The Rip
South Stradbroke Queensland Australia
Biography
Aaron’s first important email was sent to Graham Nixon, owner of Resist Records – his favourite bands label. Aaron was 14, and it was poorly written, but Graham replied saying he would check out the bands single when it was recorded. From that moment on Aaron became addicted to making stuff happen, and I realised it was as simple as ‘doing it’.
Since then Aaron’s recorded that single, toured the country and went on to book national tours for different musicians as a promoter.
Aaron then entered the world of advertising as a strategist, working for big and small brands including Samsung, Gatorade, Pepsi, NFL, Dyson and Sailor Jerry.
Throughout all of this, Aaron fell in love with photography and film and has now begun doing both of these things professionally under the name ‘the a:m creative’, flying drones and working closely with social influencers creating online content.
Aaron’s love of communication and creating media stems from the love of connecting with people at a deeper level, and for that reason everything he creates he aims to elicit some form of emotion connection with his audience. Aaron believes in the power of storytelling over all else.
Image Name:
The RipLocation:
This photograph was taken on South Stradbroke Island, near Couron Cove. It was taken in the mid to late afternoon with the use of DJI Phantom 4 drone in this years summer.
I’ve grown to really love aerial photography, particularly for it’s different perspective and being able to look at the world in a different way, which is why I also love photography, you can share different perspectives with people that they may never see themselves. So my first tip is to figure out what exactly you love about photography, and push yourself into finding ways to explore it, in this case it was throwing a camera into the sky for myself.
On a more technical side, I personally love to shoot in the mid-late afternoon due to the shadows that are created from the air. It accentuates everything – particularly people, buildings and cliff faces. These shadows need to be calculated and similar to sunrise or sunset, minutes can change the photograph completely.
A tip on having the right tools – I highly recommend ND or polarised ND filters. They’re incredible and make such a huge difference. On this specific photo with the ocean, despite being a very bright day, it allowed me to capture the sand without being over exposed, and also capture a slight amount of motion blur in the waves that I was looking for which helps create that movement and also the milkiness and colour contrast.
Camera Equipment:
DJI Phantom 4, Polar Pro Polarised ND filter
Camera Settings:
DJI Phantom 4. ISO 146, f.2.8, 1/120sec, ND filter, RAW DNG.
Software Editing:
The photo was a RAW photo processed through lightroom and then photoshop. I used lightroom to bring out the colour and exposure, and use photoshop to sharpen the photo and adjust curves.