Ugly Location Challenge: Laundromat
This was my first time ever working with Alex. For the longest time we both followed each other on Instagram and never could get the timing right. I was elated when our schedules for once linked up to get to do this shoot. I told her to just show up with several outfits and that we would hope for the best.
At the time of this shoot I was living in Mckinney, so I shot at an old laundromat near the downtown Mckinney area that had some decent lighting. We met early in the morning in hopes that it wouldnt be too packed. The first place we went to was too dark for my liking and the people just kept staring at us, so we went to another location just a couple of blocks away. It was packed but the people that were there, did not mind at all. They let us climb on the washers and would move out of the shot incase they were in the background. Definitely was not expecting them to be so nice since technically we were the ones in the way.
I had bought a few props from my favorite place (The Dollar Store) to add a little bit more realness to the shoot. I would totally try this again at another location now with my dark and moody style. But a good laundromat is hard to find!
I had also been playing around with my editing style and learning how to use Lightroom. I barely had to use Photoshop for this one! To prepare for a styled shoot like this, I went religiously through Pinterest to find the right poses, props and outfits. Luckily Alex, like the professional model she is, helped me with all the ideas as well.
This looks like it might be the cleanest laundromat ever, but on the contrary, everything was old/dingy and dirty!! It also was full of people, but that is the magic of getting a badA photographer that knows what angles to use for this type of shoot... haha and of course editing people and things out helps!
I didnt edit everything out of the backgrounds because we still wanted that vintage, dirty vibe. The good thing was that because it is a laundromat it smelled good like clean clothes!! HAHAHA
Most of you are probably wondering how I got away with shooting a public location like this. The lady that worked there let us do whatever as long as we didnt disturb anyone, in fact, we basically gave them a show that morning! I am glad we came to find this one because the lighting was perfect.
Alex is such a good sport too. Anything I asked her to do, she did it! No hesitation, just went for it and killed it every time! We had a lot of fun with these, as you can see...
Anybody else agree these belong in a magazine?! Yall think Jarritos, Double Bubble, Tide and Cosmopolitan would sponsor us??
I wish the pictures had better quality. I had to download them from my old website because I couldnt find the originals in my back up hardrive. What ugly location should I try next? After posting these on social media they got a lot of attention! I have several models lined up that want to shoot. These styled shoots are not limited to professional models. Hope you enjoyed these... They are very different than my normal shoots. It turned out to be one of my favorites that year!!
