Take a look at what goes into the making of Gulf News calendar 2019. Daily headlines from the UAE and around the world brought to you by Gulf News. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/videos
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00:00It's an idea that we've had for a few years now, but I think this year it really came
00:07to fruition because we were fortunate enough to find voters' images.
00:12And it's something that we'd struggled with in the past because although there's a lot
00:16of falcon imagery out there, what we really needed was 12 images that showed falcons in
00:22a new light and offered enough variety for the calendar to be interesting throughout
00:28the year.
00:29So we built little studios at different locations.
00:33So we'd go to a farm in the middle of the desert and build a little mini studio with
00:37either a black backdrop or a white backdrop, set up studio lights, and then we'd just bring
00:42in different falcons, different breeds, different colors, different sizes, and kind of create
00:46a nice image library of falconry, of falcons that would look really different.
00:51And what I found working with falcons was a very similar experience, whereby if you
00:55have the falcon with the hat on, the book on, it won't do much, it's just a very static
01:00animal.
01:01But the moment it kind of comes off and it kind of looks in the environment, you would
01:03have falcons who were just, you know, they didn't like the lights necessarily and they'd
01:07get a bit restless and they're throwing their wings around and then it wouldn't always work
01:13photography-wise.
01:14And then we had some falcons that just left, oh look at that, there's a camera, I'm going
01:17to look beautiful.
01:18And then they looked around, they turned around and they did things with their head and then
01:20they're just flowing with their wings and it's just beautiful chemistry and I kind of
01:25make that connection between shooting humans or people whereby, you know, they love it
01:30or they don't like it, and I think a very similar experience with shooting falcons.
01:33Some of them just love to be a professional falcon model, I think that would be the best
01:38way to summarize it.
01:39And one of the images I really love in the book is one photograph whereby we set up an
01:44acrylic table and I was laying underneath on the floor so I could shoot through the
01:49acrylic and then we set up with studio lights and everything like that and then we put a
01:52falcon on there.
01:54And then we could really sort of focus on the details of the claws and kind of see how
01:57sharp they are and it's just got a nice different angle and look and feel to it.
02:01Both had mentioned the one about shooting under acrylic, I really like that, you know,
02:05I always think that, you know, that's the last image that probably a bastard or some
02:11other prey of the falcon sees, you know, but it really, to me it shows, you know, just
02:17that fine detail of the claws, the feathers, it's just a beautiful and very unusual shot,
02:22I've never seen it before.
02:24So I was holding the final product, the calendar, with 12 months of beautiful camera photos,
02:31it was a really nice recap of how beautiful the project was to shoot and I think the falcons
02:36have come out very nice and I believe that's, you know, that's a great support to a good
02:41printing process and it's a beautiful end product, the design is very strong that kind
02:47of matches the falconry, the choice of color, the black background, I think it's a really
02:52beautiful end product and I would hope of all the fans of copies that print it, they
02:56would all end up on many desks all around the countries and internationally as well
02:59and people would look back at it with a lot of admiration towards what a beautiful falcon
03:06and what a beautiful animal it is.