Ugly Location Photoshoot Challenge

Hey everybody! xoxo It's finally June and I do hope ya'll are having a great 1st day of June while reading my blog heh. :)

If ya'll have not known me, I'm a girl who lacks confidence in herself and is SUPER camera-shy in every way possible; whenever you point your lens towards me, I will cover my face as fast as I can by reflex. BUT just two days ago, I've agreed and challenged myself with the 'Ugly Location Photoshoot Challenge' where one goes to a place they think its ugly and would take pictures there and try to come out with a picture that doesn't look ugly AT ALL. It's actually quite a trend right now if you watch it on Youtube. Well, I wouldn't call it an ugly location in my case; I rather call it an unexpected place to take pictures at (In other words, its not a location that we would want to take our portraits at.). But my boyfriend and I decided to take up the challenge just because we wanted to try something new and also I want to improve my camera-shy personality. I would try my best to pose as natural as I can as he shoots with his Nikon camera. you can check out his Instagram account here.

As for the locations, we decided it'd be great to shoot in a shopping mall since it was raining and also we just wanted to have Snowflakes HAHA and so we chose Pavilion, KL as our so-called 'Ugly' location for our challenge. We walked awhile around Pav and found some interesting places that we thought people wouldn't think of having their portraits taken at and here are the locations:

1. LED Advertisement Pillar

The first location that caught our eyes was this LED advertisement pillar that changes each advertisement to another advertisement. Located at the Pavilion ELITE, LG Floor, it was surrounded by restaurants and of course we felt REALLY awkward but there wasn't any time for us to think about those kinds of petty stuff so we got our gears and amateur poses on and started trying our very best in shooting a photograph that was unexpected and unique.

ACTUAL LOCATION

PHOTOGRAPHED & EDITED

A red colored LED light ad (we waited for this ad for quite a few seconds) and a dark red (maroon) jacket combination. I was shy for our first picture so I did not look at the camera but I like how it turned out with the unexpected outline of my silhouette that kinda made it look decent, at least for me.

Here's another shot with the LED just cause the outline of me looked cool and I like the color so yea. HAHA

2. Parkson's Entrance Wall

While we were strolling thinking where would our next location be, we stumbled upon this 'unique' wall at the entrance of PARKSON that was filled with 'holes' and there was light shining through them and of course we thought it would be nice and fun to take picture of it & so we did. ;) Joel tried to shoot a few and I was satisfied despite my oh-so-not natural facial expression. It turned out like how we would try our best to use our surroundings to create a picture that everyone would have not even think of taking it at. The picture of the real location is as shown:

ACTUAL LOCATION

PHOTOGRAPHED & EDITED

For this shot, we tried to experiment ourselves with lighting and this was it. :) Well, not exactly natural light sources but it was good enough to have these kinds of lighting shining through the holes from the wall. It kind of creates a mood of vagueness and a little hint of random mood of haziness. I edited it to a monochrome filter just because the light that was shining through the holes and on my face looked more defined when its in black and white. It also suits the concept of this shot too.

3. Armani's Display Window
As we walked out of Pavilion and wanted to try outdoors, it was raining so we had no choice but to go back in but our steps was at a halt as we stood in front of a neon sign that was shaped of Armani's logo. Both me and my boyfriend love photographer, Brandon Woelfel's ways of shooting his models and neon signs was one of Brandon's favorite location to shoot at and we decided to try shooting it as an inspiration by Brandon Woelfel. If you wanna get inspired, visit Brandon's website here. Of course, editing would be a total difference since I only use VSCO filters to edit my pictures but I was satisfied with it.

ACTUAL LOCATION

PHOTOGRAPHED & EDITED

In this photo, I used my hands to brush my hair to the sides to make it look a little candid and also averting my eyes to another direction is how this pose created HAHA. Anyway, Joel did a great job in capturing this shot and since there was a little purple on my nose bridge, I decided to filter this picture with more of the similar tone of the purple and that is all! :)

4. Tokyo Street, Pavilion

Our very next location was suggested by my boyfriend and it turns out we got one pretty good shot there! :) It was at a location where there's a wooden corridor fence and your view is the escalator itself. Why there? Because there was a red light attached to the wall and we were near to it; judging its distance between the fence and the light. We had a hard time shooting just because I still haven't figure out my good angle HAHAHA. But it all ended quite well so here it is:

ACTUAL LOCATION

PHOTOGRAPHED & EDITED

Here is one where I can not not smile so it came out with me having a weird smile but I like it still just because I looked like I was having fun hehe.

Here's another one with my "idk where am I looking at but okay" face and my curly baby hair at the side HAHAHA. Anyway, we took it with the red light reflected on my face to have a little hint of silhouette and with the wooden fence to make the picture look a little not too red but a little 'bright' color in it.

5. Transparent Window with random views

Why random views you ask? Well you'll know later after you scroll down to see the picture. This place was chosen just because we still prefer natural light source and we love bright places (we are still learning to be decent photographers, don't judge heh). But we also felt like this place is where people wouldn't have their portraits taken at just because the views are not one would want to have their portrait background as so we chose this place and here are the outcomes:

ACTUAL LOCATION

I don't have a photo with 'no-me' in it with the view but here it is. There was one photo without me but I think it didn't show what I want to portray so yea.

PHOTOGRAPHED & EDITED

Truth be told, I sat down and Joel took a picture of it & I still am not confident with showing my legs so here's the cropped pictures of my upper part HAHAHA.

At the end of the day, we are not professional photographers nor models of any sort but we wanted to take up this challenge to challenge ourselves in improving our photography skills and also posing/modelling skills and I strongly believed that we successfully did it as we took a courageous step forward and we're proud of it. So here are some of the other pictures we took in Pav with the shiny dangling stars hanging at the ceiling as the background hehe. All my photos were taken by my boyfriend of course! ENJOY YA'LL!