This beautiful little cottage was also a long-time target for a night shoot. It’s approximately 2.5 hours’ drive south from where I live in Fremantle, Western Australia. I was holding an Astrolandscape group workshop locally in the area and so I decided to go down 1 night earlier just so I could shoot this quaint little place. There were 2 big challenges on this night, the first of which was the temperature. It was extremely cold (for WA’s standards anyway!) and dew forming on the lens meant I had to use a lens warmer for the entire shoot - something I normally only use for time lapses and star trails. The cold also took its effect on me! I ended the evening wearing 3 pairs of socks and was considering a 4th! And I probably would have abandoned the shoot if it wasn’t for the flask of piping hot tea I’d brought with me…. The second challenge was just how dark it is there. It’s quite far from the nearest town (which is aptly named Darkan) and the little amount of light on this new moon night meant the foreground needed some help. I placed 1 lantern inside the cottage and 2 low level lights behind it to light up the trees. I light painted the grass and gates to enable more detail to be caught by the sensor and to also lead the viewers eye towards the cottage. Adding artificial light really is a wonderful part of night shoots. It enables you to creatively take control of the scene which gives you the chance to produce something that’s more unique that helps to tell the story.