Dated: 19 August 2016

As this competition gets more and more incredible entries every year it becomes harder to win an award. I have won awards every year for the last 4 years which is when I first enterered this compitition. However this is the first year I have managed to take out 1st prize in 2 categories. I am pretty happy with these wins especially the win for the botanical category. I am so proud of this image as it was super hard to set up and shoot, I had pulled a muscle in my back a couple of days earlier and was in so much pain I did not want to go out and shoot it but I was there and I am sure glad I did. The condiditons were perfect and it had taken almost 2 years for everything to come together for the execution of the image (weather)(planets) and me being able to get out to the location so I could not walk away. Lying on the ground over rocks and prickles trying to set up the composoiton was a nightmare although I was lying on my trusty car viser which I always carry for this purpose (just in case). Every time I moved or breathed the pain would grab in my back reminding me it was still there. The lighting was the next stage to set up once the composoiton was fine tuned and I knew if I could execute it the way I saw it in my head it was going to be a strong image. Off camera flash was used to create the rim light which is one of my favourite types of light. I love it when I get to use some of the technical info that I learned so long ago at ULTIMO TAFE in the studio as I dont use it nearly as much as I would like to. Once I had the lighting ratio’s sorted it was just a matter of doing some test shots for placement of lights so I was back and forth from camera to lights in the most arkward positions possible until I was happy and nailed it.

To see this image please visit my astro/night gallery or award winners gallery.

http://www.juliefletcherphotography.com.au/image-galleries/event/AstroandNightImages

http://www.juliefletcherphotography.com.au/news-blog/award-winning-images