As the wedding photographer, we tend to be one of the first ones to arrive at the church or other such ceremony locations the morning of the wedding. This first usually involves finding the one unlocked door to get into the building followed by walking into a dark and very quiet sanctuary. This can be both refreshing and creepy at the same time. One of the advantages of being one of the first ones to arrive at the church is that you get your pick of the best locations to shoot from.

Do you find yourself falling back on the same outdoor location to shoot your engagement sessions? Even worse, do you do the same two poses on the same boring backdrops in your studio? Do all of your engagement sessions closely resemble one another? One of the easiest ways to break out of this rut is to shoot a couple’s engagement session at the location they got engaged at. Not only is it a new location for you, these images will mean so much more to your clients.

Now it’s true some of the locations your clients got engaged at won’t be reasonable to travel to for a quick photo session. If that’s the case, why not suggest doing the session at the place they first met? If all else fails, find out what the couple’s interests are and go from there. What do they like to do in their spare time? Do they have any similar hobbies? Say they let on that they love riding bikes together around a particular lake or park. Perhaps they frequent the same coffee shop and sit at the very same table every Saturday afternoon. Maybe you discover the couple is really big into taxidermy…awkward. Hey, I never said you wouldn’t end up in some pretty weird places, just not your “safe & comfy” locations you tend to favor!

Dropping this tip a little late today but happy W.T.W. everybody! With it being Earth Day yesterday, I thought I’d involve the object that swings us around once a year into this weeks tip. That’s right the Sun. Which, as the They Might Be Giants song goes, is “a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furness,” and obviously very important to us “light writers.” More specifically, when it sets.