Blogging is hard. At least for me it is. I admire people who can post 4-5 times a week. It’s one of my goals to post more. And I’ve decided that I need you, my readers, to help me with this! (Keep reading to find out how.)

In order to help me post more, one thing I am going to do is to start a weekly series. Once a week I am going to post a before and after image. Of what, you ask?

How many times have you been somewhere taking pics and thought, this background stinks? How in the world will I get a good picture? This series will hopefully be a tool to help you think outside of the box… much like I have had to do in the past. There are times when you just have to rely on your creative juices to work over time!

So on to our first installment of this series…

I was hired to shoot a wedding at a location of which the bride and groom both warned me was not the best place for photos. Now as a wedding photographer, this is the last thing you want to hear. But for me, it happened to appeal to my side that loves a good challenge.

So as I usually do before our weddings, I went to scope out the location. I met with the facility manager who told me that most photographers bring backdrops for weddings at this location. Wait…. WHAT?!? Bring a backdrop to a wedding?? I don’t think so… not my style at all. Nothing wrong with it… but just not my style. And definitely not what my clients hired me to do.

While looking around the facility I realized that my bride & groom were right– at least at first glance. This was no place for gorgeous images. So I headed outside to see what I could find. This is what I saw:

Behind the building I found a field of weeds and even a little trash that hadn’t made into the dumpsters (that also happened to be located back there). Definitely not a place that just jumps out and screams “gorgeous” to ya! In fact, the above image doesn’t even show all the parked cars, dumpsters, trash and dead grass that were back there. But I knew that with a little bit of creativity and some warm sunlight this would be the perfect place for the images they were hoping I’d give them. Combine some fancy manuevering and a willing bride & groom (major key component!), and we managed to get this image from the same field of weeds and trash:

We ended up with images that they didn’t expect to look good. Even while I was shooting, I think they were still a little skeptical. But in the end they were both surprised and loved the final images :)

So where does *your* part come in? In order to help me blog more consistently, I would love to know what things you would like for me to post more about. Feel free to send me an email or post a comment below with any suggestions or questions and I will do my best to answer them!