Hello 2012, We’re Back

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Kenny

Today we launched the new re-branded KSP website and updated commercial portfolio, along with stationery and social media identities. Straight out of the gate I gotta thank: Andrew Suggit for the new branding, Cyberdo for the site, and my (new inhouse) producer Bel for helping me curate and shape my portfolio towards getting more work (more on that in a bit).
While I had always been happy with my initial site and branding, it was time to invest a bit in something a bit more fresh and directed at the bigger ballpark that I intend to play in.
Now, before dropping a big investment (read around 8k) on a new digital shopfront and signage, it was important to make sure that my portfolio was pointed in the direction I wanted to go professionally. Over a couple weeks and emails back and forth, we cut/rehashed/revisted a lot of shoots that I have done and came up with what you see here. Around the same time I met Suzanne Murray from Artisan, who is in the business of curating portfolios, and she invited me to bring my book into their office and they would have a go at curating it. While I'll post excerpts from that meeting at a later date, suffice it to say it was a really healthy exercise and I'd recommend any creative to undertake something along those lines.

Without further ado....welcome to the all new Kenny Smith Photography site

New Work – Universal Store Campaign

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Kenny

Fashion retailer Universal Store asked me to shoot their Christmas campaign. I rounded up the crew, booked Moo Studio & we all had a lot of fun.

Check out the Behind the Scenes video here.

Special thanks to awesome band the Oceanics for licensing the music track.

At the time of this post these ads are rolled out in all Universal Store shopfronts nationally along with billboards up in major shopping precincts.

New Work – GCIT Campaign

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Kenny

I recently worked with boutique agency P’s in a Pod to produce a campaign for GCIT (TAFE).

The concept was to have 12 real people holding props that represented TAFE courses, all in the shape of a heart to portray what the subject wanted.

The props and a 9 foot blackboard were made by designer and tradesperson Samantha Hough.

Over 2 days we shot 12 talent and a number of various angles so we could construct heart shaped props in post. We used Christmas tree lights to shoot “glow” for some of the shots where the props would be glowing.

I have to thank the marketing team at GCIT, the team at P’s in a Pod and of course my team on the shoot.

GCIT also commissioned this BTS video of the shoot, check it out here

Agency: P’s in a Pod, Art Director: Bel Bare, Producer: Darina Laing, Props: Samantha Hough, Retouching Danny Joslyn.

The Surecut Kids

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Kenny

Acclaimed DJs the Surecut Kids came into the studio to get some portraits done. These guys are genuinely nice guys. Certifiably crazy, but great guys.

Olympic K4 Captain Tate Smith

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Kenny

I got the call again to work with art director Rachel Simper in producing 3 portraits of Olympic Kayaker Tate Smith. Tate strokes the Australian Men’s K4 Team, who finished second in the world this year. He’s one of our medal hopes for the 2012 London Olympics.

Gold Coast Suns (AFL) Football Club

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Kenny

I was recently asked by advertising agency Tusk to produce some images for the Suns AFL team.

The brief called for stylized shots to be shot during the day, but appear as if they were during an actual night game, while focusing on the Suns Merchandise for retail.

To get the look we were after, I had my right hand man Josh hold an strobe with an umbrella on a pole above our key talent, in what we cheekily refer to as “the Leibovitz” since Annie seems to do it a fair bit. We then underexposed the scene, making sure that the only light coming through was from the light we were firing. The talent that was not the absolute focus of each hero shot vanished into the falloff.

To complete the mood, we had 2 more lights behind the talent, one in a large softbox to the left of shot, and one high up behind everyone facing towards the camera. These gave the lighting I envisioned would be there at a real game.

We then shot players David Swallow, Campbell Brown, and Maverick Weller on field and in the locker room. For these we used a range of single light beauty dish to 3 light setups.

The product component was shot by our friends at Many Things.

Special thanks to all the cast, players, Tayah Bot from the Suns & Andrew Suggit & Darren Gill from Tusk

Ok fine, you can laugh at me……BTS video

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Kenny

Here’s a BTS vid of me inside a V8 Supercar with none other than 2010 series Champion James Courtney.

My defence is that I didn’t know that the in built cameras were on, otherwise I would have pulled “cooler” faces. But then again, I’m not sure if I could.

Watch through to about the 1 minute mark where I really start to lose it

Enjoy

The Ten Tenors Pt 2, BTS Video & Final Artwork

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Kenny

As you may remember from this post, I recently shot the tour posters & artwork for the Ten Tenors World Tour. The 2 editorial type shots were then retouched by the amazing Angelena Rebori from SixSix7.

The final artwork has been finished and a cool little Behind the Scenes video put together by my main man Josh Maguire. The track is The Ten Tenors version of Bohemian Rhapsody, used with permission.

Below is some of the artwork

The Ten Tenors

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Kenny

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to share work I’ve recently done for non-disclosure reasons, so I’m excited to show some behind the scenes pics of a shoot from 2 days ago….hot off the press.

I spent the day with The Ten Tenors shooting the tour posters for their upcoming World tour.

A real great bunch of talented guys who are doing an amazing job of representing Australian music on a global scale.

Here’s a link to The Ten Tenors on Oprah earlier this year

You can see all the behind the scenes pics taken by assistant Janaka here

Dead Kooks

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Kenny

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.

View the whole In:Series here