This is a guest post from Brandon and Michelle Horn of Horn Photography and Film.

Brandon and I challenge ourselves, each year, to look at our business with fresh eyes. We have found that doing a social media spruce up helps to get the new creative juices flowing. To be honest we do two spruce ups each year, one in January and another in June (our spring spruce up).

1.) Personal Photo Shoot
Every social media spruce up we do starts with a personal photo shoot of us being goofy, having fun and loving the moment. We use this shoot to change out all of our profile photos for social media (FB, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Google +). In addition we also use the photos to update our website + blog (home page, about page and contact page). If you would like to see more of our shoot visit: 2 EXTRAVERTED GOOFBALLS + SELF-TIMER MODE

2.) Website Gallery Update
Next we update our website photo galleries. We begin by going threw our latest weddings and pulling out photos that best represent our brand and where we want it to head. This is followed by reviewing our current gallery and replacing outdated photos with our recent work.

3.) Mobile Site Enhancement
Once our main site is refreshed we head over to our mobile site for updates. You can set up your mobile site to automatically update to mirror your main site, however we created a very custom design for our mobile site so we do the quick updates manually.

4.) Blog Beautification
Everyone has a different style of blog, but most of us have at least a few photos that remain stagnate (for lack of a better word) on our blogs, for example: blog about page photo, header photos or category photos. We like to freshen these up too, especially since we have regulars who visit the blog 4-5 times a week.

5.) Declutter
We love this part… simplifying brings us great joy. There are two main places we declutter FB and Pinterest. We like to post albums of each shoot we capture on our FB fan page, the albums add up quickly. Therefore, each year we go threw and delete any albums that don't represent where our brand is heading. And if your anything like us Pinterest boards multiply faster then rabbits each year. To declutter your pinterest boards takes some time, but in the end it helps potential clients find your work + get an idea of your personal style.

At times it seems like the quest for the perfect shoot location is never ending. I'm so guilty of this. It seems like anywhere we travel too I constantly catch myself saying, “I wish we lived here, there are so many gorgeous places to shoot!”. Then my mind starts dreaming… thinking of shoots I have seen in Lombardy Italy, The Andes, Switzerland, New Zealand… the list could go on. But as soon as my mind begins to journey off on a wild adventure, the voice of my husband Brandon chimes in and breaks up my daydream. He reminds me that we live in a beautiful place, we just need to embrace + unveil it. I shrugged my shoulders and rolled my eyes, he was right. I had started to take for granted where we lived. I had given up the creative challenge of finding the uniquely interesting story every space has to offer, a story that is all its own.

So a few years back we decided to look at our hometown with fresh eyes, our smartphones and GPS. Now it seems as if everyplace we go locally I always say, “this would be perfect for a shoot at _____ time of day, we have to mark this down!” I pull out my phone grab a quick pic (with the location services on) and put it into a shoot location album on my phone which is backed up on the cloud. Brandon always jokes remarking that he has created a monster. He did create a monster, a monster with a vast library of awesome shoot locations that very in character, style, ambiance and lighting.

How to begin the Adventure of Embracing + Unveiling the beauty of where you live.

1.) Get in the habit of seeing each place you go as a possible place to shoot. Even if your just taking a bike ride to a friends house for coffee. Look at the alley you are riding down or the old buildings you may be passing, these are all potential locations.

2.) Stop and take a photo. With our smartphones attached to our hips it only takes 2 seconds to snap a pic. Make sure your location services is on for that particular photo, this way you have the GPS coordinates for later.

3.) Take quick notes about the location. We use an Exif Editor app on our phones called ExifWizPro. I jump into ExifWizPro pull up the photo and add a few details that will be a BIG help later on.

It's all in the Details!

When it comes to noting details of a location we document some key information.

• The best time of day for beautiful lighting at the location
• What kind of shoot would work best here
• Accessibility (What is the parking situation? Can a woman in high heals and a gorgeous dress get to this location)
• When is this location available (For example, some of our favorite places to shoot are parking garages, so we need to determine when the garage is empty)
• Do we need permission to use this location

Watch-out for temptation
When we first started to look for new locations we would ride in the car for hours. Little did we know, this was a huge mistake. We quickly found that getting on our bikes or taking a walk was so much more beneficial. Experiencing the world first hand with all our senses revealed hidden little gems down back roads, alleys and sidewalks we just couldn't get to in our car.

We hope this helps get your creative and adventurous juices flowing. Have fun!