Welcome Back!

After an always not long enough summer, Photo Venue is back and ready to post more locations and photography tips for readers. You can look forward to venues from the Northeast United States, Tennessee, and more from the Blog's target areas in North Carolina.

Also, this blog will partner with my freelance photography blog and social networking site in order to provide you with additional services and information. This partnership will bring opportunities for free shoots, modeling, and paid photography services. A Facebook page for Photo Venue and Melanie Mishue Photography will go live within the next week.

I am excited to offer blog posts on online and in-store photo prints with blog posts to help you find current deals on getting your photos printed for distribution and any photo creations that can be made cheap. Making your own prints can be pricey, but there is no need to pay full price every time when many labs offer regular discounts.

There will be nothing that I will not consider posting if it helps my readers with photography, so look forward to new and refreshing ideas and venues.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Send them to: melaniemishue@gmail.com

Thank you for viewing my blog, and I can't wait to get the blog posts rolling!

Hurley Park

Located in Salisbury, NC, Hurley Park is the optimum place to take photographs, especially in the Spring. The park seems to go on forever with green walking trails and small pond with geysers. Overlooking the pond is a long deck with seating that brings a new texture into the background. As you can see in the background of the unedited photo below, a high school student was using the park for prom photos.

Trees shade the perimeters of the walkways and can add a new depth to your photographs. Sisters Angela and Heather Bailey took advantage of greenery.

Angela (below) found a beautiful flower to pose next too.

My absolute favorite spot is along the walking bridges. These bridges let you frame your subjects and give them something to hide behind if you want to focus on the head and shoulders or to combat shyness.

By the bridge, we located a interesting looking tree. The branches were perfect for seats and to get some unique photographs. I asked the sister if they would pose together in my favorite shot of the day:

Finally, the most whimsical part of the part are the Weeping Willow trees near the pond. You can utilize these trees as beautiful backgrounds or get your subject within the branches. Nevertheless, you can always use to the trees to take a break from shooting on a hot, sunny day -- that's what we did.

For this shoot, I used a point-and-shoot FujiFilm camera, which is a little different than the Canon Rebel XS DSLR that I use now. The camera was easily portable, but was overall slow compared to the camera I use now; however, I always grab my Fuji just in case I spot something while I'm out. It's always good to have a point-and-shoot backup because it's easier to toss in your bag than a DSLR.

These pictures are from my first ever photo shoot. I didn't know as much about cameras as I know now, but as you can see, you can still get beautiful photos as long as you use your imagination in your venue.

Hurley Park is a wonderful start for anyone who wants to take some photographs.

Be sure to check out this venue:

Hurley Park
302 West Franklin Street
Salisbury, NC 28144