Seeing Red Media

01/07/2025

For the past 13-14 years, one television show has pretty much consumed most of my summer time. In March I finished shooting for what will be the 10th season of Highway Cops. While that season won't be available to view for quite some time yet, TVNZ have kindly dropped all of season 9 onto their TVNZ+ channel. From the 100s of hours spent toiling on the roads in Canterbury, Otago and Southland, I had forgotten some of the most memorable moments, especially as it was shot in 2022-2023. For anybody keen to see the regular dose of quirky characters, crazy driving and epic scenery, the series can be viewed here: https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/highway-cops

The photo below with the snowy surrounds was shot at the end of October...summer in the South eh?

05/06/2025

June 1st-sometime after 22:00. Decided to go for a walk around Clyde with my phone, and leave the ‘proper’ camera kit behind. Wanted to see what the iPhone is capable of and was pleasantly surprised.

23/05/2024

Like a builder with busted boards or a mechanic with a munted car, I take a lot of photos, but often take an age to get around to processing them. However, I've given the transmission a tuning, removed the rot and tweaked a few pixels on my shots from 'that' epic night on the 11th May. Having captured images of the Aurora Borealis from the Yukon...which was awesome, what happened a couple of weeks ago in my own backyard was astonishing. Within a 1 Kilometre radius from home, I wandered about looking skyward as the scene changed constantly. These images show the gradual increase in intensity as the solar storm cranked up and when the lights were dancing directly above, I decided to step away from the camera and just soak up the show.

27/08/2023

Made a few tweaks to my showreel to update some projects, and a revisit a few cool memories from the field.

02/08/2023

Having spent countless hours watching and filming Sun Bears in Borneo, I can attest that yes, this very cool little bear can stand on its hind legs and walk on their feet:

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/01/china/sun-bear-claims-china-hangzhou-zoo-intl-hnk/index.html

Great to see that Wong Siew Te is quoted in the article as he does such amazing work in the conservation of the species and raising their profile.

Alongside their ability to stand and walk on their hind legs, Sun bears, a.k.a Honey bears also have a very long tongue which is very useful in extracting honey from bee nests. Below is a shot that I took when working on a story about them in 2016.

However, it's not unheard of for the Chinese to dress humans in animal attire....this is V.2.0 of the Panda suits that became part of my daily uniform in 2014. Not very comfortable in the humidity and then there is the smell, each outfit has panda excrement and urine added for authenticity?

03/07/2023

Too often when trying to stay busy in the broadcast environment, I will shelve personal interest projects. However, when I'm not out paying the bills via the various contracts that come my way, I sometimes look at my camera kit sitting neglected next to me in my wee edit suite, and will often jump in the car and head out locally to grab some content that celebrates the local environment.

So, when The Alexandra Basin Wine Group commissioned me a while back to make a short clip to showcase their story, I did shoot a whole lot of fresh content to pull the narrative together...but I was also super fortunate to have a lot of archive footage backed up that I was able to call on...especially the changing seasons that illustrate the tenuous nature of growing great grapes in the basin.

Cobbled together from footage off three different cameras and two drones, I am constantly impressed on how modern editing software helps make the transition between these disparate sources relatively seamless.

05/06/2023

Back in February I went up to Auckland on a whim to collect some footage for a self-produced documentary idea that I have been toying with for awhile. As I continue my research and figure out what the film will eventually be, I decided to cobble together a short clip from some of the footage that I shot over that long weekend. For someone who grew up in awe of the legends who explored the limits of life on two-wheels, the last ever classic motorcycle meeting to be held at Pukekohe racetrack was pretty darn cool.

This is "Farewell Pukekohe" by Seeing Red Media on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

24/04/2023

Last year I travelled to the other side of the world and captured the Northern Lights...now the Aurora Australis is happening across the road from where I live.

20/04/2023

It has just come to my attention that the legendary Filipino Tattoo Artist, Apo Whang-Od has graced the cover of Vogue Philippines. Its a great article...though somewhat concerning to hear that the hordes of tourists beating a path to Buscalan to get inked, is changing the dynamic of the beautiful Kalinga village.

https://www.vogue.com/article/apo-whang-od-and-the-indelible-marks-of-filipino-identity

However, I was one of those tourists when I traipsed up the hill in 2017 to meet Whang-Od....who must have been 100 then. I guess I feel fortunate that 6 years ago it wasn't such a 'must-do' on the backpacker itinerary, so hopefully the benefit of preserving the Butbut heritage via Batok, outweighs the pressures put on this community.

I was also fortunate to spend some time with Whang-Od chatting about her life via a translator and making a short video afterwards. I still wear my centipede tattoo with pride and will never forget the experience of getting ink delivered via a bamboo stick and citrus thorn...it also took a good two months to heal. I still have the rudimentary Batok stick that Whang-Od used for my tatak.

16/02/2023

After what seems like a lifetime since I was last a music-festival type environment (thanks Covid), last weekend I had the good fortune to get up close to one of my all time favourite bands. All of the bands on the day were awesome, but ZZ Top have been there for me since I first starting rifling through record bins way back in the day. They didn't disappoint with a selection of tunes that tracked way back to the very first album 'Brown Sugar'...through to Tres Hombres 'Waitin' For the Bus' and 'Jesus Just Left Chicago' and even the quirky cool of 'I Gotsta Get Paid' off La Futura. Definitely missed 'The Dust' on bass and vocals, but respect to Billy for not trying to sing T**h in his absence and Elwood who one reviewer comically called Kevin Bacon with a beard, is no slouch at holding down the low end either.

24/12/2022

I've had some cool shoots recently with the Conservation Dogs...and one of my favourites is Zach, a Pig Dog turned Hedgehog detector. He has just become certified:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/130832200/new-zealands-only-certified-hedgehog-detection-dog-hits-the-beat?cid=app-iPhone