Some numbers

We've just hit the second of three big deadlines for this month by finishing production on the 2010 Wellington Lions Rugby Team poster for the Wellington Rugby Union in record time. Here are some numbers about the project:

34 players

2 stuffed lions

9 current or former All Blacks

Almost 60 layers make up the image

Over 30 hours of post-production time

Shot over 9 separate shoots in 3 weeks

90000 posters to be printed and plenty of press ads - phew!

A sport going backwards

We've just finished production on a promotional web video for the largest sporting event to be held in NZ since the 1990 Commonwealth Games - the 2010 Rowing World Champs at Lake Karapiro. Pretty chuffed all the weeks of hard work, early mornings and long hours were worth it. I think it's definitely worth a watch!

We shot the rowing footage over two (big) days and the interviews took another couple of days of production. A bit of a team effort this one which took a lot of organising. Something we've included is a promo code hidden in the video itself - people can quote the code to Ticketek for a discount on tickets to the World Champs. This'll probably also be aired on TV3, SkySport and The Crowd Goes Wild this week and we'll also chop it in to 15 second slots for SkySport closer to the event.

Someone open a window

The studio has an entrenched smell of fish after todays shoot involving a snapper and a bunch of organic produce for an upcoming campaign for Urban Harvest. It dawned on me suddenly that the windows in the studio aren't big enough to ventilate the space when there's been a fish sitting there looking at the camera for a few hours.

Who knew it's rugby season?

With all that round-balled action going on at the moment it's easy to forget every Saturday there are scores of die hard fans and supporters on the painted white lines of the boggy fields around Wellington yelling for their club rugby team. I've just finished a shoot to promote the Jubilee Cup - the Wellington Club Rugby comp for Wellington Rugby... and there's not a round ball in sight.

The Monstrous Red Dress

This issue's cover of Heritage magazine features a shoot I did at The Dominion Museum in Wellington which included an enormous red dress by designer and artist Lauren Skogstad. The dress is around 25 metres long and was a bit of a handful in the breeze - we had to use sandbags to keep the dress grounded. Great to see some risk taken with the cover concept to mix up the old with the new.

It's official: New Zealand is in fact beautiful

A couple of months ago, I was fortunate enough to be flying around the Mount Cook area in a Helicopter Line chopper with a couple of cameras dangling out the window. Some of the images can be seen in the May issue of Kia Ora magazine. I'm pretty sure I'm a Southener born in a Northener's body - the landscape in the south is so totally rad. It's interesting when I'm off around the country shooting these great places, I seldom rub shoulders with NZers. German, British, Australian yes, New Zealanders hardly ever. It seems kiwis are quick to see London or the Gold Coast but often overlook the best country in the world. Who's up for a road trip?

Bright lights. Friday night.

Last night we had a bunch of people in the studio for Telecom's in-house magazine 'Co.' published by Tangible Media. A group portrait of a dozen or so people conjures up visions of school photos or lines of school boy rugby players on stools in a school hall. It's fair to say it was going to be a challenge to make the photos interesting. With the help of a few props and bit of planning, I think it worked out. The folks in the photos are part of a film crew all from Gen-i who entered this year's 48-hour film festival. Thanks to Jason Casson for picking up the video camera.

Bright lights. Friday night. from Mike Heydon on Vimeo.

Sheep and mushrooms: the untold story

Over the past six months I've been working with Urban Harvest - a new online farmers' market. I shot a lot of the photography on the website [we had over 700 products through the studio]. We've been to a coffee roastery, a mushroom grower, a chicken farm and Al Brown's place. I've seen jam being made, sprouts being harvested and sheep being milked. It's a great concept and an excellent way to get top notch produce delivered to your doorstep. Check it out.

We've just finished production on the promotional video which has been a work-in-progress for the last couple of months. Hours of footage got cut to slim it down to a slender 71 seconds. Have a look.

Kiwi: they're popular

Pretty chuffed after photographing not one but thirty Little Brown Kiwi which were flown from Little Barrier Island to Masterton by the Air Force and relocated to the Mount Bruce Sanctuary today. It was part of a huge operation between DOC, Pukaha Mount Bruce, RNZAF, dozens of volunteers and plenty of others working behind the scenes. I ditched the camera to help lug one up to it's new home in the bush - definitely a privilege to be so close to so many of these very cool little critters.

Goats and gaffer tape

Over the last couple of weeks I've shot three stories for Next magazine. Each shoot has involved a fair amount of planning and styling which has made them pretty rewarding to finaly see the finished images. The shoots have involved a grumpy old monkey, an Italian Ballerina, a head butting goat and 120 metres of red gaffer tape. We hired a hotel room by the hour, we had lights almost blow over and gear almost peed on by dogs. It's been a bunch of fun and below are a few behind the scenes shots. Check out the June issue of the mag to see the final result. Right, off to rip down all that gaffer tape...