OPSM Ad Campaign in Australia and New Zealand

I recently spent several weeks traveling and working with Saatchi & Saatchi on a new ad campaign for the eye wear retailer OPSM. The job was a really exciting project for me to be a part of because it picked two small towns- Busselton, Western Australia and Napier, New Zealand- and found people of all ages and walks of life who use and need their product, eye glasses. Saatchi & Saatchi scoured through Australian and New Zealand census data to determine a town in each country that encompassed the broad range of types of jobs, incomes, ethnicities etc. that represent each country. We met with bushfire fighters, a horse whisperer, a bagpipe marching band, a master jeweller and a beekeeper just to name a few. I was really excited by the notion of shooting my favorite subject in advertising work: real people with real stories. These are just a few of the shots from Busselton, Western Australia. I'll post images from the New Zealand campaign which was shot in Napier, New Zealand in the near future.

Bushfire fighter OPSM Busselton Wigdahl
OPSM Busselton family Joe Wigdahl
OPSM Busselton farm Joe Wigdahl
OPSM Busselton Horse Whisperer Joe Wigdahl
OPSM Busselton beekeeper Joe Wigdahl
OPSM Busselton Water Reserve Joe Wigdahl
OPSM Busselton Jeweller Joe Wigdahl
OPSM Busselton Catalog Portraits Joe Wigdahl
OPSM Busselton morning landscape Joe Wigdahl

Like most of the large productions I've been working on lately, I was shooting alongside a TVC production that was filming spots for TV and the web, while I was shooting images for the new catalog, website and everything print- in-store, billboards etc. We shot every day for 10-14 hours a day for 2 weeks and I ended up shooting portraits of over 100 people and a lot of landscapes along the way. Most days I would shoot alongside the TVC crew, grabbing shots when I could and stepping in when the TVC guys were done or had a few minutes to hand the subject and location over to me. In each city I had a day to shoot 25 portraits a day which broke down to a new location, set up and portrait every 20 minutes or so for 9 hours. An exhausting but exhilarating exercise as the opportunity to meet new people with great stories just kept coming. At one point I ended up getting pretty emotional at a small town bag piper rehearsal after feeling so lucky that these people would allow us to come in and be a part of their private experience, something I would have never been able to know about or be a part of if I was on my own traveling through this small town.

At the end of the 2 week assignment I'd shot portraits of more than 100 people, was tired, sore and really missed home but damn, I enjoyed that job. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

CD: Matt Gilmour Sr AD: Nils Eberhardt Sr Copywriter: Veronica Copestake The TVC/Motion campaign was produced by Tobias Webster at EXIT Films and directed by Stephen Carroll.

Vodafone 4G Ad Campaign

I just recently shot a new campaign for Vodafone launching their new 4G service. The job involved working with massive, real letters spelling out the "4G" that weighed several hundred pounds and took a team of moving experts to get the unwieldy, fragile and extremely expensive props into place. We started off at 2:30 AM shooting on Sydney Harbour

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Subaru Forester 2013- Norway

A few months after shooting the first leg of the 2013 Subaru Forester's trip around the world, AOI Pro contacted me and asked if I'd like to go to Norway to shoot the next leg. I jumped at the chance- I've always wanted to go to Norway and after I moved to Australia I considered the chances of ever going to be close to nil. Even though there would only be 4-5 hours of daylight a day, -20C most days and it would be something like 28-35 hours of travel each way depending on flight times and delays and it would be right before Christmas, I had to go.

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Subaru 2013 Forester- Australia

In September I was asked by the Japanese advertising agencies Hakuhodo and Aoi Pro to take part in a year-long project shooting the new Subaru Forester as it began a drive around the world through some its toughest terrain. I shot stills alongside a motion/TVC production headed by the Australian cinematographer Daniel Ardilley with the Australian production handled by Dynamite Productions. I felt pretty lucky to be involved in this production as I knew I was going to be going to parts of Australia that I probably would never get the chance to go see otherwise and I'd be able to go up in a helicopter to get some great views of the incredible Aussie outback landscape.

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Nikon D5200 "I Am Imagination"

Back in August I worked with the German advertising agency Jung von Matt ( JVM) on the "I Am Imagination" campaign for the new Nikon D5200. It was also one of the several jobs I've done this year alongside a TVC/motion production where I was the still shooter. I had the pleasure to work alongside Danish director Henrik Henson who shot the motion spot for this campaign.

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Mazda BT-50 Shoot: Zoom Zoom Magazine

Last month I was asked by the UK's Redwood Media Group to shoot a story featuring Mazda's new BT-50 model for its award-winning online presence, Zoom Zoom Magazine. They wanted to tell a story about a day in the life of a BT-50 owner with a natural, reportage feel- showcasing its versatility by following the owner through rough terrain, a surf trip, a trip to the zoo "glamping" (glamorous camping) with his nieces and capped with a night out on the town.We had a looonngggg shot list for the 2 day shoot and I was working alongside Jefferson Grainger, from Corporate Video Australia, who was shooting the motion segment of the piece for the web.

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AFS Construction

I was contacted by the firm Strategy Design & Advertising about shooting some reportage-style imagery for a company profile booklet for their client, AFS Construction. The goal was to make an ordinary, heavy-duty construction site feel like something interesting and dynamic so that they could really showcase what was unique about the equipment and crew of AFS.

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Monocle Magazine Shoot: Darwin, Australia

Last month Monocle Magazine sent me up to Australia's Northern Territory to cover a story on their burgeoning capital city, Darwin. Darwin has become big news in the last few years as the United States has promised to begin stationing several hundred troops there in an effort to re-establish a naval presence in that part of the world. There's also been some massive investment in natural gas by the Japanese and French to the tune of $39 billion AUD. Monocle wanted to find out how this new interest in Darwin might change the city and what the people and government thought about it. I teamed up with Darwin journalist Eric Tlozek to meet some VIPs there and shoot everything I could with the 2 days that I had.

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Ad Campaign: GoodStart Early Learning 3rd ad

These images are for the third ad of the GoodStart Early Learning campaign that I shot with the ad agency The Monkeys. To continue with the concept used in the first images that I shot for this campaignwhere the tagline is physically integrated into the image we wanted to create life-size letters that the children could interact with. When I first saw the concept drawings for this ad I was really excited with the idea of the kids running around and interacting with the letters in the shoot.

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Good Weekend Magazine crew rowing story

A few months ago I was asked by Good Weekend Magazine to go down to Canberra and shoot images to go along with a series that they were doing about a few writers trying their hand at training for a day in an Olympic sport.  I followed writer Mark Dapin as he went through a light version of the incredibly intense daily workout regimen and technique routines of the crew rower.

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Ad Campaign: GoodStart Early Learning

In December I worked with the impressive Sydney agency The Monkeys on a three image campaign for Australia's GoodStart Early Learning Program. The GoodStart program has hundreds of early learning centers around Australia focused on children's learning development in the crucial first 5 years of their life. Our approach to the shoot was to capture children engaged in discovery and play with their environment and the tagline, "Minds Now Open," becomes an integrated part of the image and the activity.

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Pampers Village- Images for Global Website Relaunch

This past July I had the fantastic opportunity to go to New York and work with Saatchi & Saatchi and Strawberry Frog to shoot a series of images for the global relaunch of the Pampers Village website. Pampers Village is a site overseen by Pampers as a resource for parents and parents-to-be that serves as an information hub and an online community. The site covers a huge range of information for parents from learning about prenatal care to preparing your child for her first day of school.

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Good Weekend Cover and Story

A story I shot a few weeks ago for the Sydney Morning Herald's weekend magazine, Good Weekend, just appeared this past weekend as the cover story. It was one of those happy instances where printing on matte newspaper stock made the pictures look fantastic and I was really happy with the end result.

Good Weekend- Generation Y cover story.
Good Weekend- Generation Y
Good Weekend- Generation Y

Sydney Magazine Shoot- Sonoma Bakery

I did my first shoot for Sydney Magazine covering the day in a life of a loaf of bread as it's made by Sonoma Bakery every day. I was pretty excited for this story because I'm big into cooking and baking- I make my own beer and cheese and had been baking bread for a while but I hadn't really had much luck with the sourdough. It was inspiring to see a bakery at the production level of Sonoma still using the best ingredients and making everything by hand.

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Cover and leading story for Good Weekend

I shot the images for the cover story of this past weekend's issue of Good Weekend, a major Australian magazine distributed in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age every Saturday. It's Australia's equivalent of the New York Times Magazine. I'd like to say it was a challenging shoot but getting teenagers to look like they're playing video games is just about the easiest thing in the world. It was my first Australian magazine cover and my first time working with the people at Good Weekend and I had a great time.