CARMEN, THE MOON, MARS & THE WOOOW

It took a month to plan this shot by using my rock part of the composition, and by knowing the moon trajectory during that specific night…
As usual, Carmen agreed to be the model of that moon eclipse night! Carmen, a girl who likes challenges and has a great idea about low temperatures up the mountains during night time, besides her great knowledge about that kind of photography as it requires a lot of patience.
My shooting friends’ Tarek & Rita are always my right hand in such projects, not to mention the distance they drove to the shooting location. Also, let’s not forget about Moussa, a great wedding photographer, based in Canada, did a great job to accomplish such work posing the model.

Job challenges: Waiting for the right moment of the moon and mars to be over the rock; considering the time limitation we got to capture the shot, as the moon moves fast (especially when using a telephoto lens), me standing like 70 meters away checking the focus, the pose and the lights of the speedlites.
The communication with the guys at the scene was a pain, setting speedlites power and their positions were difficult as well.
Frustration in the middle of the shoot! The guys heard me saying from distance I’m quitting… nothing was working well, the transmitter didn’t trigger speedlites, the moon went high and I lost my composition… we were losing our time.
They heard my steps coming back to the location scene telling them that “I’m afraid that I missed the planned shot”…

The magic of the moment emerged from their encouragement, asking me to try again (that’s why they are my right-hand man)… Again all set, tripod, camera, lights and the pose… and here comes the woooow!

PS: Special thanks to Elie Nehme, who didn’t hesitate to lend me his telephoto lens when he knew that I needed it.