In the mood for a wedding

Here's a little something headed for the upcoming new Jet Weddings site (soon hopefully):

Jet Weddings portfolio from Mike Heydon on Vimeo.

Hot times in the Moroccan Desert

I've been fortunate enough to escape the declining New Zealand weather for three weeks in the Northern Hemisphere. The highlight of the trip was definitely Morocco in Northern Africa which is probably the most amazing place I've ever been. It's as far away from urban Wellington as you can possibly get and a real culture shock. Thankfully Marrakech only got up to around 37 degrees while we were there (apparently it hit an unofficial 60 in some parts last summer). I'd love to return one day soon and do the place justice with camera in hand, but in the meantime here a few images from the overnight camel trek in the desert where we drove for nine hours to over some very narrow roads in the High Atlas Mountains and then slept on the sand dunes under the stars (The local Berber Tribes call it 'The Hotel of 10000 Stars').

Jet Photography has become.... Jet Productions NZ Ltd.

Jet Photography is expanding. We’re now a production company offering a wider range of communication services including video production. So...we’re proud to announce the launch of Jet Productions NZ Ltd.

This is what’s changing:
We offer video production services.
We have a professional writer and Producer on our team.
Our business name.
Our bank account number.
Our email address (mike@jetproductions.co.nz)

What’s not changing:
Our stunning photography.
Our ideas to get your message across, drive your brand and get noticed.
Mike is our creative force and principal photographer.
Our central Wellington location.
Our phone numbers.
Our commitment to producing our best work every day.
Our flash new website (www.jetproductions.co.nz)

If you’re in our part of town, call in and say hello. We’ll provide the drinks if you provide the jokes (best not to leave those up to Mike).  If you're not in our part of town, follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

More from altitude

Last week I was up at altitude at the Snow Farm near Wanaka yet again, shooting another couple of world class triathletes - Andrea Hewitt [NZ] and Laurent Vidal [France]. Having already photographed Kris Gemmell up there a month before, I already knew where the good spots were and the second shoot gave me chance to capture the locations we couldn't get to on Kris' shoot. A big day finishing with me literally running to the plane but it was definitely worth it to squeeze every last minute from the day.

More television shenanigans

I feel like I'm living and breathing campaigns based around sport at the moment - it must be that time of year. The latest project for Wellington Rugby hit the small screen last night. We've produced a series of four 15-second TV commercials to promote the first bunch of home games for the Wellington Hurricanes in the Super 15 season. With almost no time to turn these around and with no existing footage to use, combined with players having pretty hectic schedules, I reckon the results aren't too bad all things considered. These will air during primetime on TV3 over the next few months on-and-off so check 'em out.

Canes 2011

It's January, it must be rugby season. Last week was a big week of post-production on the 2011 Hurricanes poster campaign (with EyeQ Design and Wellington Rugby) but we got there. Making set-in-stone concepts work can be tough as it's largely about making someone else's vision a reality. The final image is made up of over sixty layers which all had to be meticulously worked over, shadows and shading added and then tweaked. And tweaked again.Then tweaked a bit more. There's plenty of back and forth on projects like this but we got there (and hopefully nailed it).

Kris Gemmell - pro athlete

I spent a few days last week up at the Snow Farm near Wanaka shooting a project with olympic triathlete Kris Gemmell. It was a bunch of fun and I'll hopefully head back there next month to finish things off. I'm also shooting a video which will need a few months of production but keep an eye out - I'll be sure to post it here when it's finished.

The setting for last weeks shoot was breath taking - quite literally. At 1600 meters above sea level the air is thinner than at sea level which is enough to make breathing a bit tougher than usual - like chasing a speeding triathlete. We were interupted during a 7am session in minus 4 degree temps so Kris could be interviewed on radio and even he was out of breath. More proofs from the shoot here.

Ngaire the star

I've now shot a few features about caravans for NZ Life & Leisure magazine, and the latest one was a bit special - the caravan was ours and it was for the Jan/Feb cover. We hit the road for a weekend shoot to the Central Hawkes Bay back in October in Ngaire, our 1955 Starliner bubble caravan and the mag is out this week. She's had some work done by the retoucher at the publishers especially for the cover - of course I don't own a pink caravan! It's quite a tough assignment shooting yourself for a magazine story, everything felt very set-up and contrived but hopefully the results were worth it. Ngaire in all her glory is in stores now - check her out.

Lucy and Brian

I photographed my first wedding of the season on Saturday and it was a good'n. I was so excited, I've turned the images around in record time [at least a record for me]. The wedding was at The Wellesley Hotel on a grey ol' day in the capital - perfect for an intimate indoor wedding in a grown-up setting. Love it.

Keep'n it real

It's about time I showed the blog some love after a busy few months. This week we finished production on a spot for Contact Energy to promote the Contact Triathlon Series. Produced with/for Zephyr WPD and Rainger Connect. We shot this sucker in Wellington, Tauranga and Rotorua on the Canon 7d at 50 frames-per-second so we could peg the action back to a gentle slow-motion. The brief was for a raw/photo-journalistic feel, fly-on-the-wall stuff and the triathletes we used were actual, real-life triathletes. When you want real, nothing beats reality.

Contact Tri Series promo from Mike Heydon on Vimeo.