The popular Blue Mountains tourist destination Scenic World has recently added a “Welcome to Country” smoking ceremony led by local Aboriginal Gundungurra custodian, David King.
AD Campaign: Mountain Culture Beer Co.- Camping & Hiking
I recently shot a series of images for the award-winning brewery, Mountain Culture Beer Company, based in the Blue Mountains. One of the owners of Mountain Culture, Harriet McCready, approached me because she wanted a lifestyle shoot for the brewery which captured the essence of outdoor lifestyle imagery of the 1970s and early 1980s. Part of the focus of the imagery was a stylistic choice based on the colour palettes and large film grain of the magazine advertisements of the time. What Mountain Culture really wanted to capture though was the easy-going approach to outdoor life that those old ads reminded us of- the simplicity of camping and hiking that used to be about throwing on some minimal gear and heading out into the bush. Mountain Culture wanted to have a nostalgic taste of the mountain lifestyle unadorned by the new gear and high tech fabrics that make up the modern outdoor experience.
SCENIC WORLD: TERRACE BAR
Recent lifestyle and landscape photography for a series of ads announcing Scenic World’s Terrace Bar. Open seasonally, the Terrace Bar allows for locals and tourists to enjoy evening music, food and drinks while taking in the stunning surroundings and sunsets of the Blue Mountains and the Three Sisters.
Mountain Culture Brewery's First Ad
I was asked by Mountain Culture Brewery to do a photo shoot for them- they needed an image for their first ever two-page spread ad in a major magazine. If you’re not familiar with them, Mountain Culture Brewery opened up in Katoomba a few years ago and immediately won “Best Brewery of the Year” in Australia, has produced the number one beer in Australia called Status Quo, and is now considered one of the best breweries in Oz and they make seriously good beers and have a lot of fun doing it. They didn’t really know what to do but being as gifted in marketing as they are in beer making, the brief from the owners was “We’re thinking something along the lines of a 1980s Burt Reynolds centerfold.” Owner and head brewer D.J. McCready turned out to be a male model natural.
It’s probably the hardest I’ve ever laughed on a shoot and I made sure in post production to give it some sweet 80s glamour soft-focus highlight bling.
ORIGIN Energy: Griffith Drone Commercial
Origin Energy asked Joe Wigdahl to shoot a motion spot featuring a new large solar panel installation on a shopping centre in Griffith, NSW Australia.
Read MoreCar Collector Danny Irvine for Mazda
Portraits of the vintage Mazda car collector Danny Irvine, for Mazda Motors.
Read MoreORIGIN Energy: Solar for Industry photo shoot
I recently shot a small library of images for Origin Energy’s solar division for both industry and residential uses. I’ve been using a drone more often lately in my advertising shoots where we need a variety of landscape shots to tell the whole story. This was definitely a shoot where using a drone was actually a real necessity and would have been impossible using a helicopter as I probably would have done 5 years ago.
AD Campaign: NRMA
We recently worked with Houston Design Group in Sydney to create a range of lifestyle images for NRMA /National Roads and Motorists' Association. Outside of their insurance and roadside assistance programs, they've recently developed partnerships with camping and caravan parks around Australia as well as new phone apps that help travelers and NRMA customers with a variety of tasks. We created a small image library for NRMA around these new products for them that focused on family road trips, travel and app use.
Client: NRMA
Agency: Houston Design Group
New Auto / Cars Portfolio
I've been shooting a lot of cars in the last few years with clients like Mitsubishi, NRMA and Subaru and I've finally decided to publish a portfolio of some of my car work. Cars can be pretty fun- the projects usually call on a lot of the things I really like to shoot- big landscape shots, lifestyle and the occasional aerial shots (which used to be out of a helicopter but are mostly drone shots these days).
Joe Wigdahl Auto & Cars Portfolio
Sunset on Lake Gairdner, South Australia
Ad Campaign: Weipa Tourism for Rio Tinto
A few months ago I traveled to Weipa in the western Cape York peninsula in Queensland to shoot a campaign for Rio Tinto. Weipa is a small, remote town with a huge bauxite (raw aluminium ore) mine that wants families to come and put down roots as development and local investment looks to grow in the coming years.
Client: Rio Tinto / Weipa Tourism
Agency: ChannelZero
Creative Director: Ben Croft
Ad Campaign: Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross
A few months ago I shot a bunch of images for Mitsubishi for their new car in Australia, the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross.
When we did this shoot this was the only Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross in Australia. It has a busy schedule and the only days I had to shoot it just happened to coincide with the Melbourne Cup race in Victoria, which is something of a holy week there. We couldn't find a location scout who was available (i.e. wanted to take time out of the Melbourne Cup festivities to find locations) so I had to go down to Victoria a week early and find my own locations. Because I really didn't know the Victorian countryside I started every morning looking at Google satellite maps for terrain and roads that might have something interesting to shoot on- especially private properties that looked like they had roads on them that we could get permission to use. I would then spend the next 12 hours driving every day combing over every road in that area and then try and contact homeowners that might have a nice road. After driving around 1000kms of small backroads, at the 11th hour I finally found a family that let us shoot on their land. We couldn't have asked for more amazing weather.
To do the aerial shots I worked with Flying Dragon, a drone company that specialises in high-end cinematography. I had experimented with several readily available drones like the Phantoms and the still image quality just didn't stack up for the size we were going to have to use for the stills. We had to use a camera that was over 30 megapixels to satisfy their print needs and the only drones that can hoist up a camera large enough to do that are the heavy duty 8 blade drones that require professional pilots and cost a fortune. The operator was in charge of the flight controls and navigation on one monitor and I controlled the camera gimbal and captures on the other. I have to say, despite the challenges of short flight times due to battery power, I definitely preferred using a big drone to hanging out of the side of a helicopter.
Client: Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross
Agency: Richards Rose Executive
Executive CD: Adam Rose
CD: Liam Hillier
Folsom Prison and THE WORK Documentary
This year a documentary called The Work was released about a prison-therapy program in Folsom State Prison in California. The documentary follows a group of men from the outside who join a circle of maximum security inmates for 4 days of intense group therapy work. The film focuses on 3 men from the outside as they sit in a circle with other outside men and maximum security inmates and follows the jarring emotional journey that the group therapy work takes them on. I was asked by the director Jairus McLeary to be the stills photographer and an extra cameraman as part of the crew that went in to film one of these 4 day therapy retreats at Folsom Prison. I shot hundreds of images over those days documenting the group process as well shooting portraits of many of the individuals who participated.
My introduction with the Folsom Prison experience came about purely by chance. I met Jairus McLeary -the future director of The Work- in 2000 when Jairus McLeary and I were waiting tables together at a restaurant in the college town we lived in. We became pretty good friends and that year I spent Thanksgiving at his parent’s house. That’s when I met Jairus’ whole family, who all seem to be involved in some way even back then with Inside Circle Foundation’s work at Folsom Prison. Jairus’ dad James McLeary is one of the lead facilitators with Inside Circle and Jairus’ brothers went on to be his collaborators in making the film. At some point in my relationship with the family James and Jairus suggested that I try going to Folsom. I didn’t really know much about what the experience was about and they didn’t really offer up too much information about it other than vague anecdotes that Jairus would share about “this incredible process” he would take part in. For some reason I simply trusted them and took this leap forward into something I didn’t really know much about or what to expect.
In 2006 I went to Folsom Prison with the Inside Circle Foundation as an initiate, surrounded by strangers from the outside and the inside and I more or less unwittingly began a process that completely changed my life. I walked in a line into the chapel with other men from the outside and stood in a circle facing inmates, some of whom seemed to be just as in the dark as I was about what to expect. The next 4 days were the most transformative 4 days of my life. I walked into a room that became a safe space for the most intensely profound stories, emotions and experiences that I had ever encountered. There was something in the process too that I discovered for myself and that was learning how to be of service and support to someone else, outside of personal judgement. No one in that chapel, from the inside world or out, was there to hear my opinions. Because I had no idea what I was doing, I just did my best to shut up and listen to others and be of support in any way I could. I screwed up a few times but that seemed to be part of the process as well. Everyone got a chance to be heard, to do their work, to support and be supported. When it was my turn, I was challenged in a way that I had never thought possible and somehow got through it with men from the outside and inside by my side.
I consider going to Folsom the single most important decision of my life because it began a process that completely changed the direction of my life afterwards and opened the door to all the other important decisions I would end up making. It put me on a path of change that led to me examining what I valued in my life, what was working in my life vs. what wasn’t and how I fit in the world. It led to me meeting and marrying my wife, becoming a father, moving to a different country and pretty much who I became after that experience. I went back in 2008 and had a very different but very rewarding experience then too. It should be noted that there has not been a single prisoner who has gone through the Inside Circle Foundation program and Folsom prison who has gotten out of prison has ever returned.
I’m not sure when Jairus and his family began the process of trying to make the documentary happen but by 2009 everything had finally fallen in place for them to film. In 2009 the documentary crew went in to film the process which has been happening twice year for almost 20 years.
After 8 years, due to a variety of reasons for delays, the film was finally released in 2017 to much acclaim. It has won several awards in major film festivals around the world including 2017 Best Documentary at SXSW. It has earned 100% from Rotten Tomatoes and 4/5 stars from RogerEbert.com and IMDB to name a few. Follow the links below to watch the trailer and learn more about the film and the Inside Circle Foundation.
Watch the full movie of THE WORK here. Website for THE WORK. Facebook for THE WORK.
Learn more about the Inside Circle Foundation.
Ad Campaign: Mistubishi ASX and Outlander
I recently had opportunity to shoot images of the new Mitsubishi ASX and Outlander in a car campaign for the Sydney agency Richards Rose. I spent a week in Melbourne working on the shoot, shooting alongside a large TVC crew and taking the cars off whenever I had a chance to shoot whatever I could grab. It was a lot of fun and the weather was surprisingly wonderful for Melbourne in the winter.
Client: Mitsubishi
Agency: Richards Rose
Producer: Katie Morton
CD: Christopher Johnson
Sr AD:George Bassiakos
Brickworks Portraits
I recently worked with the Sydney design firm DesignSuite on a range of portraits of some of the people who keep the huge Australian brick and tile manufacturer Brickworks running.
Campaign: Destination Gold Coast
A campaign I just shot for Gold Coast Tourism has just started to roll out. We set out to look past the party reputation that the Gold Coast is well known for and tried to capture the sense of how beautiful the Gold Coast and the area around the GC really is. There will be more shots from the campaign to come but this is what I've got so far...
Client: Gold Coast Tourism
Agency: JWT Sydney
Campaign: 2016 English Rugby Team for Canterbury Clothing
I just recently shot a campaign for Canterbury Clothing featuring the 2016 English Rugby team. The English rugby team was in Brisbane doing some training before their big match against Australia in May. As part of Canterbury Clothing's new "Only the Committed" campaign I was asked to shoot portraits of each of the team members and then shoot some of the new clothes for their catalogue in a really beautifully run down old factory in an industrial part of the city. The main challenge was that the schedules of the athletes just simply didn't allow for us to take them all to some really cold and windy warehouse over an hour away from their training grounds to shoot portraits of them. We ended up shooting the portraits in a hotel room with the portrait lighting matching how I was lighting the warehouse location and then everything was stitched together in post.
Aside from the main challenge of getting that to work, I had to try and get something that felt like a sense of intensity of emotion from the players while I only had a few minutes to shoot each (and while their teammates were standing behind me doing everything they could to make them laugh). I got my fair share of ribbing and insults from the team as well and I ended up getting the nickname Professor X from the players by the end of the day (I'm bald.) After a frantic shooting pace shooting portraits and some laughs we wrapped up and headed out to the warehouse. We spent the day shooting the products and filling up the warehouse with smoke machines to get that really gritty industrial atmosphere.
It was a blast.
Client: Canterbury Clothing
Agency: Pentland Brands Creative
Director: Stuart Ross-Sheeran
Art Director: Blake Calderwood
Production by Chee Productions
AD Campaign: Australian NBN
I just shot an image for a new campaign for the Australian National Broadband Network. The shoot was part of a larger TVC ad featuring a story of two deaf women who take advantage of the new high speed network by chatting (through sign language) over video.
Client: Australia NBN Agency: BWM Dentsu
New Work: Surfing and Lifestyle Portraits
I've done some new work with Brett from Bella Management, playing with ideas I've had for a while about shooting surfing portraits and some exercise/sports work. We lucked out by having one of the most beautiful sunrises at Maroubra Beach I'd ever seen.
