Bliss In Bali | A Recent Photography And Video Campaign For Afini

We were recently commissioned by Afini, a new player in the luxury destination travel market, to shoot a complete visuals campaign, both stills and video production. The shoot took place in Bali, Indonesia spread out over two of their amazing villas.

Many of our clients the past couple years have hired us to shoot dual campaigns (both stills and video). Besides this obviously being more work for my business which is always a plus I feel it’s a great way to insure the visual style remains fluid throughout the brand.

To achieve this fluid style we are unique in that we typically couple one of our photographers, also trained cinematographers, with our director on the shoots. The style and overall look and feel end up having a consistent look across the brands entire visual campaign.

Afini, Bali | Brand Film from Mott Visuals on Vimeo.

Pullman Danang – by Christian Berg

We recently had the chance to do a lifestyle shoot for Pullman in Danang – a really beautiful location right at Danang’s beach.

Here a few previews from the shoot which involved a lot of pool and ocean action..

Holiday Inn Maldives Brand Film and Photography

Check out our recent work for IHG shooting video,stills, and aerials at the Holiday Inn Maldives.

Our unique advantage is we handle full production including casting, wardrobe, editing, creative, scripting, etc for our clients creating a one stop shop for all your visuals. Having the same team shoot your video and photography creates a fluid visual style.

Here are some photos for Holiday Inn Maldives:

INTERCONTINENTAL HOTELS COMMERCIAL WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY SHOOT | SINGAPORE

I’ve photographed dozens of weddings and I’ve photographed a dozen of luxury resorts so it only made sense that I was hired to do a commercial shoot to promote weddings at INTERCONTINENTAL HOTELS and Resorts worldwide. Over the years Intercontinental has become huge client for us and I love their brand.

The shoot came from IHG’s Singapore office and they needed a location that could pass for one of there over 100 locations worldwide. We helped come up with the concept of shooting along with the advertising firm REDWORKS out of Singapore. We wanted to use all natural light and have the appearance of a real wedding day.

Since the budget didn’t call for a full on wedding full of models we had to focus on just the bride and the groom. Basically we needed to trick a wedding without having the guests. For our model couples we needed to cover 3 different demographics, Pan-Asian, Caucasian, and Middle Eastern. We had one day with each couple at the same exact locations, so by day 3 I was starting to feel like movie Groundhog Day.

ENFOCAFOTOS,out of Singapore did the production and it was top notch. I highly recommend them for production on photoshoots, they were a treasure to work with and everything ran smoothly and I have to say this is rare on photoshoots.

Enfocafotos scouted out some great locations in the park and for the interior shots we chose to shoot at the Intercontinental Singapore. We had to leave out distinctive backgrounds that could show a specific location or country. Normally my job is to bring people to a specific location, now I was being asked to make it look like it could be anywhere.

The shoot took 3 days, sun up to sun down and luckily we had good weather for the most part. We shot almost everything with natural light using reflectors to make it feel like a real wedding and we shot a ton to capture as many natural moments in an unnatural setting. You have to remember these models just met that day and now we had to make them look like it was their wedding day and try to capture fake love.

The trick do doing so is one, have great models, which we did, and two shoot very loosely and open and try not to set up too much. I shot with two Canon bodies and two prime lenses at all times. I shot and reshot scenes over and over until we got it right, it needed to be believable and that takes time.

This was really a spectacular shoot because I love that the Intercontinental believes in capturing real moments using natural light, even for commercial purposes. The result I feel is a believable product and if your patient, a consistent final product across all their brands. People are visually savvy these days and when something is over Photoshopped the viewer loses trust in the image and can lose trust in your brand. I’ve worked with Intercontinental for a while now and I really love the visual brand identity we are helping them to create and I applaud their guts to shy away from the norm and invest in this approach.

Here is a series of some of my favorite shots from our 3 days in Singapore, thanks to our wonderful models,Enfocafotos, Redworks, and Intercontinental Hotels.

Camera Phone + Instagram = A New Commercial Photography Market?

My left shoulder has a little more beef than my right, a result of always slinging my camera bag on my left side. I’d show you but I’m not quite ready to go shirtless on my blog at this moment, stay tuned. There was a time when I was more balanced, living a more simplified photography life. I spent 2008 doing all of my editorial assignments with a simplified kit; one camera,  a 35mm 1.4, and a 100mm F2 and it made me a better photographer.  

I diversified my business in 2009 and launched Mott Visuals resulting in more commercial jobs and yes a boatload of new gear which meant more chargers, wires, batteries, thingamabobs, thingamachiggies, and of course thingamawhatnots.

I work relatively simplified compared to most commercial photographers taking only a portable lighting kit (Profotos) and typically one or two assistants max and even they are pretty small(sorry Ngoc). In fact Ngoc(Mott Visuals Producer) weighs only a little more than the Profoto Batpac that she often has to haul around. All that gear takes a toll not just on your body but on your mind as well.

I needed a break from my lighting gear and needed to mix up my kit so my images didn’t get stale. Limiting your kit is a great way to spark creativity in your photography and recently I did the ultimate photography fast on a commercial client. 

My shoulder got a much needed rest on a very interesting project I pitched to Intercontinental Hotels, specifically the pilot project was done at the gorgeous Intercontinental Sun Peninsula Danang, Vietnam.

They already have a beautiful commercial image library but the idea behind this project was I’d spend one full day at the resort capturing the property and services with just my camera phone(Samsung Galaxy S3) and using only Instagram to edit the pictures. I wanted to capture the guest experience and make believable images.

I didn’t pitch the project to balance my body or to go on vacation but rather to balance my shooting style and more importantly offer my client something unique for their image library, reality.  I hear it on every shoot “can you just Photoshop it?” You can do amazing things in post-production but the downside is people don’t believe images anymore, they think everything is artificial and it’s hard to know what to believe is real anymore.

Who knows what will happen in the future but at the moment we still believe in camera phone images and yes Instagram uses filters but we aren’t removing things or adding things that weren’t there so the images have more trust from the viewer. 

The project made me lighter and simplified and my mind could focus on making thoughtful images rather than worrying about the safety of my equipment, where to place lights, is my assistant tipping over from the Batpac, etc. Like the camera phone, I was portable and that made me more patient and energized to experiment with light and compositions. 

Hotels and Resorts (all businesses really) need commercial images with lighting and heavy retouching but I also see potential for projects like this. These images can be used in social media and used properly and creatively can give their customers a view at reality and a sense of what it’s really like to be there. The viewer can feel like they could’ve taken that photo, resulting in trust.

I see an emerging market for this type of work and I now offer it to all my clients as an optional add-on service to my commercial and editorial photography. I work closely with my clients not only on the project concept but also on how the images can be used in creative ways in this social media world we live in. 

I set aside time every month to brainstorm new ideas with my team for our services and I’ve very excited about the potential for this one. We have to strive for new ideas for a new media market and it’s not just about the quality of the work you have to know how to sell your project idea and customize it for your clients.

Here is a link to the Intercontinental Sun Peninsula Danang work. 

Click Here

 

Here is a picture of all the gear I took on a recent commercial shoot for a resort alongside the gear I brought for the Intercontinental shoot.

Thank you to Intercontinental Sun Peninsula Danang for taking a chance on a project like this, I applaud their courage and creativity.

VIETNAM | THAILAND | BEYOND