Siusin + Daniel | Angkor portraits (day one)

Angkor. There are no superlatives that can diminish its wonder. And even though we were there during Chinese New Year, with about 9 billion tour buses buzzing around the temple grounds, it’s still a place of magic – but not an easy place to make magic images. You want to make pictures at a certain time of day when the light is best, but so does everyone else. So you go to another temple, one of the less-visited temples, at a different time of day…. and there are still a ton of people there. So you try to be creative. Tight compositions. Tilt/shift to obscure messy backgrounds. Shoot into the sun when everyone else is looking in the opposite direction for that magic morning light that falls on the ancient stones. Get up at 4:30 to beat the people who think they are getting up early at 5:30. Be very, very patient, but shoot very, very quickly. And work with a wonderful couple who are game to try anything and shoot for two very long, but very fun days.

This was my first shoot back in Southeast Asia after a five-month hiatus in Canada. Thank you Siusin and Daniel for making it so special.