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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Sun, sea and sand with Zoe

I love working with Z. It’s awesomely refreshing to work with a female photographer. Especially a model turned photographer. It means the mood is relaxed, easy going and creative.

We started our shoot with mocha, I don’t think we have ever started a shoot any other way. Next we wandered down to the beach, ambling down with all the time in the world. Chatting and catching up after a years distance between us. The beach was empty and beautiful – as it was every day.

When the photos began we were both in the water, trying not to splash too much moving between poses. Coming out and drying off (thanks Mr Sunshine) before rolling around on the hard sand, allowing me to arch my back trying to mimic the view of the island behind.

A little more exploring found us interesting trees to work with. But these are some of my faves from the shoot – I still haven’t been able to narrow it down any more then this. I love them all!

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

More for Oz :)

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!!!!!!

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Bink: Beautiful Ending to Oz

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.

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Binkventureous

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

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

My time with Eric ….

My time was Eric was an all out adventure.  Including starting at sunrise, going over to Dunk island, crazy (and loud) looking birds, crabs nipping toes and so much beautiful scenery and imagery. This post is focussed on the start of our shoot, sunrise at Mission Beach.

Sunrise at Mission Beach was magical, it’s one of those moments where time seems to stand still. Silently waiting for the sun to come up and peoples days to begin. Or at least most peoples. I think I speak for all the models who attended when I say that there were plenty of early starts! But they were so worth it, every time. A beautiful place, sharing the experience with a wonderful friend and on top of it all, being able to capture some of that magic on camera.

I chose these three to show you all because the first two are  just so classical looking and the third makes me feel calm just by looking at it. I was obviously feeling very content when that photo was taken and it’s one that definately illustrates how happy I was at Mission Beach. You can read Eric’s version of events here! Big thank you to Eric for a wonderful morning and I’m sure I’ll be posting more about the rest of our day soon!

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Australian Sampler

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.

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Joceline: Rocking at Sunset

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!!

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Vassanta: Mission Beach Palm Fashion

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!!!!

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Vassanta: Of Palms and Portraits

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 “antlers”.   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.

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Soph: Jungle Dance

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