Making Dreamy Photos on College Campus

This blog post is a love letter to my dear friend Maguire! LOL seriously though.

I am so thankful for how awesome she was during this photo shoot. The reason why I’m so grateful is because this was not the photo shoot that she had planned.

We had scheduled this day a couple months out and the original plan to shoot at a location in the desert. However as you can tell by the photos.... that is not what happened.

Maguire asked if I could give her a ride from GCU and because we were driving by that way to go out to the location, I told her I would be happy to; we could even take some photos on campus and then have plenty of time in the care to catch up with my sweet friend!

....However the traffic was crazy, we had car problems, and it was all around a fiasco. Not only that but because we’re getting closer and closer winter, the sun is setting earlier and earlier and earlier. By the time we worked our way through tons of traffic (I think there was at least two car accidents that day, because of course there was) I told Maguire that I don’t think we have enough time to travel to our location and have more than 30 minutes of shooting. I wanted this girl to have at least an hour so we could capture alllllllll the photos.

SO, I asked her if she would be willing to just stay on campus for the photo shoot. Maguire said she did want to shoot in the desert but she trusted that I could still get her beautiful photos no matter where we were (what a SWEET HEART). She also said she preferred that the photos DON'T look like we’re on campus, and as you can see below, I think we crushed it!

It’s really fun to shoot at GCU after having lived there for 3 (despite how much the campus has changed) it definitely gives me an edge because I know all the locations to have the cutest photos that certainly don’t look like you’re on a college campus.

So here’s a couple tips on how to take photos that make your background look more romantic and dreamy than it actually is.

First, look for blank walls. That seems like an obvious one but it’s amazing how a blank background can give you such clean lines and a great look.

Another tip is to look for flowers. I love getting photos with someone backed up into the flowers as much as possible, letting the flowers fall around their face... it looks SO gorgeous.

Next, hit them angles!

It’s amazing how adjusting your angles can help to cut out school buildings and banners for school spirit in the background. So just keep that in mind while you’re shooting.

And lastly keep your aperture really high! Doing this helps to blur your background and gives you a dreamy look no matter where you!

Just remember, you don't need to be in the most gorgeous location ever to capture breathtaking photos.

For instance, fave photos from this shoot are 100% the ones in Chick Fil A.

Enjoy!

TaylorRae Schnepp