This post includes several of what I consider some of my favorites that I had just loaded on my blog and not this one…I was trying to balance it out between this one and my personal one. So for consideration for publication….here you go!!!!!!
Tag: Eric Scott
I’ve reached the end of the trail with the images from my trip to New Zealand and Oz. There may be odds and ends that I edit from time to time, but these pictures of Bink represent the last of the best. It makes me a little sad to wrap up this creative journey that started a year ago starting to plan the trip and ending now editing the last pictures. In between was a lot of hard work planning a New Zealand trip for 4 fun companions to eventually join more than 20 talented creative souls from OZ, Scotland, England, and the USA in Mission Beach, Australia. And though the sights were incredible, the unforgettable thing for me is the bounds of old friendships strengthened and the new friendships made, the unselfish sharing of talent by some amazing photographers and the intrepid spirit of the models as they climbed rocks and trees, waded in muddy pools, greeted the dawn in warm tropical breezes, balanced on logs, fought off swarms of jungle flies and wild killer birds. Of course all of this made smoother with the local lubricants of Toohey’s and Murder Point. I’ve never seen a 30 pack of beer before. 🙂
And in the end, I am blown away by all the incredible images I’ve created from the trip with the help of such talented, creative people. I felt like I was able to experiment with new technical aspects of photography – becoming a better photographer as well as new directions in editing that have expanded my creative abilities.
Well, Back to the final images. As you may notice, you don’t see Bink’s feet in any of these shots. As told before, the poor lass had cute her foot on some rocks and then had a crab bite her other foot and she could barely walk and needed to keep her shoes on. So we shot around her boots. In spite of all that she kept going as we hiked and limped up the Mt Kataloo trail on Dunk Island with me worrying if we should stop. We made it half way up the mountain not seeing many shooting sites until we came upon this massive tree, which I believe is a Banyan Tree. It was so huge it must have been 100’s of years old. Bink expertly used her famous green shawl to create some classic images complimenting the dark brown bark and green moss on the tree.
Is that a word? Well it applies. As Bink mentioned in her posting, it was a day of adventure. Here’s a few more from our morning session at Mission Beach. I believe several of these are some of the best fine art images I’ve ever created thanks to a beautiful sunrise, a tropical morning and a very talented lady. To see more go to the posting “Bink at the Beach” on my blog http://figuremodels.org/ericscott
Trying to keep the dream alive with a sampling of recently finished works collaborating with the models Joceline, Soph and Vassanta. For more from these sessions, please visit my blot at http://figuremodels.org/ericscott.
I spent an afternoon at Mission Beach, Australia shooting the London fashion and art model, Joceline in the jungles and beaches in the area. We started out shooting in the jungles and moved to the rock seawall and beaches as the sun was setting. The set here was shot among the rocks of the seawall as the sun cast a golden glow on Joceline’s English porceline complexion and hair. Joceline is trained as a ballerina and she showed off her grace posing among the rocks and expertly using the light to accentuate her form. Future blogs will show our other fine art and fashion sets in the jungle and beach. Lovely work, Joceline!!
In our stay in Mission Beach, the hotel Eco Village was very supportive and accommodating to our needs. I can’t say enough good things about them.  They gave us free rein of the open air dining facility in the evenings to present our slide shows and even allowed us to shoot nudes around the property as long as we were respectful to the other guests. And there were some very nice places to shoot on the property as well as the adjoining beach with just a few short step from your bungalow.   One day, Vassanta and I wandered around the property looking for places to shoot. We found a grove of palm trees, another area that the hotel was using to discard palm fronds providing a bed of leaves, and a discarded branch that looked like bizarre antlers. The ever creative V also came up with the idea of using parts of the webbing around the palm trunk as a headdress. We got some lovely shots using the amber color of the palm fronds to accentuate her tan. I also used some new editing techniques to get a gorgeous platinum hued split tone result.  We were also fortunate to benefit from one of  those rare occasions where you are at the right place at the right time. She was posing on top of this tree that had grown around a rock when a natural sun burst started filtering through the trees behind her. This also provided a spot of light on her as well. I timed the shot to coincide as the burst came through the trees. Ahhh….another day in paradise! I want to go back!!!!
While shooting around our hotel at Mission Beach, the ever creative Vassanta put together some different looks using the husks off the side of palm trees as a headdress, discarded palm fronds to frame her face and some discarded branches to create some “antlersâ€.   I thought it would be interesting to share some of the different versions of these portraits from my experiments in Lightroom. More photos to come from the sessions around Mission Beach and the palms.
I made two excursions to Babinda Boulders. It’s located in a park in the jungle midway between Cairns and Mission Beach, Australia. Rapids run through beautiful curvy rock formations carved by the river as well as rain erosion. The first visit was upon arrival in Australia. Claudine and I were anxious to shoot and stopped by there on the way to Mission Beach after flying into Cairns from Auckland, NZ. There is about a mile of paved paths running high above the river bank to give you several lookout points over the beautiful rocks. We reached the end of the trail overlooking a vast stretch of boulders with rapids running through them and cascading in small waterfalls. Kids were everywhere jumping from boulder to boulder and over the stream as well. Danger signs were everywhere – “Extremely Slippery, People have died here !”   With all the kids jumping from boulder to boulder, how dangerous could it be? So we ventured out. Of course, I find a wet patch and proceed to fall on my ass. It was like walking on ice! The signs were not joking. So we gingerly wandered among the boulders trying to find private places to shoot. In most cases, we had just a few minutes opportunity to shoot before onlookers materialized. However, even with those limitations, I love the images we got – especially the ones of her curled up in these gorgeous womb like carvings in the rock.
The next day I went on a scouting trip of some locations for shooting later in the week and Rebecca came along for the adventure and also some shooting if we found some places. Josephine Falls was gorgeous, but too crowded. We were near Babinda Boulders and thought Rebecca might enjoy seeing it. Plus, there was a whole section I had not seen the day before, and it might not be as crowded to shoot in the areas I had been. We went back to the area Claudine and I had shot in. It was not as crowded as the day before and we wandered around looking for shooting locations. I warned Becca about the slippery rocks. She thought it would be cool to shoot by the water by jumping down about 4 feet into this cubby hole by the water. I was nervous, but off she jumped…..annnnd slipped right off the little rock ledge and into the rapids. She was caught in a shoot of water barely clutching the rock walls before being swept down stream. I jumped down in the same cubby hole, slipping myself and it took all my strength to steady myself on the slippery rock and pull her out against the current. Miraculously, the sarong she had on didn’t get ripped off her by the current. So now we are holding on to each other stuck in this cubby hole, just big enough for the both of us, with the rock ledge we need to get out 4 feet up. So, I steadied myself and pushed her up the ledge and she was out. But now I was stuck. It was too slippery for me to get any kind of footing to get out. Luckily two Aussie teenagers came the rescue. One holding on to me to pull me out and the other holding on to his mate to prevent him from slipping down into the hole with me. Without them, it would have been a loooonggg wait because nobody was around. So we were both bruised and banged up, but nothing major. We had lost the confidence in remaining safe in the area, so we departed for the upper part of the river. Here, the water pools into a small lake before being channeled into the rapids below. Rebecca went swimming in the pool with me shooting at a distance with a 300mm lens. I couldn’t get closer due to the danger of slipping on the rocks to get to the pool and going swimming with my camera gear. I think Rebecca enjoyed her skinny dipping and swimming except for one time putting her hand on a rock and finding a spider larger than her hand in a cubby hole. I love the ones we got with the light highlighting her form while swimming. Later in the week, we visited a crocodile farm and learned that crocs are known to habitat bodies of water like the one Becca was swimming in. hmm. That’s one bitey thing I’m glad we didn’t meet in the wild!
This was a day of firsts. First time working with the lovely Soph from Australia, first time entering the jungle forests of Australia and the first time I encountered the biting things of Australia. The first two firsts more than made up for the last one. We shot in two locations, first in some forest near Mission Beach and then among the rocks and trees on Mission Beach. We entered the forest on a trail and did some shooting among some trees using the shadows of the leaves to paint her body. Then we continued down the trail coming to a creek where we also ran into some other members of our group. Soph wandered up the creek where we got some stunning shots with the jungle canopy surrounding her. And this is where the jungle dance comes in. It was my first experience with the biting flies of Mission Beach. And it’s not one or two attacking you..but swarms of them about the size of a US horse fly biting you and drawing blood. But what am I complaining about! I had shorts on and they were just biting my legs. Poor naked Soph was getting bitten all over. It’s amazing either of us could hold still enough under the dark canopy of the jungle to get any sharp images! We then escaped the killer flies to go to the flyless beach. When we arrived at the beach, we ran into the same members of our group we encountered in the forest. I swear we were not stalking them!!! Once on the beach, we got some beautiful images among the boulders and trees. Thanks to Soph for sharing the experience, the bites  and getting some lovely images
After 3 days of rain on the South Island of New Zealand, our drenched group headed back to the North Island. We passed through Wellington and headed about 40 minutes north to spend the night at Raumati Beach before traveling on to Taupo the next day. I awoke in the early morning darkness to go check out the weather and beach for a possible shoot that morning. OMG….not a cloud in the sky and the beach was gorgeous was a small river flowing into the ocean strewn with logs and debris. I found some beautiful shooting locations using that debris, and stumps of trees on the beach with the large Kapiti Island as background. Claudine was ready for an early morning shoot and we got some beautiful pre-dawn shots as the light was just hitting the waves giving it an amber bluish hue. I then went back to our hotel and grabbed Rebecca. The sun had risen at that point and got some nice slightly overexposed shots with the sun behind her as well as it accentuating her porceline complexion.  It was a tricky location because there were houses all along the beach. A few early morning passerbys just waved or ignored us. Shooting like this is so natural to me now, that I forget it might offend some people. Well apparently it did, becuase by the time Edward and Vassanta started shooting the police were out. I wish we had more time to spend here becuase you could take a boat to Kapiti island and I’m sure there’d be interesting shooting and hiking there.
