Our kids have brought a lot of joy to our lives. But if there is one thing that I really miss about our vacations before the kids came along, it was being able to chug around heavy camera equipment to remote places, brave the cold or inclement weather, or wait hours for a particular photographic opportunity to present itself. Our Bali 2008 trip was largely that. Ok, the weather was pretty good throughout that 2008 trip and we left with some really nice scenery pictures that had to be carefully setup up.
For this 2018 trip, I really wanted to find an opportunity to take sunrise and/or sunset photos. The Balinese drivers are great for bringing you from place to place to sight-see, but they don’t necessarily know the best places to take pictures, and for that I looked for Ubud-based photographers offering photo-tours. One such was found – Taksu Photo Gallery (yes they have a gallery in central Ubud too) – owned by a New Zealand-born photographer and now run with his local partner. Like the Day 7 workshops, this booking was made fairly late in the itinerary planning too and by that time, I really only had Day 8 left available to place a booking. The company offers both half-day and full-day photo tours, so I opted for the former so that we still had the afternoon to do another outing as a family.
At about Day 5 in Bali, the gallery owner actually wrote asking if I’d like to join in for a full-day trip to Denpensar instead – where we landed in Bali and about 100 minutes drive away from Ubud – as there was a significant cultural and arts festival that day. Unfortunately, we’d already booked the Taro Village tour the same afternoon, so had to stick with the original half-day programme in Ubud. That was quite a missed opportunity!
My host was the local partner, Nyoman – a gentleman who I think is probably in his mid-50s. He spoke halting English – enough to convey simple instructions and advice, but not a debate LOL. I was picked up early in the morning at 5:20AM, and our first stop was rural Ubud to find vantage spots to take pictures of sunrise over Mt. Agung.
The spot we got to was about a 30 minute drive away – I reckon maybe 25km from our villa, given how fast Nyoman was driving over those narrow roads! We got to the first sunrise spot quite early where it was still pitch dark, and over the next hour or so till 7AM, switched spots four more times to get different perspectives. Nyoman had a couple of aluminum Manfrotto tripods in the car, so I didn’t need to deploy the Sirui that I’d brought along. There was a visible layer of mist too in the distance and the weather wasn’t particularly clear either, so we had to make do.
In all, I’m pretty happy with the results of the sunrise shoot. Here’s a few samples, with some adjustments done in lightroom to reduce highlights and bring out details in shadows.
Continued in the next post.
Wow! Stunning shots, buddy. The early departure was well worth it.
Thanks bud! You really should find an opportunity to visit the island: there are some really incredible photo opportunities for sunrise and sunsets.