On Finding the Right Nothing

Location scouting is misunderstood. People think we are looking for beauty, for the most stunning backdrop, the most dramatic vista. We are not. We are looking for nothing.

The best editorial locations are spaces that have been emptied of everything except structure and light. A concrete wall with one window. A corridor with no furniture. A rooftop with nothing but sky. These are the locations where the subject becomes everything, where clothing becomes architecture, where the human form becomes sculpture.

The Checklist We Actually Use

After scouting hundreds of locations across twelve countries, we have reduced our criteria to five questions:

1. Where does the light come from, and when does it arrive?
2. What is the dominant texture of the surfaces?
3. Can a person stand here and be the only point of interest?
4. What is the ambient sound? (Sound affects posture, which affects the image)
5. Can we return tomorrow at the same time and find the same conditions?

If any question returns a negative, we move on. There are always more walls, more corridors, more nothing.

Beautiful Locations Are Usually Wrong

A villa overlooking the sea. A field of wildflowers. A grand staircase in a palace. These locations are beautiful, and they are almost always wrong for editorial work. They compete with the subject. They tell their own story so loudly that the garment, the person, the concept cannot be heard.

We learned this the hard way, on a shoot in Lisbon in 2022. The location was breathtaking — a tiled courtyard with a fountain, bougainvillea climbing the walls. The images were terrible. Every frame looked like a postcard. The clothing was invisible.

The next day, we found a parking garage three blocks away. Bare concrete, fluorescent lighting, water stains on the ceiling. The images from that garage are still some of the best we have ever made.