Hurricanes 2010 - behind the scenes

We've just wrapped up production on this years Hurricanes Super 14 team poster and ad campaign for the Wellington Rugby Union. A big effort over three shoots including two hours spent on the Lyall Bay breakwater during a storm where everything got totally soaked. Check out the behind-the-scenes video:

Hurricanes 2010 team poster shoot from Mike Heydon on Vimeo.

Last wedding of the decade

On New Years Eve I shot a wedding in Gladstone in the Wairarapa. It was a big day - around 8 hours of shooting which I think might be a record, at least for me. It had all the elements of a great day, brilliant weather, cool people, a great venue and plenty of good times. The guys wore kilts, the wedding dress was spectacular, the church was small and the sky was big. Fun times all round and a great way to see out the decade. Congrats Jon and Georgie.

Giving an old girl a fair go

I photographed broadcaster and all round top bloke Kevin Milne for the latest issue of NZ Life & Leisure magazine. Kevin has overseen the restoration of a 1936 Tanner Deluxe vintage caravan and she's a beauty. Throughout the process, he basically learnt the entire life history of the caravan and met a few interesting people along the way. That's pretty much what the caravan lifestyle is all about - an excuse to live out some nostalgia and talk to people you normally wouldn't meet... and to take revenge and hold up long lines of traffic on long weekends!

High fives all round

We received some great news over the weekend with the announcement of the winners of the 5th Annual Black and White Spider Awards. I picked up runner-up in the 'wildlife' category - the highest placing achieved by a New Zealand professional photographer. A couple of my images were also finalists in the 'sport' category, but it was my image of a stag standing in bush that caught the judges eyes.

The competition is all about recognising excellence in black and white photography and this year's judging panel was made up of the most respected names in photography from around the world including Magnum Photos in New York and the Tate Gallery in London.

It's a prestigious competition so I would have been happy just to be a finalist, but to be runner-up amongst such beautiful images from around the globe is incredible. It's a huge thrill. The award will see the stag image published in the book 'The World's Greatest Black and White Photography, No 2.

If you can spare a few minutes take a look at all the finalists and winners at www.thespiderawards.com

NZ's favourite contact sport

If you browse through a magazine or look skyward at the moment, you'll possibly see an ad for the Contact Triathlon Series which we shot late in 09. The campaign of 5 different ads includes real life people who are competing or have competed in the National Triathlon Series. Plenty of latent modeling talent in the bunch of people who were involved and everyone really got in to it to help recreate the emotion we needed to capture in the images. We had people running laps in between photos and being sprayed with baby oil and water to replicate the sweaty tired look which is so hot right now.

Don't ask, don't get

Last year we photographed the Payroll Giving campaign for Inland Revenue with ad agency AIMProximity. The campaign involved six different shoots and Jet undertook much of the pre-production including wardrobe, props and location scouting. The thing that struck me during this process is it's amazing what people agree to if you just ask them. We had the run of a commercial bakery [thanks Mojo], a cafe [thanks again Mojo], a busy florist [thanks Woodstock], a room at Wellington Hospital, a metal recyclers and a science lab at Victoria University. All talent were Inland Revenue staff. The entire campaign could have been a total nightmare to organise but thanks to people who were willing to offer up their work places for a few hours, everything went ridiculously smoothly. Phew!

HRH

I don't shoot much news these days - I'm more of a slow food kind of guy. But this week I made the pilgrimage with about 70 other national and international media following HRH Prince William on his first official overseas visit representing Queen and country. First was the opening of the Supreme Court in Wellington where I was lucky enough to be one of only 4 photographers in the court itself for the opening and then it was off to Kapiti Island to chase Weka, hold Kiwi, chat to the PM and be ogled by school girls [that's Will, not me]. One of my images even made it to the front page of Tuesday's The Australian newspaper.

Lazy day at the beach

For the past four summers, I've travelled the country shooting the Contact Triathlon Series for Triathlon New Zealand. It's a great brief to shoot - fantastic locations [Whangamata, Wanaka, Kinloch...] and Triathlon is a really photogenic event. Here's the second round of this year's series from Whangamata:

Laura and Kerry

I photographed a great wedding earlier in December on the Kapiti Coast. Laura and Kerry both came out from the UK and we finally met in person a few days before the big day after months of emails. The day come about and the weather wasn't flash - translated into photo speak that means broody, stormy skies and some great light.

Hurricanes 2010

We're currently working on the 2010 Hurricanes Team Poster for the Super 14 with EyeQ Design and the Wellington Rugby Football Union. I thought it might be kind of interesting to show behind-the-scenes on a pretty typical commercial shoot. This video covers the first of two shoots with the players and a video to be posted in February will cover the entire process including pre-production, the shoots themselves and piecing it all together. If it looks pretty frantic, that's because it usually is.

Hurricanes Poster Shoot 2010 from Mike Heydon on Vimeo.