What an honor! All this month, Nikon is featuring an image of mine as the cover photo for the main Nikon Facebook Page. You can check it out here.
Back in 2010, I began teaching CreativeLive classes. It was the first year they launched courses, and mine was one of the first multi-day live programs. At the time, participants were hand-picked from a long list, and we had to pick from quite a number of video submissions. One of the photographers we chose was Sarah Clemence, who flew in from Dubai to join the 3-day program. Class interactions were great. New friends were made. Then, everyone headed back to their respective cities/countries.
SIX YEARS later, I went to Dubai to teach portrait workshops at Gulf Photo Plus, and Sarah was among the photographers. Again. This time, though, she had three children!
And this shot – it was taken in the Arabian Desert, while we all shuffled through the dunes, protecting our gear from the wind and sand while practicing shooting, lighting, and posing techniques. I was demonstrating some front-lighting techniques of Sarah and her kids, and we got some fun images. But as I saw her son slipping and sliding, running up the dunes to her, it struck me that with that bright sun dropping behind them, and the expressiveness of them reaching out to each other, it would make for a fantastic silhouette. I called to him to race to her a few more times while I repositioned myself to center that strong backlight behind them, crouched lower, and tilted my lens upwards to get shot. While also eating a bit of sand*.
*Sand is vegan.
P.S. Another year passes and Sarah’s family now includes a baby girl! So, who knows. Perhaps we will cross paths again in a future CreativeLive session, workshop in the Middle East or a Nikon-sponsored event.
Photographed with the Nikon D4s and Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 lens, at f16.
