My love for photography isn't limited to a single niche the way that Instagram and TikTok want it to be. My passion for creating beautiful images started with nature + landscape photography, then morphed into cannabis and plant medicine photography, and I'm currently loving all things boudoir photography.
With that said, once you turn your passion into a career, you can lose sight of what made you passionate about it in the first place. To avoid burn out and keep my passion alive, I make sure to do a lot of creative concept shoots, or; ''passion projects'' as I like to call them. These photoshoots are done simply for the fun of it. I like to pick a concept or even just some sort of cool object and base the entire photoshoot around it. In this blog, I'm going to share my five all time favorite creative concept shoots.
Number 5: Fruit Shoot
The concept for this photoshoot was fruit, thats it. I went into this shoot without a lot of planning or inspiration shots. I didn't know exactly what I wanted out of the images which made shooting them a lot easier as there wasn't a specific "look" I was going for. I asked my model to bring multiple outfits to play around with and told her ahead time we would be messing around with fun poses. Here's how some of my favorite photos turned out:
Number 4: Laundromat Photoshoot
For this shoot I scouted locations ahead of time to find the perfect aesthetically pleasing laundromat. I made a little mood board with some pose inspiration, but I didn't have a set wardrobe planned so I had my model bring multiple outfits and we just played it by ear. Because this was a public location, we did have some curious onlookers for the majority of the shoot. Luckily for me, my model wasn't shy and the spectators didn't affect her ability to pose naturally. Below are a few of my favorite shots from this session.
* please note that you may need to ask permission to shoot in public spaces. *
Number 3: Tennis Court Shoot
This photoshoot is a great example as to why you should always keep an open mind in photography. I went into this shoot with a specific look and vibe in mind- we planned it for weeks. My model bought almost an identical outfit to the mood board images I sent her, and I was so stoked to play around with bright, harsh lighting, and shadows. However, when we arrived to the tennis court cloud coverage started, and before we knew it, we were being snowed on during what was supposed to be a sunny, March morning. We said "fuck it, let's roll with it" and dangggg, the final images were more magical than I could have dreamed up. Heres a few:
Number 2: Tub in the Desert Shoot
I found a $50 cast iron tub on marketplace and KNEW I needed to shoot with it. One problem though: heavy af. I had to bring in the help of two strong men (and great homies) for this one. Once I acquired the muscle, I found a model, and we headed out to the desert for a dope golden hour shoot. I didn't know what I want the end result to be, I just knew I wanted it to be different. Below are a few goodies:
Number 1: Motorcycle Sunset Shoot
I shot over 500 images during this shoot and like... 499 were amazing. My model was incredible (you may recognize her from the tennis court shoot), the bike was sexy, and the sunset happened to be killer. If I recall correctly, we had a bad fire season that summer and while we all hate what the smoke does to our lungs, I'm going to be real and say it makes for the prettiest portrait lighting. It was so hard to narrow down my favorites but here are a few:
There you have it, my top five favorite creative concept photoshoots of all time. I'm curious to know which one is your favorite? Let me know in the comments and make sure to tag my instagram @muh_riah or @uprise.collective if you try one of these concepts out for yourself!