly' Location, And Results Prove That It's All About The SkillPhotographer Shoots In An What Happens When A Pro Photographer Goes To An Photographer Shoots In An Ugly Places, Pretty Portraits: Photographer Shoots At Lowe's Store, Proves You Can Get Great Results Anywhere
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Pro and amateur photographers see different things when they look at the same place, and this story proves that professionals can work wonders even with minimal resources. To challenge herself, Jenna Martin took her camera and her portrait photography model to Lowe’s: “Instead of searching out the usual beautiful locations around where we live, I had the idea to do just the opposite,” she wrote on PetaPixel. “I wanted to go somewhere ‘ugly’ by all conventional photography standards and then see what we could do with it. Lowe’s seemed like the perfect option.”

“For this ugly location challenge, I wanted somewhere with horrible lighting and limited backdrops. Somewhere that made absolutely no sense for a photoshoot idea.” Before she started shooting, Martin set herself some rules:

1) They had to work with whatever was already there. The photographer brought just her camera, without any artificial lighting or props;
2) They couldn’t rearrange the displays or make any big changes to photo backgrounds;
3) They’d stop shooting if anyone else was in the background.

“As soon as we walked in an employee asked if they could help us and I asked, “We were just going to take a few photos, is that okay?” He replied, “Of course! I was just wondering why she was so overdressed for a trip to the hardware store!” Martin and her model had about an hour before the store closed, so they began their photoshoot in narrow and wide aisles, against paint samples and trees.

“Overall, this was a really fun challenge! Not that I’d invite an actual client to ever do a Lowe’s photoshoot (I mean, never say never), but I was pretty happy with these cool photos! Horrible location for the win! Next time you see an awful spot, maybe give it a chance, you never know what you might end up with.”

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More info: jennamartinphotography.com  | Instagram | Model’s Instagram (h/t petapixel)

“Instead of searching out the usual beautiful locations around where we live, I had the idea to do just the opposite”

Image credits: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

“Lowe’s seemed like the perfect option” Location 1: The Paint Samples

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Lowe’s Location 2: The Lighting Section

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Lowe’s Location 3: The Aisles

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Location Shot: Aisle 2

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Lowe’s Location 4: The Garden Section

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Lowe’s Location 5: Pillows Section

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“Horrible location for the win!”

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Rokas Laurinavičius

Rokas Laurinavičius

Author, BoredPanda staff

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Rokas is a writer at Bored Panda with a BA in Communication. After working for a sculptor, he fell in love with visual storytelling and enjoys covering everything from TV shows (any Sopranos fans out there?) to photography. Throughout his years in Bored Panda, over 300 million people have read the posts he's written, which is probably more than he could count to.

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Rokas Laurinavičius

Rokas Laurinavičius

Author, BoredPanda staff

Rokas is a writer at Bored Panda with a BA in Communication. After working for a sculptor, he fell in love with visual storytelling and enjoys covering everything from TV shows (any Sopranos fans out there?) to photography. Throughout his years in Bored Panda, over 300 million people have read the posts he's written, which is probably more than he could count to.

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Kjorn
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

yeah... don't forget the beautiful girl are big part of beautiful portrait. even at a ugly place a beautiful girl do the trick

RespectThePaiva
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So all you need is a gorgeous girl to take professional good-looking pictures? If that's you're trying to say, you clearly haven't seen enough pictures. Besides, she's not even that pretty (sorry, but beauty is subjective). She's definitely photogenic and she has nice poses, but her beauty is not universal. There is much more to be said about the photographer's skill in a "dull location" (and if it doesn't look like it it's because of his experience on picking spots and angles), the editing and the camera itself than the girl/model.

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Kjorn
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

yeah... don't forget the beautiful girl are big part of beautiful portrait. even at a ugly place a beautiful girl do the trick

RespectThePaiva
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So all you need is a gorgeous girl to take professional good-looking pictures? If that's you're trying to say, you clearly haven't seen enough pictures. Besides, she's not even that pretty (sorry, but beauty is subjective). She's definitely photogenic and she has nice poses, but her beauty is not universal. There is much more to be said about the photographer's skill in a "dull location" (and if it doesn't look like it it's because of his experience on picking spots and angles), the editing and the camera itself than the girl/model.

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