“RESIDENTIAL SHOOT” AND PLANNING A “COOK BOOK”

I’m about to fly out to the Cook Islands on a one month “Residential Shoot” – the final phase of a project to provide the national tourism authority with a comprehensive photo library to promote the destination worldwide. It’s an efficient way of delivering the outcome. Rather than flying me over for a seven day assignment and madly trying to squeeze everything in, the tourism authority and I will be working with industry to work out what images are needed in their library before drawing up a Shot List and planning a schedule over a month to deliver it. Personally, I like the idea as it provides scope to produce a more intimate portrait of the destination. I’ll have a house and a car and I’ll be able to move to the rhythm of the Cooks. I’ll also have time to spend planning for opportunities – seeing the potential for a picture and returning to capture it – hopefully in optimal conditions. In a short shoot, you’re so focused on the big shots, you miss capturing the subtleties that can make a destination distinctive and appealing.

While the tourism authority will use the images to promote the destination abroad, I’ll also look at compiling the best of the images into a hard cover book called A Gift from the Cook Islands and adding to Frontier Publication’s stable of souvenir titles on the South Pacific. The books  –  100 pages, 150 pictures, conveniently sized to fit into your hand luggage –  have become the most popular souvenir item we publish.

For your interest, here’s a mock-up with a few sample pages of images from an earlier assignment that will probably make the cut. Click on the cover below.

Altogether, it’s a nice project and I’m looking forward to getting started…..(actually, I’m just looking forward to getting the $$#@!! plane trip out the way as I leave here at 3pm and arrive – via Sydney and Auckland – at 6am the next morning. Sadly, I don’t sleep on planes. Joy.)

Anyway, flight leaves shortly. Gotta go.