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One thing that I’ve learned about myself during quarantine is that I absolutely love Tik Tok. Hear me out on this one; I think that this specific app’s algorithm is unlike any others. It has led me into countless hours of endless scrolling of content that I actually am so interested in. Some people who might not use Tik Tok all the time may think that it is just a corner of the internet where their friends and teenage girls who wear crop tops make cringey dances, but after using the app more and more, its algorithm picks up on what you view and like the most. Your “for you page” on the app shows you content that it thinks you may like. So the other night, I was scrolling through my for you page and came across this really dope girl who is in her twenties and is a freelance photographer. This girl is sharing her secrets that she has learned from the industry and how she personally plans/ executes her own photoshoots. That Tuesday morning, at 1:30 A.M., I felt like I struck gold. So, with all this time I have on my hands, I decided to do exactly what this girl does when she plans out her shoots. First, I started brainstorming interesting locations for where I could take pictures at during quarantine. My mind immediately went to the poppy fields in SoCal because right now they are in bloom and are so so beautiful. From that point, I started bookmarking every single photo I saw that was taken at the poppy fields that came up in my Instagram feed of my friends and influencers who also had the same idea. Second, I picked who I wanted my models to be. Because we are in quarantine, my sisters came to mind first, and then I asked my friend Emily to drive out there on her own (because social distancing is on all of our minds these days). Then, I hit up Pinterest and pinned every single photo I could find that had anything to do with a photoshoot in a flower field. One tip to this process that I found very helpful when narrowing my search, which I learned from the Tik Tok video, is that if you type “flower field photoshoot editorial”, the keyword being “editorial” in the search bar, Pinterest shows you photographs that are aesthetically pleasing that have been published and featured in established magazines. Once I pinned all my inspiration for all aspects of the shoot (poses, make-up, hair, outfit ideas, etc...), I got on Adobe Spark and started making mood boards. Shout out to BU for providing their students with free access to all Adobe Products. This is how they turned out…
So, I sent these ideas to my sisters and Emily and then helped them plan out their looks. I asked them to emulate my vision that I put together on the mood boards. We drove out to the fields which are about an hour and a half drive from my house. The drive was really enjoyable because we had some nice tunes playing, and the hills were super green due to all the rain we’ve been getting out here in Southern California. Once we got to the poppy reserve, we started driving around looking for the ideal location for our shoot.  So get this, we pulled up to this really beautiful hill that is covered in orange and decided to hop the fence so that we could be surrounded by the flowers from all angles. As we were running up this hill, we heard a man yell “you guys are trespassing on private property get down.” In that moment my sisters started getting scared because we were trespassing and the unpredictable nature of how he was going to treat us when we got down was nerve-racking. He ended up being super chill, lowkey started flirting with us, and he warned us about how there are rattlesnakes in the fields that we have to be extra careful about. He also said that since we were in “ranch land” the owners of the land around the poppy reserve will pull out their rifles on you if you trespass on their land. I think he was trying to scare us, but he said that so many people trespass for pictures up there and that it was literally his job to yell at people to get down from the hill. He appreciated that we listened to him the first time he told us to get down because I guess a lot of people are rude and just ignore him. I don’t regret breaking the rules and going up there, because I seriously have never seen anything that beautiful in so long (thanks for that one quarantine.) My only regret was that we didn’t get any photos sitting on the hill because I know they would’ve come out so cool. After having a part of the shoot occur in front of that specific hill, the man we were talking to before told us where we should go to see an area that has the most bloom of the entire poppy reserve. So we drove to our second location to get photos with the background of an endless poppy field. Here’s how they came out…
   After we took pictures in the wind for probably an hour and a half with the mirror that hangs in my parents’ entryway of our house and a couple of outfit changes, my sister drove the car home while I immediately started going through the photos and editing them on my computer.
In regards to editing, I have always preferred using VSCO because it's such an easy app to use and I love the filter “A6.” I try to cohesively edit all my pictures with that filter because when my photos are put together on Instagram or this blog, I feel like there is one aspect of the image that ties them all together very nicely. Overall, the experience of simply getting out of the house after being cooped up inside for so long made the day with my sisters and Emily so much fun. This summer my plan is to really put time into my photography hobby so I can start developing a portfolio for future employers, as I am studying advertising in school with the intention of getting into the creative side of the industry. If you have read this far down in the post, I hope you enjoyed learning more about my creative process and maybe have become inspired yourself.
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