I've had a few people asking me about the image shown at the top of this page. So here's the story behind it.
The shot was actually taken while I was on an fantastic assignment for the Cure Kids team. They had arranged a dream weekend in Queenstown for a dozen of the kids who had been through serious challenges in their young lives. A team of helpers, celebs and staff were on hand to make sure they had an amazing time, so a group of around fifty in all.
My job was to capture all of their incredible adventures over the weekend and boy was it fast paced! They went luging, bungy jumping, snowmobiling, flying in helicopters, golfing and jet boating! Not to mention some amazing lunches and dinners supplied by very generous local companies. It really was an epic event to cover and I don't think my feet touched the ground as I tried to capture everyones special moments. You are certainly not going to get fat doing this job!
The kids just blew me away with their energy and ability to take everything in their stride. The helicopter flight from Coronet Peak ski field down to The Hills golf course was a prime example. Some of these kids were from very small town New Zealand, not often seeing a taxi let alone a helicopter! It was sprung on them that they were going in a helicopter to get down from the mountain and they were all "sweet, no worries", even the real young ones.
The panoramic shot with the helicopter is actually a series of stitched images that I took as the first chopper arrived. It is made up of 5 images that I put together in Photoshop and came out pretty well considering it was shot hand held, whilst being buffeted by the rotors of the helicopter.
I grabbed the shots inside the second chopper and love the look on the kids faces, 'just another day at the office'. I had to bounce a flash of the roof and shoot over my shoulder which had it's challenges while harnessed in! The final shot is the helicopter bringing in the last kids to the Hills golf course. The herd of animals you can see below are actually on hundred bronze statues of wolves with a warrior. Truly spectacular, as was the rest of the Hills course which we got to see on a convoy of buggies.
This was such an amazing and humbling event to be involved in. Once again I found myself feeling very lucky for the people and places that photography allows me to experience.
