RC Helicopters and a new desire to take amazing portraits – that is what has been driving me lately. I have recently returned from America after spending three and a half months shooting snowy adventures up and down the country. It was an amazing journey but I’m always a little burnt out after sleeping in over crowded motel rooms, 14 hour days shooting in the snow and driving for what seems like an eternity across the country.

Our last journey across the U.S was to a small mining town called Silverton, Colorado.  Dragon has a cabin deep in the mountain not far from the township. I took this time exposure of our cabin as the stars rolled over. Look out for the story and decent photographs in the next Transfer issue

My usual day-to-day life right now is a bit different. I get up, make a coffee, drink it, make another coffee, send out emails then seem to go into some kind of trance looking through amazing portraits from other professionals. Its been really inspiring me to capture people in their very different lives. I think you can really tell a lot about someone and the way they have lived by a portrait if it is composed correctly. I have a lot of ideas and it’s going to be something I spend a lot more time on. Get in contact if you’re keen to work with me on getting great portraits. I’m looking for motivated people to test my new ring flash on.

I took this shot of Jye on a trip we did to Minnesota in the States, steam billowing of his back after a hard night out hitting rails in the freezing temperatures. I can’t post any banger portraits as they’re tied up in editorial right now. They will be in print shortly.

But before I turn into some kind of over-enthusiastic portrait photographer nerd (pretty much am anyway) I’m also working on aerial film and photography. I now have a second larger RC heli that I built upwards from a 2 mm nut over a very time consuming week, and have now got a small hi def 1080p camera attached. I’m only in the testing stages and still have a lot more work before I can get a steady image with no vibration, as well as improving my flying skills.  But its looking like I will be using it for some work in the coming months.

The new 600 I built beside my 500. I’m really looking forward to getting some decent quality footage with this.

New Zealand Snowboarder has hit the shelf. I shot the cover with Nick Brown across the road from our base in Tahoe. I shot it with the intention of framing it for a cover format and the masthead background was the perfect feature. I’m pretty happy the way it came out.

Transfer #6 has also hit the shelf and they keep impressing, with 145 pages with content from all over the place. Check out the article on Round Hill that we did last winter. We really got the perfect New Zealand conditions that day.

I have made a few changes to the website, making it easier to navigate, a larger format, and made changes to the galleries, so please have a bit of a look around.

After a good rest from my surgery I couldn’t sit around any longer.  I decided I would do a trip over to Sydney to meet up with some friends for New Years, get a bit of sun and visit Russell Holt (editor of Transfer mag) to get a bit more insight into the mags production and help out a bit on the edit for the latest issue. Here are a few snaps from my trip over and the last few days.

I watch rain drops bead along the window on the way to catch my flight. It was kind of nice as I knew I was going to be in the heat as soon as I landed at the other end.

Air New Zealand, they have always been good to me. I had a problem with my passport on the way out and missed my flight. They had no problem giving me a new flight for no extra charge.

Thats the way we’re heading, out of here.

Popped the jandals on, all ready for the Sydney heat.

I have spent a lot of time in transit over the last few years. After a while everything becomes a bit of a blurry, like the countless trains going past as I wait.

Heath got a black eye but you should see the other guy.

Nothing better than some fish and chips on the beach as the sun goes down.

Happy New Year. I hope you’re having a great break wherever your are and have lots of new adventures planned for 2011.

I haven’t been posting over the last 8 weeks as I finally arranged for my shoulder to be fixed, which required a full reconstruction, so I have been out of action since the Fox Glacier trip. I’m well on my way to recovery now and have had plenty of time to get the brain ticking again with new ideas. I have definitely had a few of those nights where there is so much going through your head you just can’t sleep. That seems to be the time when you come up with the best new ideas.

I have also had time to just relax up north and enjoy some boat time, a bit of wine tasting and just chill out before I get back into things.

I went out with some friends for a bit of clay bird shooting. This is Bouch getting the shot. He won the comp.

Also spent some time around Lake Taupo trying to get a few trout – no love yet though.

We did have some nice still days out there though.  There are some amazing little bays tucked away on the western side of the lake – white sand and your own little private escape.

We also found out about this little spot in the middle of nowhere. It’s a thermal stream that just runs through the bush. Such an amazing spot - I will definitely be going there more in the future, way nicer than the hot pools and it’s free.

There is nothing nicer than biking around the Hawke’sBay for a bit of wine tasting as well.

I have also purchased an RC chopper.  I want to eventually get a slightly larger one and mount my 5D m2 to a stabilizing rig on the base. But these machines are not easy to fly and you need to have a lot of time in the air before being confident to put expensive equipment on board. I want to get GPS rigged up eventually so it can fly while I control the camera. This technology has been around for a while now but could be used for so much more in my industry and can keep the cost down for aerial photography/film. I hope to have it all rigged up and ready to use by the start of the New Zealand winter.

I haven’t got anything too exciting to post this week.  I did my last trip of the winter up to the Fox Glacier. Its scenery and the whole experience was better than I thought it would be, which doesn’t happen very often. You usually get over excited and then disappointed so you can imagine how amazing this place was.

I can’t post any of my work from that trip until it has been published so haven’t got a lot to show but luckily Stef Z also brought his camera up and he was happy for me to post a few on my blog. Thanks Stef.

I enjoying the last of the sunset outside the cabin before shooting some night scapes.

I cut down my kit a lot, left anything I thought wasn’t necessary behind, and I still had way too much to lug around. We would walk for hours on end with snow shoes on and carrying climbing equipment like ice axe, crampons, harnesses on top of all the usual equipment. I definately got a work out.

Coming in to land after two nights up in the wilderness. The chopper guys were really good and gave us a chance to get some great shots, still shooting or filming as we come in to land. I was pumped on the flight obviously.

And the flight home.

And here is the last episode of Diaries Down Under, documenting our trip.

I have now done the drive up north to my Hawkes Bay base for a bit of down time, and some space to learn a few new things I want to focus on. Hopefully there will be some new big things to come.

My last efforts to finish everything before I leave Queenstown have barely all come together but I have made it. Nothing worse than rushing a job - it never comes out the same. I try to always leave plenty of time.

Here are a few portraits that I took for a friend who is putting together a website and starting a company. I’m starting to get the whole portrait/model shooting down better and learning more refined techniques in Photoshop. I’m always looking for more of this work so give me a shout if you are interested and like what I’m doing.

It’s not easy to get a natural look, especially with a model who hasn’t had a lot of experience. I know as soon as someone starts filming or taking stills of me I just freeze up. It’s a strange thing.

We have also had a photo battle on this last week, it was a bit different to your usual snowboarding photoshoot, but a lot of fun. I don’t want to give too much away until the article comes out but it was NZ vs AUS so we kept it pretty rural.

Behind the scenes

Some of the farmer props.

I thought I would post some snaps of my recent editorial that has come out as well. The Minnesota article came out in NZ Aus Snowboarder magazine and there are also a few pages from my feature in the hard cover of Transfer.