Finding Direction

A second chance

If last week’s blog resonated and you were feeling a bit like you had a false start to 2023, you’ll be pleased to know that you have a second chance – the Lunar New Year. Around the world, celebrations continue to welcome in the Chinese Year of the Water Rabbit- a year of introspection, peace,

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False start?

Does your year seem to have gotten off to a false start? In New Zealand, 2023 started with a cyclone that saw a week of intense never ending rain and storms. Instead of going to the beach we hunkered down and watched the palm fronds smack against the windows. There’s been a sense of despondency

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Meet my dad

This is my dad, and yesterday was his 86th birthday. In the late 70’s he wrote a quality control system for the developing computer industry. The system was adopted by British Standards (BS 5750), and today, manufacturers of most camera companies use the same quality control standardisation (now updated to ISO 9000). Dad is systems

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Your images are not enough

There’s no doubt that creative decision makers, the people I presume you want to hire you, are visually discerning. And sharing your most stunning work (stills and motion) on your website is vital for that reason. But nice images alone are not enough. Because if they like your work they will then want to figure

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Are you working with ‘meatloafs’?

‘Meatloafs’. That’s the word a photographer recently used to describe some of his more frustrating clients who work in the sports world. It’s not surprising really. Many people who book photographers direct are non-visual. And it’s not limited to ex-rugby players. Marketing managers, event organisers and corporate executives are simply not (usually) terribly visually eloquent.

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Lessons from an extreme athlete

If you’ve ever seen the James Bond Film ‘Casino Royale’ you might remember the crazy urban free-runner leaping over scaffolding and cranes. That was Sebastien Foucan, who featured in a global campaign one of my photographers shot several years later. On the shoot I was amazed to see that in order to bounce off frighteningly

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Are you drowning?

Yesterday I pulled a poor woman from the surf, wide eyed and frightened. She’d been tipped off her boogie board and was clutching it weirdly from upside down, like a beached turtle. She was terrified to let go lest she drown, and waves crashed over her face as she strained to keep it above water.

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