Fstoppers Visits The Cambodian Gun Range P.T.W. BTS Ep. 16

Photographing The World Behind The Scenes continues today with Episode 16, our final few days in Cambodia. In this episode we visit a gun range, we fly in a hot air balloon, we ride an elephant, Patrick eats "happy" pizza, and we have dinner with our tuk tuk driver's family. We also get to see the most spectacular sunrise of our lives. 

When we started telling people that we were going to visit Cambodia, many of them said that we had to visit the "Cambodian gun range." We asked our driver Chom if he knew about it and he certainly did. After a very long tuk tuk drive we arrived. I can't remember how much the cost was but I do remember thinking that it was significantly more expensive than anything else we had done in Cambodia and I believe it cost more than shooting in the US as well. We turned down the options to shoot at a chicken or a cow and also decided not to shoot an RPG or throw a live grenade. It didn't feel like they had very stringent safety standards. 

The next day we woke up at 3am to film the sunrise above the Angkor Watt temple. I thought Elia was crazy when he told us that hundreds or even thousands of people would be showing up while it was still dark to capture this shot. To my surprise, Elia was right. Thousands of people poured into the same area and surrounded an extremely small pond... we actually called it a puddle. Because we had gotten up so early we were the very first people there. Elia staked out a spot right at the waters edge. To film this lesson we filmed him with telephoto lenses from the other side of the water. Everyone around Elia could not figure out who he was talking to. 

In post Elia simply changed his white balance, added some vibrance, and removed the people in the background. 

The next day was Patrick's birthday and he decided to eat at the restaurant we kept walking by called "happy (herb) pizza." After just 2 slices Patrick became extremely chatty and oddly observant. We continued to explore the city, we rode and elephant, and we took our driver up in a hot air balloon. 

On our final day in Cambodia, Chom, our tuk tuk driver invited us to his home to meet his family. His wife cooked us an amazing meal. I felt so lucky to have that experience and for me it was, by far, the highlight of my trip to visit Cambodia. 

Subscribe to our Youtube channel to see our final 2 episodes. In next weeks episode, we return to New Zealand to photograph the night sky. 

To learn more about the full cityscape tutorial you can visit the info page here. If you are more interested in standard landscapes, you can check out Elia's first photography tutorial here.