May 27th, 2010
Nesian Mystik
I’ve had the pleasure of working these fellas for some time now – I think we must be working on the 6th or 7th video for them. They asked me to put together some promo shots for them – we did some interior digital stuff, but I also wanted to get some more honest stripped back diptych shots of them too. I shot these on the Rollei, I love the fact these are straight from the film, no photoshop grading, tweaking or cropping. We also shot on a beautiful old Pentax F1.8 lens attached to a 5D, they came out great, but needed far more love in post. These 350pixel wide jpegs are not worthy of the huge scans of the film we made (over a metre wide at 300dpi). Hopefully I will get round to updating the site and image sizes soon.
It was fascinating hearing the guys talk about their tattoos. Every little detail has meaning. The sharks tooth pattern on Junior represents protection, each half of his Cook Island tattoo represents one of his parents, the top circles his two sisters, and centre himself. It’s also only on his left arm as his family have a long history of being left handed. Awa’s Maori piece begins on his right wrist, flows up his arm, over his back and ends on his neck. He told me this represents his song voice and gives it strength, from the mic in his hand to the source in his vocal cords. Birds on his arm, and the whale tail shape on his back also bring strength and protection.
