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...

Dropping in up north

The weekend before last was my first weekend off in 2010. Something I haven't done much of over the last busy six months is shoot personal projects, not commissioned or paid shoots, just things that I think will look good, will be fun and photography that will hopefully keep the creative juices flowing. It's an important part of the process and something I'm hoping to do more of this year. This video was shot over two days near Ninety Mile Beach as a big swell attracted hundreds of surfers to Ahipara for the weekend. Big ups to Border Records for the soundtrack too.

Dropping in up north from Mike Heydon on Vimeo.

From the whiteboard to the water

Here it is, the finished image from the Rowing World Champs campaign shoot. Photographed over 2 (early) mornings at Lake Karapiro including a couple of pretty cold boat rides, 11 different NZ rep crews, 25 rowers including a bunch of world champions and over a day of piecing it all together in post-production. The image will be used in promoting this years World Champs in October in press and outdoor advertising. A real team effort onsite so it's great to finally see the final image long after we did the initial sketch on the studio whiteboard weeks and weeks ago.

Risky business

This week I've been at Lake Karapiro shooting the NZ Rowing Squad for the 2010 World Rowing Champs ad campaign. We were scheduled for a two day shoot although day one was a write off: I've never had weather turn bad so quickly on a shoot and we were left scrambling for lights set up right next to the water and rowers were scrambling for their boats. The weather and the brilliant sunrise on day two made up for the stress and carnage and we got through it and thankfully all the gear stayed pretty dry. Once the final image is all pieced together, I'll be sure to post it here.

The steep part of the learning curve

We've just finished production on a short promo video for the Wairarapa Balloon Fiesta as part of our new video production service. It seems shooting video with a photographers perspective is a real benefit, especially since we can combine video and stills during a shoot so they both have a similar look and feel. For this project, an early morning was endured, fun was had, characters were interviewed and lessons were learnt. It's the fifth year I've shot this event and capturing it with video adds a whole new dimension of planning and work needed. Leaving a camera virtually unattended amongst a crowd of thousands to capture the night glow time lapse was indeed an exercise in stress and paranoia. I'm pretty happy with the results though, take a look.

We're working on another couple of video projects at the moment which'll be finished soon. Be sure to check back as they'll be posted here.

Wairarapa Balloon Fiesta 2010 from Mike Heydon on Vimeo.