sonny photos

Maldives

ok, so I know have 6 days of footage of photos from our surfing trip to the Maldives.
But with no real internet on the boat and instead having to use the limited bandwidth to upload photos for Tommy Hilfiger, it did not leave me with much time to keep this blog updated ( ooops, sorry )

And now it is Paris men's fashion week, finished Milan already.
So my dear friends, I will put Maldives onhold for a second as there are a lot of you fashion fiends out there keen for some boys in clothes, as opposed to pics of me surfing in the Maldives

but I just can't resist putting this pic up Chris Page from MAgic Seaweed took of me surfing, just look at that backdrop !!
Thanks Jonathan for the loan of the fins by the way
:-)

 

Lisbon > Dubai > Male

Lisbon airport, so after yesterday's surf lesson, it's of to the Maldives today with a very excited crew and we are off flying over Portugal into Spain

woauw, check it out, dam on top of mountain ? this is looking familiar, yes, it is Gandia, half way between Javea and Valencia and yes, there we have it, the distintive mountain Montgo de Toscamar and Javea woauw, looks so small from up here, can see the main beach, and the area my parents live leaving Sapin behind oh, but first the Island Sant Francesc de Formentera that sits alongside Ibiza ( can't see Ibiza as we are right over it ) looks like we won;t be getting many more photos now we did fly along the coastline of Algeria and Libya, so I got to see some of it , but too dark to take any photos we landed at Dubai at 4 in the morning, so now, 5 hours later ready to take of to our destination, the Maldives, exciting, never been Sharjah, just suburbs north of Dubai group of man made islands of Jumeirah, Dubai, which will look like a map of the earth once done, so if youhave the money, you can literally buy a country as an island aaah, Dubai Jumeirah beach and the famous Burj Al Arab outer suburbs of Dubai crazy how much development goes on here sand dunes turned into mini cities, complete with high rise building and villa's with lush green grass and another sub divisionm ready to go but looks like some time has passed between asphalt and first brick road to Oman near Hatta coast of Oman flying over the Arabian sea for a few hours and then we should be there and yes, after a few hours first Atoll sighting woauw, Atolls everywhere, and the colours amazing even in overcast and rain wonder if that's our boat for the week fast forward landing, customs control, baggage collection, meeting Jacqui ( yes, she flew over from Sydney day before and met us at airport ) buy sim card and now we are on our Dhoni boat to meet up with our boat for the week everyone is excited to get onto our boat, but we are all also very tired, the anticipation is keeping us awake and there she is clouds start to break up in time for our first sunset, we were all a bit dampened by the arriving in a downpour of rain, wondering if we would see any sun on this trip, but this sunset is a promising sign

Tommy Hilfiger SurfShack Gone Surfing

So who are these people, why am I in Portugal and why at such a nice hotel Well, these folks, have won a competition from Tommy Hilfiger to go on a surf trip to the Maldives, yep, you heard right, the Maldives. So we meet in Portugal so they can have a surf lesson, fun times we'll be keeping you updated via the Tommy Hilfiger Instagram
The lucky crew after their first surf session

Labassa House, Caufield, Melbourne

awesome house, but weird as it is such a mansion, but in the middle of suburbia

so much history wicked place, stoked to be using as a location for the shoot for SiX

Wunderlite Pressed Metal Panels in Bathurst

So here I am now in Bathurst, about 3 hours west from Sydney past the Blue Mountains. To pick up my order of panels for bathroom renovations They have just been treated in these tanks ( which remind me of the old days of working at Create photo lab processing E6 Film )so they are waterproofed and can be painted The pressing machine ( thanks for letting me have a sneak peak into your factory by the way guys ) don't they look good, check them out, they have so many patterns available. Ok put these in the car and back to Avalon we go.

Bless'ed Are The Meek SS13/14 Fashion Show Sydney Backstage

Bless'ed Are The Meek is the label I just went out to Alice Springs for thanks to Northern Territory Tourism and shot an amazing campaign for them ( pictures coming soon ) In the meantime, you should check out these two posts again with pictures taken from the flight over to Alice and then back to Sydney from Alice Springs. And a quick look behind the scenes from the shoot......and this video Oliver Heath and Fin just put together from the shoot. 

Shooting Lookbook with Valentina for Truese

Charlotte Blakeney doing the make up and hair today at Wish studios looking good woohoo,looking glam poladroid glam ok, let's shoot

Couple of Quick behind the scenes shots of my production in the Northern Territory

Packing up at Glen Helen, love the rugged shapes of the rocks around in the ranges here later that afternoon, a few shots later, we are heading to a very special and spectacular location at Rainbow Valley and all hands on deck with helping out carrying a piece of equipment ( thanks guys ) just incredible rock formation ( as this is shot with my new 14mm - read, very wide angle- you don't get the enormity of these formations in this shot ) Still life on the claypan what a great outdoor tiling on the verandah this would make :-)

Meanwhile, back in Sydney

Jacqui has been bloggin up a storm as of late. what with all those personalised portrait shoots she's doing

and then coming along to my productions to be my behind the scenes photographer :-) here she shoots model Sophie between my legs. beauty and the beast alright.  This was done back in November for another Wish shoot I did, this time down in Goulburn. Jacqui has the full report here ( click ) with plenty of photos. Jacqui's new love :-)

Jean Charles De Castelbajac + Rossignol Winter Shoot Behind the Scenes

Benoit, our charming french male model for the day Mr Fenton, aka mr lightswitch Everyone in the studio.
So this is the reason for jumping on a plane end November from Sydney to Europe and then checking into a hotel in Paris for the night. I was asked by the Castelbajac team to come and shoot his new campaign, was pretty stoked to be asked so off I went and here we are :-) Always alot more people involved in shoots like this as opposed to shooting an editorial all hooked up to ringflash and shooting direct onto laptop
Somewhere in there is our Russian model Katya murmur murmur :-) Lucky for me, Katya had the energy I needed, and she lasted all day no problem :-) Kabouter Plop :-) checking out the shots with Alexandra
me & Jean Charles, hamming it up for the camera that time of day when I like to go a little silly ( love the new jacket by the way ) Setting up a shot with Jean Charles De Castelbajac in the picture as well, and ooops, I did not realize I was just tugging him into position like that ( bloody uncouth aussies :-) I think this is when we telling Marc to hurry up and take the photo :-)

caught my flash, blown out I really like that jacket on me love this shot, funny when I'm going, did you get the shot Marc ? looks like everyone is pretty happy with the way its going still prefer shooting without the laptop, mainly as I'm just used to lloking at the back of the camera, feels like it slwos things down this way, pros and cons not sure if you can tell, but I'm jumping with the models as I shoot. So that's probably why Jean Charles has given me the nickname Super Sonic Sonny :-)