Posted: 31.05.2007 at 08.40
For city locations, I tend to go wandering around by myself with a camera. If I find somewhere interesting, I start snapping away for reference as well as folio shots. Good old fashion legwork :)
Other than that, it's pretty much as Dave has mentioned. Also something you might want to try is to just pick a suburb and go there for a few hours and see what you can come up with.