These are not ugly locations, some of the flowers, fences, stone walls and greenery are absolutely beautiful! I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is the point the artist is trying to make here. Nice photos!

The title was a bit misleading, I thought this was gonna be about how any place can look good if you take a photo well, but it ended up being about how the location doesn't really matter as much as people make it out to when the focus of the photo is not the location (but a person, an animal, maybe an object). I personally think in these photos the background indeed doesn't matter at all, since they're closes and the rest is blurred. But maybe show more examples with more people, and more open shots? To show the point better. Just a thought.

The title of this should have been "How to photograph my daughter" because without her it is just colors and blurry trees/plants. Btw the author says "My daughter and I set out one night to find the most unsuspecting places..." So really, your daughter just happens to have her hair done: washed and styled/combed, her clothes picked out and pretty, with her second outfit: the white shirt ironed and matching her white shoes. This all seems extremely staged which is fine but don't lie and say that you set out to find a place one night, dude you planned all of this ahead of time(with a second change of clothes) and you blurred out the background, anybody can do that with a computer. Also, this is another slight irritation I had: dude please don't post photos of your child in shorts, your photos are a bit creepy, especially on the 8th location. I know a lot of people might think it's okay she's just a kid, but I don't. This isn't your personal facebook, this is the Internet ...

Agree with the author. We should stop making excuses. Good photos are mostly coming from a skilled (by talent or by learned) photographer and photo editor.

yep , seems legit. go to a location and make sure you can't see it at all.

I don't like the final result of any of these. They look staged and making the kid into a glamorous model. I prefer photos of kids being kids.

These are awesome!

Wow.

Wow these are beautiful!

Good eye.

everyone can take the same photos with your gear and even better with photoshop

It isn't skill. Well not really, skill alone. It is creatively and being able to see the beautiful in the ordinary.

#2 gave me the impression she had two right arms. A bit confusing at first.

How is number 8 ugly?

if you have ever seen russian photoshoots (by who i assume are amateurs) it becomes quite clear that skill is everything, just not the only thing.