Contacts Christmas Card 2012

Had this idea for my Christmas mailer, which ended up being for Contacts' same purpose.

A North Avalon family kindly offered their home, but the amazing thing is the whole street does the full-on lights thing. Gotta love the far Northern beaches. They are super laid back and and there are almost none of the dramas that Home and Away might suggest.

Rocky, who owns Bike Bug North Sydney, kindly agreed to be our talent, and Rebecca Riegger did an absolutely amazing job of the props and styling. Also ups to Todd Sotheren who did the clipping paths to make the retouch a breeze.

The dog, Reg, makes the shot.

Merry Christmas

Allianz Library Images

One of my repeat clients, Allianz Insurance, commissioned this project, and it allowed me another opportunity to hone the art of directing real people, not models or actors, to their best performance for the shot.

The brief appealed to my documentary roots at first, but I shifted my style in a enviro-portrait direction to accommodate  the wide range of applications that the images would be used for. 

The client quite rightly felt that there was very little in existing stock that suited their needs, and wanted to use real people, in real situations-their own jobs, with a definite sense that we are looking at real Australians.

There were some pretty stressful challenges in getting the right talent and locations logistics sorted within the budget constraints, not to mention the curve ball thrown by the weather, but I'm proud to say the images portray, for the most part, people in their actual jobs, in their actual workplaces. In fact, the situations where hired talent had to be used, I found less convincing

I wanted to hero the subjects subtly with lighting and casual pose, but keep it feeling natural. We scheduled around the weather for the outdoor shots, as hard sunlight is a strong differentiating factor when trying to make images look more Australian.

Our ÜberProducer Penni pulled absolute miracles with regards to talent, locations and even weather prediction, and needed a relaxing massage by the end of the shoot.

Cherith Crozier did a cracker of a job in the styling, and together with myself and AD Sarah Straker, we had a solid team with a clear direction throughout the shoot.

Praise Whole Egg mayonaise

The AD at +Jack Watts Currie, Pamela Parelli, had put together a concise brief which resonated with me straight away. It called for an expression performance from the talent, and the food to look good too. It also needed to work visually with the hands holding plates reaching in.

We were fortunate to find the perfect location, and the weather smiled upon us, being the first clear day in a while.

Had a dream team of crew, with food styling by Kristine Duran Thiesen, wardrobe by Natasha Harrison, and Contacts' Leeby Sotheren doing makeup, and Todd Sotheren as retoucher.

The model Angela Shallis was serene and professional, and while the exclamatory performance was out of her comfort zone, she kept on trying till we got what we wanted.

Everything was shot on location, including the packshot and additional food tabletop shot to keep costs under control.

The AD, agency and client were very happy with the outcome, and so am I. One of my favourites for the year!

Masterfoods Tomato Sauce

The opportunity arose to submit a last minute treatment for what was originally a typographical execution with a simple hand-with-pack shot to overlay.

I couldn't think of much to make a hand more exciting, so I expanded upon the brief a little, suggesting we go for a bit more depth, and instead of doing the headline typographically, I thought of using a stencil on a wooden crate. This would give the type the genuine wood texture.The crate has relevance also, as it further suggests the use of fresh produce, and provided a tactile third dimension for the shot.

The creative team loved the idea, and sold it to the client, who was reluctant at first but happy to put their faith in us.

I stuck to my guns in my efforts to keep it "in camera", and our stylist, Jan Edwards found beautiful crates and painted stencils of varying sizes to suit the layout. We took it a step further by shooting the sauce splats on acetate so that they could be positioned in camera and required minimal comping. It also allowed us to ensure the message was not lost.

Our hand model was a pro, and was able to fine tune the amount of squeeze distortion on the pack. I had mentioned in the treatment that the squeeze is part of the fun, and wanted to portray a bit of bottle throttle, but needles to say we pulled back to a firm hold which yielded a more acceptable label distortion.

The team were stoked with the result, as was the client. 

Synology Server

I'm happy to have finally invested in a high end NAS server as an additional archiving module and a system for clients to access their files should I not be available. I went with an 8 bay +Synology DS1812+, and that should serve my purposes very well. Here it be:

http://www.synology.com/products/product.php?product_name=DS1812%2B&lang=enu

David Stone at +DRevolution did the setup and I can wholeheartedly recommend his services as a super-techie.

The DSM web based interface rocks. This is dangerously geeky shit, I know, but you can't help getting excited about the potential of that much storage.

Nikon D800E after some use

I have been shooting with my D800E on some jobs, and while it hasn't replaced my Phase P45 in the studio, it is adding flexibility and speed to my location shoots which I might have previously used the MF Mamiya/Phase combo for.

I used it heavily for the Allianz Image Library shoot, and there a good and bad points. (oh dear, I feel bullet points coming on...

*At the camera end, I seem to have trouble setting up the AF so as not to back-focus. I'm using a target and the individual lens fine adjustment settings, but even then it misses.
I'm not the only one to report this, and Lloyd Chambers highlighted these issues exhaustively as he does (we are grateful as someone has to do it).

I use mainly fast primes and mostly Nikons best glass, but it doesn't help if the razor sharpness is off on the background.

*Capture One misbehaves with the Nikon. It crashes, it freezes, it looses tether, it fails to see images on CF card. This is probably the main reason I'm not totally ditching the Phase back. C1 is rock solid when tethered to its own hardware (as it should be). Wonder if Canon users struggle with CaptureOne as much?

All that aside, the quality is amazing and exceeds what is needed in hand held 35mm, as camera shake at such resolution becomes an issue, and forces me to a tripod unless shutterspeed is way up. I'm a bit old school and like to keep ISO at or near 100 (a fact that I notice doesn't seem to matter as much to young shooters)... (until they have an image rejected on quality grounds).

I will say this at my peril. We DO NOT NEED MORE MEGAPIXELS in 35mm cameras. I'm sure the amateur brigade and pixel peepers will scoff at this, but hey can go terrorise some online forums. Those of us shooting 35 and MF professionally know when enough is enough, and when it isn't, turn to the Phase when the job demands it.

RSVP and working with Cherith Crozier

After meeting Cherith and being impressed by her book and attitude, I'm happy the opportunity for a shoot together came around soon. The shoot for mature dating site RSVP involved set-builds and lots of back and forth on the propping, but the shoot day was a breeze, and client loved the results.
AD Niccola Philips was a pleasure to work with as usual and I'm sad to see her leave Mercer Bell to greener pastures.