The Hobby Lobby Photo Challenge (or the Ugly Location Challenge)

What do I do when it's a day off and I have a camera and a beautiful niece with nothing better to do than spend an afternoon with her aunt? I messaged her with "Hey, wanna go get thrown out of Hobby Lobby with me?" and a link to this video. I shouldn't have been surprised when she agreed, so I charged my camera batteries, packed extra SD cards, and off we went to complete the Hobby Lobby Challenge! 

What is the Hobby Lobby Challenge, you ask? It's basically taking staged photos inside your local Hobby Lobby (or any craft store.... any store at all for that matter). Both of my nieces are always game to help me add new photos to my website, and are always (seemingly) keen to wear my jewelry for a bit and earn a little modeling fee, or free lunches, or both. 

So, I'd packed my camera inside my rather large purse... I didn't want to be too obvious and bring my camera bag, stand and flash, you know. So I stuck to basics and even used my phone a few times.

And straight to the floral department we headed! Now, I'll say that our local Hobby Lobby had a mostly, surprisingly sparse floral department with lots of unattractive

shelving units, tags and posts visible between the vines and flowers, so most of these images required a rather intensive amount of post-editing. But I used free software with Photoscape and Snapseed, and it's easy to get a good basis for some great life-style shots this way. Plus, the weather was uncooperative with a light but steady rain, so an indoor location like this was an ideal exercise in photographic creativity.

Surprisingly, we weren't asked to leave, as we wove our way from aisle to aisle, taking time to change out jewelry pieces, me directing her to stand a certain way, between certain vines or flowers. Employees and customers alike passed us by, some quizzical and some giggling with that "I watched those YouTube videos too" type of knowing that any of us who have fallen down that rabbit hole can understand.

Tarissa was such a sport! She chose her own outfit for the shoot, which worked out beautifully with the greenery of the floral department, and she was never too shy to sit on the floor, sit on shelving units, tuck herself behind fake ferns and generally just rock it! 

We were really only there for about 30 minutes before I stashed my camera back in my purse and we shared a great lunch. I managed to take and edit over 20 solid images. In my excitement, I (ahem) didn't take the time to properly adjust my camera settings beforehand, so many images taken before I realized my error couldn't be salvaged. Still.... I couldn't be more tickled with the end results. 

Have you done the Hobby Lobby Challenge? Are you willing to do one now? I'd love to see the images you end up with if you give it a go! 

Stay creative, folks.

​Nicole

"Just go stand next to those random lamps."