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Inside the temples at Angkor Wat



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2 Comments | Report
ellenellen PRO+
 
ellenellen January 13, 2016
Lovely shot. Welcome to VB.
pradeepvaidya
 
pradeepvaidya April 17, 2018
Nicely framed work...
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Behind The Lens

Location

I took this photo while traveling through Cambodia. The Angkor Wat temples near Siem Reap had been high on my list of "must-sees" for a while and it was by far my favorite photography destination in Asia.

Time

Anyone who has tried travel photography can attest that sometimes you just don't have control over the time of day you get to shoot in a particular place. So, while I would have loved to get there in the early morning light, I ended up at this temple right around noon (the worst time of day to shoot in natural light). The other downfall of getting there in the middle of the day was that the temples were at their busiest and full of people.

Lighting

Since I wasn't able to get to this temple until mid-day I was fighting with a bright, overhead sun to try to get something usable. Every exterior picture I took ended up with harsh shadows and unflattering light so I ventured inside, hoping to find something a bit more photogenic. Most of the spaces were too dark for my taste but I stumbled across this corridor of rooms and loved the combination of light from the windows and repetitive shapes and lines.

Equipment

I just used a basic Nikon D7000 with a Nikkor 18-105 lens. Nothing too fancy.

Inspiration

Angkor Wat is such a beautiful place but with it's ornate carvings, neverending vines and lichen covered walls the whole place feels a little visually busy. This area spoke to me because it still shows the history and texture characteristic of the temples, but is much simpler in nature.

Editing

Due to the high number of people in this temple it was hard to get a completey empty shot. Therefore I had to take two shots (one with an empty foreground and the other with an empty background) and use photoshop to merge the two. I also pulled the shadows up and the highlights down, corrected the white balance, desaturated a touch and gave it a bump in clarity.

In my camera bag

When I travel I am usually away from home for a month or two at a time. This means I have extremely limited space and weight available for gear. I also know the risk of damage or theft is high, so I try not to take anything that would be devestating to lose. My travel go-tos are a Nikon D7000, a Nikkor 18-105, a Tokina 11-16 F2.8 a few polarizing filters and a Joby gorilla pod (my absolute favorite travel accessory). If I have the space and know there will be an abudance of wildlife where I am going then I pack a Tamaron 70-200 F2.8 and a Nikkor 50 F1.8.

Feedback

I like to play with perspective and take similar photos from many different angles. I get down on the ground, stand on something high, or try the shot from multiple different directions. I don't know what will work until I try it, so I like to try everything! I also recommend looking for interesting light, shadows and lines. This is just a boring empty corroidor, but with the right combination of these elements I was able to get a visually interesting shot. My last bit of advice is for shooting in a tourist filled location. You could wait forever for everyone to get out of the frame and it still might not happen. For these instances, I recommend taking multiple images from the same viewpoint (it's best if you use a tripod). Then you can take the people-less sections of each photo and combine them in photo shop to get your tourist-free shot.

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