That's no complaint. I've had some terrific clients and seriously fun jobs in the last few months. Now that I've caught up on most of my deliveries, it's time to briefly share what I've been up to. My last entry was about the drone, my new piece of kit. But like I say, photography is not about the gear and I've barely had time to do much with it. The video work I'd been doing in Arrowtown led me to a very exciting project called Cloud 9.
Cloud 9 is an ultra high-end travel experience with the legendary Kiwi sheep farmer and travel entrepreneur Bill Shaw. We'll come back to the Cloud 9 story when the video is released. For now its enough to say I had a fantastic time with Bill and the project's Executive Producer Rob Andrews.
A gig with my band Bluestone at the BRONZ motorcycle rally near Alexandra was just one of those hilarious road trips you can only have with a blues band. Spinal Tap meets the Blues Brothers. Honest. Cool bikes too.
On the way back home I took a major detour to one of my favourite fishing haunts to pick up some landscapes for the calendar I contribute to. Some flies were cast. Some trout got smoked. Of course the shot below is an abstract. You don't think I'm going to blow the whereabouts of my fishing hole do you?
Back in Dunedin, I got to document a 19th century worker's cottage before it was dismantled. That felt a little like a crime scene shoot.
Historic fashion items for Toitu Otago Settlers Museum. What can I say, I love to light.
There was the visit from a Scottish government dignitary. Run and gun.
A distracting week of hospital visits while Miss C(10) had some very scary surgery.
I attended Warbirds over Wanaka again. Always fun, although this year I couldn't catch up with my helo flying nephew and his wife as they're now stationed near Melbourne.
I started work on another exciting project for Leslie Rugby. Stills this time, kind of art-driven and for a couple of days I had assistance in the form of Eliza, a lovely work experience student and a rapidly healing Miss C(10).
There was a little renovation project at home. That's um, still in development. Note to self: Don't tear your walls down in a Dunedin winter unless you plan on getting them up again real fast.
A lovely young lady hired me to shoot her 21st birthday party.
There have been many, many corporate headshots. In this situation over half of people come in dreading the experience and it shows on their faces. I really empathise with dentists. Despite that this is a job I really enjoy. I like to take the time to draw my subjects into the process, have them relax and reveal themselves just a little to me to get a shot they're happy with. After all, that ID picture is going to be on a card or website for a while. It's worth getting something folks are pleased to see. Check out the warm reflection we got off the red wall camera right!
Back to the blues, it was high time I started work on a decent poster for my band so I've been noodling around with concepts for that. Our blues style is kind hard-edged so I milked a little attitude out of the lads and dragged them down an alley before robbing them of their phones and wallets at camera-point. I seem to have left myself out of this picture:
The Motorsport New Zealand awards night was another opportunity to hone my people skills.
And finally, the apparel part of the Leslie Rugby project is now in progress. That macro lens actually starts to pay for itself again!
On top of all this, there's my role in helping up and coming photographers via SIT's Diploma in Digital Photography which is pretty damn rewarding, especially when I see the quality of work some of them submit. It's a great motivator to stay fresh and keep improving. Like they say, if you want to learn, teach.
It is so good to be busy. And to all the clients who trust me to make them look good or don't get nervous when I say 'actually, I've got an idea for something very stylish for you', a very big thank you indeed.
