Built on the banks of the Yarra River, Melbourne is a truly beautiful city. Surrounded by manicured parklands, the city looks at it's absolute finest when there is crystal clear reflections on the river at sunrise or sunset.

I was born in Melbourne and for the majority of my life, lived in the leafy eastern suburbs so this photograph holds particular significance to me. It took me around 5 years of repeat visits until I finally captured it!

Quite a few factors were required to come together in order to capture this photograph. Firstly I only had a window of about 2 months every year towards the end of Spring (and start of Summer) when the trees lined along the banks grew new leaves. The grass is also at it's greenest at this time of year after the Spring rains. Every year, whenever I was in Melbourne at this time of year I would watch the weather carefully and head out to shoot a sunrise if conditions looked promising. I was looking for no wind (to create perfect reflections) and a colourful sunrise. There were a number of mornings that I witnessed nice light and no reflections or alternatively reflections and boring light. The other challenge I encountered was the school rowers that start their morning sessions early every weekday. Even with no wind, just one group of rowers would destroy my perfect reflections! Eventually I decided that I would need to wait until late November when the sunrise peaks very early in the morning. This particular morning I awoke at 4:30am and drove into the city from my house on the Mornington Peninsula. I arrived just before sunrise very happy to see some nice high cloud lingering over the city with crystal clear reflections on the Yarra. It was looking good, and there wasn't a single rower to be seen! I setup my gear and captured this beautiful photograph only moments before the first rowers came around the corner. What an amazing feeling, I had finally nailed the shot!