Teamed up with friends of mine Eden & Chloe the other day. Eden’s a rad guy and likes to make his own things you can surf on. I like people who make things; creatives, craftsmen, the like. You can check out his surfing boards on the Dead Kooks site.
I’ve currently got this campaign running for global travel company Flight Centre’s corporate brand FCm Travel Solutions.
The 2 shot’s you see are part of a 40 shot brief that is being rolled out slowly around the world. The nature of the game means that while I will get the artwork as it is released, I probably won’t get to see a lot of it actually in print first hand as a lot of it will be in North America and Asia.
The creative agency I worked with has told me that the media real estate purchased will be print, magazine, newspapers, signage via billboards etc. So if someone is out and happens to take a happy snap of one with an iPhone, digital camera, anything, I’d be really stoked and promise to give you a shout out via all my social networks!
The actual campaign was a lot of fun, and was shot in Brisbane. Our production team booked out the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) and The Queensland State Library for a total of 2 full days and constructed corporate sets such as offices and lobbies. There are some behind the scenes shots on Facebook here.
Shot these recently for a commercial project, what do you think?
I’ve recently been shooting more complex projects from a production value point of view, which in turn has had me exercising my ability to extend my vision beyond the creative into building a team to work with.
Last project was a 4 day shoot with 7 crew including myself, plus art director, client production staff, and brand representatives to ensure we were within the client’s brand message. We had permits to secure access and shoot in public locations and were scheduled down to the minute. Everything from names of each talent and crew member attending each location down to switching on/off ambient lights had to be organized in advance. We built sets with props and furniture, made up and styled 30 plus talent, recreated sunlight, and used artificial light to reproduce window lit scenes. I shot tethered straight into a computer and at most point had a number of client representatives and stakeholders watching every shot in real time as I shot them. Obviously all of the above work is done by a team who, from the moment of being appointed the project, I relied on to help me deliver the final product.
All of this is not possible without putting 100% of trust in people that can either make or break the job. This is where vision extends beyond the work and into other areas of being a creative professional, knowing the work we want to do, how we want to do it, and who we want to do it with. Every detail adds to the outcome like creating the right vibe on set, making sure people are fed and happy, and presenting a unified front as a team to the client. This is what creative shoots are good for, building relationships and locking in the team.
Exciting new label Rue Denim has rolled out the images we recently shot in studio of their summer range. The aim was to produce brand images for in-store and web signage.
The brief was all about showing the form fitting range of jeans on a clean white background.
Tech info after the images
Tech info for all you tech junkies:
Just got word that I can now share some outtakes from a shoot we recently delivered for agency Simjen.
The brief called for an image depicting the concept “Revive your Business”.
We got the commission on a real tight timetable, and I literally had about 4 hours to get the team together, get directions to the talent to the studio from the airport & shoot it, and then deliver the proof images that night.
Got to work with former Ralph Lauren model Steve Nation, who you may also recognize from that famous Listerine ad with the cheeks exploding and the barnacles blowing off the bottom of the yacht.
Special effects make up was done by Haley Whittle and on real short notice I was able to get some props from a contact in the medical industry. We shot about 200 frames in studio & that was a wrap!
Below are some of my favorite outtakes, Steve’s acting ability had me struggling not to burst out laughing the whole time.
You might remember my shoot in 2009 with The Cool Calm Collective.
This year the band (Minus 2 members but plus one) got back in contact with me to do their 2010 advertising images on the back of playing at Splendour.
We caught up at Neverland before soundcheck and shot off some frames.
Got word this week that some images I shot for the 2010 print campaign for fitness company Move for Life had been released.
Most of the shots were done in late 2009 and the final campaign was put together by Rachel Simper, the cool cat behind agency Black Design.
The shots feature 2000 world ironman champion Phil Clayton. who in addition to the group and corporate training sessions he runs, is the coach for career athletes Hayley Bateup and Ky Hurst.
I recall what we were talking about when we were shooting the portrait shot. Phil was going after the shoot to take his kids to see Toy Story 3, and we’re both big fans of the first 2 movies. We were quoting our favourite lines from the previous episodes. Not sure if that had any effect on the final shot or not, but I think we all have a bit of Buzz Lightyear in us.
Go over to Move’s Facebook page to see more as they roll the images out, for now here is an outtake of one of the portraits and one of the campaign tears.
To infinity and beyond………….
Thought I’d share a couple pics of my portfolio brochures I just had printed up. When working with my business development coach Becs Arnott we came up with the concept for something to leave with people on my contact list that I meet with, beyond the normal calling card. After a bit of conceptualising this is what we came up with.
I split my portfolio between my hard edge look (Core) and my lifestyle look (Life & Styles). The branding is exactly the same as my business cards and the focus is really on the images, 12 nice big A4 sized pages with edge to edge photos. It’s helpful to show what my stuff looks like in print, and I gotta say, it looks really cool. For something different we made the covers plastic and used funky little metal rings to bind it down the side.
Last year I got to work on a series of shots for Gold IP, a brand leader in the intellectual property (IP) legal industry. Amongst other specialist work in technology, media, and sports law, they are also the go-to guys in protecting creations by inventors, artists across all mediums, writers and anyone that has made something that needs to be protected as far as copyright.
The images were intended for print, display and web campaigns, and I was honored to be involved as they obviously have a number of creatives on their books nationally.
During the creative meeting I was impressed by their dedication to have all original works and not go near stock images at all. Another thing that was fantastic was them giving me the time and financial budget in order to produce the final images.
I had just read Annie Leibovitz’ latest book “At Work” and was really inspired by her black and white portraits and the tonal depth she is renowned for, and used that inspiration for this project, all the way from the initial drawing of the mood boards to the final processing.
Check out the Gold IP website here.