Secret Photographic Places
Many of us professional portrait photographers have found lovely Secret Photographic Places that we take our clients to.
These venues are usually kept mostly secret by us photographers. This is due to preventing an influx of all sorts of photographers. Thus creating a plethora of the same looking type photos. It also allows us professionals to have an extra unique touch to our photos.
See my blog entry ‘Family / Couple / Engagement / Model photo shoots at Walter Sisulu botanical gardens’ for an introduction to making unique, not everyday photos.
Reasons for Secret Photographic Places
A lot of these places will either have huge costs applied to us. Sometimes they are free with an stipulation of keeping things as quite as possible. Also, these places are very difficult for the us professional photographer to find. Therefore more good reasons to keep things mostly a secret.
Another major reason to keep things mostly a secret is to prevent things like crime or overrun of the place / venue. Large crowds of photographers and or people make it very difficult to get the type of photographs that we the photographers has become renowned for.
My Secret Place
I for one so far, have only found one place that I love to use, which my clients adore to bits.
Currently due to huge renovations etc. the owner has requested that this place remains a secret. Therefore, I will not be giving any clue as to the whereabouts or type of place.
On my observation one of the buildings on the property is an old stone building, that was still built with stone using mud as the mortar. The other building is a Victorian style building and is busy being renovated.
The property that these buildings are on is a lovely span of well-kept lawns, beautiful trees. Also including an extremely large tree and a lovely stream to the one side. There is also a number of old props that make for excellent existing photographic props.
I also found a beautiful dam off property close by. The venue has been made very safe through the use of fencing around the property.
Also access to the property has to be arranged beforehand with the owner who has been very accommodating to us. Currently there is only large human traffic on some days i.e. a wine festival, holiday camps or biology courses on the property. Otherwise there is only the renovators and grounds staff other days which has been the days we used the property.
First Time
On our first usage of the venue, we found some old ball and claw baths half full of water on the outside and they provide us with some excellent photos. The upstairs section of the stone building was totally piled up with junk etc., but was very nicely cleaned up by our second visit.
The one wheel is still attached to the building making for a lovely prop. The other smaller wheel is laying to the one side of the building making it excellent for using it as a frame as long as you don’t mind laying down on the ground.
We found quite a few nice flowers during summer to give an extra touch to some of our photos. The stone building has a number of doors and windows to give you a great many possible perspectives to our photos. The staircase, even though it is steep also provides for some great photos.
As photographers we always have to look around at different perspectives to make our photos work great. We should never be shy to use objects that from certain angles might appear to be useless for photos. Surprises do come.
Primary pointers of excellent secret places / venues we observed are as follows: –
- Unique look
- Safety and security
- Minimal human traffic