A recent shoot with Anton Cooper (NZ’s latest weapon on 2 wheels) the shoot was for the front cover (as above) and a 7 page story for NZ MBR.
A few images from Andy Knight test session at Ruapuna, Andy is skidding one of the new V8 Supertourer in the last & greatest New Zealand race series.
A few of my favorites images from my trip to England earlier this year.
Happy Christmas you lot x
I had the privilege of shooting a pretty special wedding at the weekend. I have known Simon & Dani for a number years now, we climb, bike, adventure and we have even lived together. So when they announced their engagement I offered to do the photography, the thing is they are both professional photohgraphers (yay no pressure then). Everything about the wedding was special, the huge efforts and generosity from all that was involved was simply staggering. The sun shone on Castle Hill against all the odds and Dani looked beautiful, Simon didn’t look too bad either.
I have worked with Ronald McDonald House South Island for a number of years now and the latest fund raising event was pretty cool. ”A Day At The Polo” was held at Port Hills Polo Club, Tai Tapu near Christchurch, with prizes for the best dressed, great auctions and top level polo games.
Behind the scenes video from the Audi R8GT photoshoot.
About 12 months ago someone in the know happened to mentioned the possibility of using the New Victoria Park Tunnel as a location for a car photoshoot. Now when an offer like that comes your way, you just have to make it happen. (more…)
In August this year I had the privilege of shooting my cousins wedding, the venue was a stunning Italian hill top village in the heart of Umbria.
Last month I did a shoot for Groundeffect. The images were for the front cover of their Summer brochure and article about their latest and greatest cycling shorts, the new Exocets & Sirens. (more…)
It’s got to be nearly 2 years ago that Cameron (editor of Top Gear NZ) mentioned about the possibility of going to Singapore to cover the only night race on the Formula 1 calendar. The 2010 race came and went with no sign of a photography brief let alone a plane ticket…. While I was packing my bags for a trip to Europe I got “the call”. I pretty much got back from England repacked and headed off to Singapore with Steve Vermeulen, journalist for TG.
It was very cool to be back down the pit lane, in a previous life I was actually a race mechanic, I worked for Arrows & Renault F1 teams for 5 years and it had been 9 years since I was last down an F1 pit lane. To be honest nothing had really changed, same faces, the cars are a little more sculpted, the pit garages are a bit more bling but to be honest, it felt just the same. Accept I was no longer rolling around on the floor under a race car, which was nice ! The story ran in November’s issue of TG here in New Zealand.
November’s issue of Top Gear. Click here for more images
Happy Birthday Frith !
While I was down south last week, I not only had the biggest dose of Type 1 fun, riding the Gondola in Queenstown but I also stopped off to see and expirence some real Type 2 pain ! The Wanaka 10 hour race which was held at Deans Bank in Albert Town. It was a great event with awesome weather and some awe inspiring feats of pain/fitness/endurance/madness, what ever you want to call riding for 10 hours on a rigid, single speed bike with a giant Elmo on your head… Nutters ! And get this, the guy who won the mens solo event also won a 8 hour race the day before.
I did my bit as well, I was drafted in to help out our neighboring team, their team of 4 was down to 1 so I put in a couple of laps for them.
Note about copyright & Karma: If you would like a copy of any of these images please get in touch. Remember screen grabbing or downloading images with out permission is very bad for your health ! All rights reserved ©leehowell2011
Type 1 fun = Pure, in the moment, unadulterated fun. Pinning you favorite trail, eating chocolate and almond croisannts and hrmm use your imagination.
Type 2 fun = Retrospective fun, grinding up a big hill, the burn, enjoying a beer after one of those “adventures” and road bikes.
Type 3 fun = Just not fun at all.
I must admit I like Type 2, it’s what gets you fit at the end of the day and it’s good to earn your strokes, just as long as it followed by some Type 1. Well that was until I rode the Queenstown Gondola at the weekend. Far out, it is just pure Type 1 all the way. $45 gets you a half day pass (5 Hours) where you can tick off at least 10 runs. The trails are legendary, from a super smooth flowing long green run called “Hammy’s” to double black runs where you’r more of a passenger just hoping that you will survive for another lap. After 2 mind blowing days of riding I was finally content not to ride and actually take the camera up on the hill. I had a few rider lined up for the shoot, Scott (who was pretty broken from the night before) and a few local riders, T-man, Mat and his mate who’s name I have forgot. I’m planning another trip down there in the next few weeks for another fix of Type 1 and some more shooting.
Thanks to Scott, Mat, his mate and Tony for repeating some of best sections for me.
Last year I proposed a story to Top Gear magazine about the logistics and preparation that a F1 team goes through for their fly aways (fly away – race meeting on the other side of the world). With TG’s backing I got in touch with Renault F1 to propose the shoot, I was going to be in England during late September, which is when the teams pack away over 20 tones of gear for the Singapore GP, all I needed was the nod. It really came down to the wire but they finally agreed and I was given a few hours of very closely chaperoned access to Whiteways Technical Centre in Oxfordshire, the home of the Renault F1 Team. This post is a year late but it leads me very nicely on to a up coming post.
Finally ! It only took 2 years for this to make it to print ! Its a double page spread in the latest edition of New Zealand Mountain Biker.
Rider: Dwayne Smith
Track: Rad* Sick – Vic Park Christchurch
This shoot was for Mountain Biker New Zealand. The article ran a few months ago now with a story about how Christchurch might be not as shiny as it once was but the mountain bike community are still smiling and making the most it. The event was a part of the Winter Night Race Championship held at McLeans forrest and organised by Rod and the guys at Blue Dog Events. It was a cool event to shoot and to be honest quite a mission, 200+ riders all with super brights bike lights, exposure = I have no idea ! (plus they are all doing 40kph).
Client: Strategy Design Agency
Last months Autocar ran an article on the new Bentley GT that I shot, I’m still waiting for the Top Gear spread (No pressure Ewen).
I must admit Bentley has never really been my cup of tea, but that all changed a couple of months ago when I received a phone call from Bentley asking if I would cover the launch of their new Continental GT down in Queenstown. The images were to be provided to a number of motoring journalists from Australia and New Zealand to document the launch of the new GT. As you can imagine I was pretty excited about this one, $395,000 Bentley in Queenstown at the most beautiful time of the year.
Client: Bentley Motors Ltd
Location: Queenstown /Amisfield Winery
Assistant & Post Production: Mark Cornellison
Here’s a few behind the scenes images from the Bentley shoot that I did recently down in Queenstown. I will post the final images soon.
These images were taken for a new company called Mainland Capital, the brief was pretty loose but I had to portray these guys as people that are moving forward in the commercial investment world. So I did what I’m good at… Blurry photos !
Client: Mainland Capital
Agency: Woods Design
Warrick Yeoman is based up in Auckland and he company C3NZ has built this very cool boat. The boat is a Craig Loomes design and has been built to showcase Warrick’s ability as a luxury yacht builder that likes speed. The shoot took place last year and as far as days go this was right up there.
Client: C3NZ
It’s not everyday you get given a Lamborghini, well not exactly given, more of a loan from Auckland Lamborghini which also comes with a HUGE insurance excess. I had the car for 2 days while I was on a shoot up in Auckland, the crazy thing is that the Lambo wasn’t even the main subject, it was just as a prop and to keep the boat that I was shooting company. Crazy eh !
Just a note to any photographers that might be thinking of having one of these as a work car, you can fit one tripod, one light stand, one small camera bag, an Elinchrome Ranger kit with one light and 135mm Octa and thats it ! Conclusion – not very practical but you will be never be late to a shoot again…
Thanks to Lee at Independent Prestige for the loaning me this amazing car.
I also learnt a very important lesson when trying to shoot a shiny black car at night on location, take the metallic grey Aston Martin instead !
Back in October last year I did another shoot for Chalky Digits. The location for the shoot was Little River Camp ground, which is a very cool camp ground full of great little cabins, baches, all oozing with Kiwiana goodness (go visit, it’s real cool). The shoot itself was pretty full on, with so many items of clothing to get though there was very little time for any major set ups.
Thanks to Danielle for assisting (who didn’t realised assisting involved shifting huge piles of logs and garden waste), Liz and the rest of Chalky Team, Megan and Marcus from Little River Camp ground and finally our lovely models.
I believe that having the right tools for the job is important, which means that sometimes I’ll choose a new lens over food shopping. But after meeting Malcolm recently and discovering the beauty of my 100mm Marco lens. I thought I’d leave my beautiful bag of glass at home and shoot everything on one lens, my 100mm macro.
It was a real cool process, at one point I just sat on the beach and discovered that there was whole new world out there. I spent over half an hour looking (very closely) at what was within a couple of meters radius from me. I fully recommend it .
I couple of weeks ago I got a call to attend The New Zealand 2011 Motorsport Awards evening which was to be held at Te Papa museum. The awards evening is to celebrate the championship winners and also various media awards. Obviously I was never going to win an award for my journalistic skills, but I did manage to collect the “Motorsport Photographer Of The Year 2011″ award.
Unfortunately I was unable to attend the awards due to other commitments but Sarah Byles was good enough to collect the award on my behalf. Apparently she did awesome speech and is a lot better looking (as someone pointed out). I asked her to thank a few people on the evening amongst them were Richard Giltrap and Douglas Blair from Porsche, it’s been great to work with a brand that see’s the value in my style of photography (blurry logos) and what I can offer, so thank you to all the Porsche personnel, teams and drivers for putting up with me and my camera.
And congratulations to Andrew Bright who collected the “Single Shot” Award and what was more impressive is that he survived working with me for the season.
Full Portfolio inside.
Richie and the boys have been busy putting the finishing touches to the new section of Rad. This track is already one of the finest in Vic park and now it has just got bigger an bit more involved. The new section is above the old track and has slightly steeper doubles, a cool step down into the largest quarter to ever grace Vic park. The images below are from a wee end of summer jam we had up there a few weeks ago, good riding, BBQ, tunes, happy days ! Next time I’ll leave the camera behind and take my bike, that is once I have found my balls, I’m sure I put them somewhere safe !
As many of you are aware Christchurch was devastated by a massive earthquake on Tuesday the 22nd of February. When the quake hit I was in my office thats 6 floors up within the CBD, thankfully everyone was ok and we all managed to get out unharmed.
It’s hard to describe what it actually felt like, there was no warning, the building just shook. It was so violent that I jumped up hung onto a huge column for a second then I realised that this was a real bad place to be and I dived under my desk. Just for a moment I actually thought that the building was going to go. Before leaving the office I grabbed what I could carry, my camera (film camera) and my bike. Once outside another big aftershock ripped through, I saw Roberts face as he watched two nearby buildings physically move apart and then smash together. It wasn’t until I started to make my home that I got to see the true nature what just happened to our beautiful city. The images I took directly after the quake are away being processed, I will have them back later this week.
The images below are from the 3rd and 4th day after the quake. To see more image click here.
Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker addresses the media.
More images inside…
For Christmas my brother gave me our father’s old Pentax ME camera to add to the collection. At first I thought it was going to sit on the shelf next to my other old camera bodies, that was until I found a roll of film and started to rediscover the lovely process of shooting film again. It has been with me nearly everyday since, loaded with different varieties of B&W Film. I still laugh at myself when I press the shutter and eagerly look on the back to see nothing but a label that my Dad put there years ago. The anticipation of waiting for the film to be developed, the mixed emotions of seeing the prints has been a lovely reminder of how I should be slowing down and really appreciating what a beautiful medium photography is.
The next roll to be developed is going to very interesting. I shot a roll of Ilford 400 during the aftermath of the earthquake, is away being processed as we speak.
My good friend Dani, looking out at the main street in lyttelton.