In June 2021, I was contacted by Nguyen from the Amanoi Resort as she was looking for a photographer for an upcoming shoot to capture architectural images of the resorts interiors and exteriors as well as some of their activities, their spa and some food shots. We had a few emails back and forth and then she looped me in with Jonathan and Jo from the Aman corporate office in London and we set up a call to go through the art direction.
They were looking for images that captured the awe inspiring natural beauty of the location as well as the resort architecture which is designed to work with, compliment and reveal its surrounding environments. Capturing natural beauty meant that shooting at the right time of day would be crucial and I would need use the golden, dusk and dawn hours as much as possible.
The shoot was originally planned for August but in late July Vietnam went into a very strict Covid 19 lockdown and the shoot was postponed. We ended up splitting the shoot into 2 parts with a first 4 day trip in November to shoot recently completed villas and residences and a second 4 day shoot was scheduled for mid January during the dry season. I was later commissioned to an additional 2 days in May 2022.
For each trip we did a scouting day ahead of the shoot to visit each of the shooting locations and to scout out the best angles and when I visit each location I use a sun tracking application to understand the best time to shoot each image.
In the gallery below I have shared one of my final images and by flicking through you’ll see the scouting shot and a screenshot from my sun tracking application which I used to understand that the sun would rise on a 45 degree angle from behind the residence making this the perfect angle for a wide shot of the pool, decking, gazebo and living pavilion.
With the sun rising in an ideal position we spent the whole morning at this residence capturing images from dawn, through sunrise and then indoors once the light became harsh. Careful attention is paid to the furniture arrangement and for each shot we have rearranged the decking furniture so that it does not block any important background elements.
In some cases the best light that we get for some shots is on the scouting day and the gallery below shows how I composited two images together to create my final image. The first image is the final retouched image with neighbouring residence removed but the furniture was not set up correctly on the decking. We returned at the same time the following day but there was some haze in the sky so the contrast on the landscape wasn’t as striking and a composite of the two images saved me returning a third time.
With resort interior and exterior images time of day is everything but my approach to shooting and lighting is a little different depending on the time of day so I thought I’d explain my approach for the different times of day below.
Dawn and Dusk
Dawn shots are the most difficult as it’s important to be on location an hour before first light so that we have time to set up our composition, balance the camera and rearrange furniture before it starts to get light and can mean being up as early as 3am. Once set up and before it’s get’s light I take long exposures where I paint with light using a Lowel GL-1 Power LED to add texture and detail into areas that are too dark or that I want to highlight. Once I’ve done my lighting I’ll then capture a range of available light frames throughout dawn and these are blended with my pre dawn lighting frames to create the final image.
In the below before and after retouching image you can see that I’ve added light to the trees, the deck chairs and the decking and then I’ve adjusted the colour temperature of the pool lights so that the water appears as it does to the eye.
At dusk it’s the same process but I’m capturing natural light images throughout dusk and then I add lighting to the scene once it is dark.
For the below image I arrived before sunset but unfortunately there had been a miscommunication with the maintenance staff and the furniture had to be transported from another villa. I set up my composition without the furniture so that everything was ready to go and slowly the chairs and table base arrived first but it wasn’t until about halfway through dusk that the heavy table top was carried in by a team of 6 men and we managed to get the shot just before the colour in the sky started to fade.
When I’m adding light to these images I am always thinking about trying to make it look believable and in this image all of my lighting is coming from the right of frame so as to emulate the existing light on the rock and to make it look like it’s all coming from the one light source.
The great thing about dusk and dawn shots though is that they work well even on cloudy days. The below shot was taken at the end of a very cloudy afternoon where we didn’t get any sun breaking through after 3pm but I wasn’t concerned as I knew that the image would work at dusk.
Occasionally I will set up two cameras to capture dawn or dusk in two places at the same time. The below image was taken using this technique and after setting up and taking some initial exposures at this location I then headed next door to set up and shoot my second shot. As it started to get light I sent my assistant Khanh back to the first location so that he could capture some bracketed exposures during blue hour and when he arrived he called me to tell me that my CamRanger 2 which I use to control my camera remotely was covered in a big white ball.
I finished shooting and headed over to find that a frog had decided that the location was the perfect spot to lay it’s eggs and my CamRanger 2 was covered in a giant ball of eggs as you can see in the below image. Luckily the camera did not move and I’m very glad that it didn’t lay them on my lens!
Sunrise and Sunset
Sunrise and sunset’s are far less complicated than dusk and dawn shots as at this time the light usually looks spectacular as it is. It’s golden and the contrast range is usually fairly low so outdoor shots often don’t need additional lighting.
For the below location we shot a wider dawn version and then once I finished it I adjusted my composition, rearranged the furniture and waited for the sun to break through and light up the scene.
We swept the deck and cleaned the pool of leaves before the shoot but with each gust of wind leaves continued to fall from the tree at the end of the pool so there was light retouching to clean these up and I also removed some of the boats in the background.
On most days I’ve got a drone ready to go so that as soon as I finish my sunrise shot that I can put it in the air and take advantage of what is left of golden hour. During my time at the Amanoi the weather often clouded over in the afternoon so I captured the majority of my aerials in the morning. For these shots the most important thing is to have the location ready before we take off and if it looks like it is going to be a sunny morning I’ll have the staff go out to each of the villas that I need aerial shots of and set them up with cushions on furniture and doors and blinds open so that they are ready to go.
Retouching wise for these images I am correcting the verticals and removing neighbouring villas so to enhance the feeling of privacy that you get when you are in the villas.
Below is a gallery of 4 images that I captured on a 20 minute flight of two neighbouring villas.
Late Morning and Early Afternoon
Once the golden light has faded I focus on interiors either side of what is usually a long 3-4 hour break where I download and check through my images, have lunch and rest if time allows before we continue shooting once the light becomes less harsh in the afternoon. Images taken during the hours either side of lunch usually have fairly extreme contrast ranges and my final images usually have a blend of ambient light exposures which are blended with flash exposures so as to bring up detail in the shadows. In the below image I have added very subtle amounts of light to the the foreground table and chairs, the doors, pillars and a few other areas so as everything looks it’s best.
Interiors can be tricky as sometimes the perfect position for the camera is the hardest position to put a tripod in so sometimes I have to improvise. The perfect position for the below shot was right on the windowsill as any further back and I would had the window in frame and any further forward and I wouldn’t be able to compose the image with both of the beds in shot so my tripod for this shot consisted of 4 canon batteries, a power bank, my Edelkrone FlexTILT and my Leofoto G4 geared head which makes leveling the camera even in even the tightest of spaces a breeze.
Interior and exterior images were the priority for the shoot but we also did some lifestyle images, some details at the spa and some food shots.
The brief for the lifestyle images was to capture graceful, gentle and discreet images and it was preferred that human presence be subtle and faces only shown if the atmosphere is kept very humble and authentic.
For the below trekking shot the light was constantly changing but when the rays of light broke through I was getting some incredible light. When the light was best on the background the foreground was usually in shadow so my approach was to shoot on a tripod and this allowed me to composite the best images of the talent (I decided to move them much further apart in the final image) into the best image of the background and below is a before and after version.
And below are some of the other lifestyle images that I captured during the shoots.
For spa treatments the brief was to create soft and peaceful images that captured the sensory experience with focus kept on the hands of the staff so to evoke the level of skill and precision of the movement. For a moody look I shot these with soft flash light from behind the subject and I kept the shadows fairly dark and to increase the mood I skimmed a little bit of light along the spa wall in the background.
Below is a gallery of some of my other favourite images from the shoot.
And here are some behind the scenes images taken by my assistants Khanh and Tuan Anh.
I’ll finish off with some tearsheets featuring many of my images on the Aman website.
A behind the scenes look into an interior and exterior architectural project that I shot for New World Hoiana Beach Resort in Hoi An, Vietnam in early 2023. In this post I explain how I approach replacing skies when the weather doesn’t play along during a shoot.