Tag Archives: Behind-the-scenes

The Eagles Nest

Waking up this morning an hour or so before sunrise I peeked out my window and to my surprise, the sky was clear as a bell which was weird considering the forecast was for rain and cloud but hey… I wasn’t complaining as I could use my early morning wake-up to sit out to the arboretum and capture the sun rising over our city before it started to wake.

I must say driving around Canberra before dawn on a Saturday morning is actually quite pleasant. The traffic is almost non-existent and in winter time the area is crisp as a new hundred dollar bill. Not that I’ve actually seen one of those in some time. lol

And getting to the arboretum was not surprised that there was no one around, not even any birds. Not sure if it was the cold weather or the fact that it was too early, maybe even a combination of both, either way, had the place to myself.

On top of one of our lookouts at the arboretum as sculpture there that is made up of all different types of metal shapes to create what is an Eagle’s nest sitting on top of the Eagle’s nest as you can see is an Eagle. Surprise surprise. During the daylight hours, it’s interesting to have a look at how they put this thing together but I must say I prefer the silhouette of the structure against the rising sun and the blue skies.

The Eagle's nest at the Canberra arboretum
The Eagle’s nest at the Canberra Arboretum

In the background, you can see Black Mountain with the fog on the clouds rolling across it as they moved from the hills towards the lake. While you can’t see it in this picture the tower was illuminated green. Unfortunately, I was unable to capture an image they are satisfied with that showed off the color but I guess that is a good excuse to go back.

Behind-the-scenes of an early morning sunrise
Behind-the-scenes of an early morning sunrise

Spending a few hours before dawn, taking the time to take some photos and take in the surrounds is a great way to start a weekend and a great way to ground yourself.

Were you sleeping while I was up capturing these photos for you also out and about capturing similar memories?

Sun rising across the nation's capital
Sun rising across the nation’s capital

Behind-the-scenes of the rooftop pool shoot

A week or so ago posted a picture of a lady in a blue dress next to a swimming pool and in this post, I wanted to go along give some insight into the background and the behind-the-scenes of making that shot.

I had with me my Elinchrom Quadra along with my Elinchrom 100 cm x 100 cm softbox hoisted up high on a light stand. Luckily for me, I had an assistant holding the light as the wind was blowing a gale without their assistance there was no way I could use any sort of like fodder modifier like a softbox as a thing was turned into Mary Poppins and flown off the roof.

In the shop below you can see that I had softbox roughly about 3 m away from the model. The placement of the softbox was as close as I can get without having the shot and I did this on purpose to ensure that had soft as possible light. Because of the high winds, I removed both external and internal diffusers as there was a high chance they were going to blow off the roof, and I really didn’t want to go collect them. 🙂

Behind-the-scenes of the pool shoot
Behind-the-scenes of the pool shoot

As you can see shot was taken in full sun’s on the left side of the model without the artificial lighting that part of her body would have been incomplete shadow and to be honest would have looked like crap, so the only way to get around that is to punch a light into the shadows to reduce the contrast between the left side of her body and the right side that was in the sun.

The light itself is fired by a remote trigger that sits on top of my camera gives me about 70 m range so was able to get back a considerable way and take the shot using a 200 mm lens.

After a little bit of mucking around and getting the exposure right to rest, you could say is history.

Model by the pool
Model by the Pool