Well as happens during the North Queensland wet season, the first few weeks of March were pretty grey and wet. It is however a good time for a resort photography shoot in the tropics… lower occupancy means there are rooms available to shoot and the pool areas, usually overflowing with holidaymakers, are looking empty and inviting. Wait for a break in the monsoonal weather and you have all the ingredients for a great shoot.

That was the theory anyway, when I did the commercial photography for Mango Lagoon Resort, at the beachside village of Palm Cove, 25kms north of Cairns. Like many of shoots I do up here in North Queensland, there’s always a bit of flexibility built into it’s planning… if it’s raining, shoot the interiors; when the sun comes out to play, switch to the pool area. And that’s how it played out for Mango Lagoon Resort, shot over the best part of two days. With the interiors we really wanted to show them as being light and spacious. This was done with a natural looking mix of ambient and studio lighting, as well as architectural lenses to correct for perspective. We also wanted to show off the rooms’ proximity to the resort’s four pool areas – including an amazing lap pool with a mountain backdrop.

And so, even with a cyclone somewhere looming off the coast, we were able to delivery a suite of new images, shot and post-produced within a matter of days.