Back in May, my team and I photographed a regional advertising campaign for Pioneer Asia-Pacific's car audio and entertainment group.  Working closely with Nectar9, Pioneer's advertising agency in Singapore, my task was to create two images: "Driving" and "Dancing".

My brief was to tell a story in a single frame, capturing real-life moments of pure kinetic energy, blasts of dynamic light and explosions of bright colours.

Creatively, "Driving" was about the driver achieving nirvana -- a state of perfect happiness -- in unison with his car, the music and the city swirling by as it engulfed him and his vehicle in lights and energy.

On the other hand, "Dancing" was about taking a moment and making it better -- the women freeing themselves and embracing that experience.

Ultimately, the man in "Driving" had to demonstrate an awareness of his surroundings and control of the moment, while "Dancing" had to illustrate the women letting go, being free in their surroundings and allowing the moment to control them.

Like most of my work, I chose to approach this shoot from an editorial perspective, creating images in a true photo-reportage style and providing the viewer with a feeling of spontaneity, realism and authenticity. I wanted to produce images showing candid and emotional moments-in-time, captured in a true cinematic fashion.

We thought long and hard about how to photograph these scenes, eventually deciding it would be best to shoot them in a studio versus on the streets of Singapore.  My production team from Ugly Duckling Projects pulled everything together, including two beautiful automobiles for me to photograph: a mint condition 1969 Mercedes-Benz 200 and a brand new Maserati Granturismo.

Working in the studio, we had to rely entirely on artificial light for our shoot.  We opted to use a mixture of powerful strobe lights that "pop", film and television lights that "burn", small in-car lights and a collection of multi-coloured fluorescent tube lights.  We lit the scenes for both "Driving" and "Dancing" in a dramatic, high-contrast manner -- giving us the nighttime essence we wanted -- and then achieved the splashes of colour and streaking lights on the hood of the car separately in-camera.  Our

friends at Procolor in Singapore then helped bring everything together for us in post-production to create the desired speeding, streaking effects in both photographs.

The resulting images of this dynamic shoot rolled-out across the region last week. The entire team is very proud of the work. And fun was had by all, especially me...

Browse more of my advertising photography portfolio here.

Credits

Client: Pioneer Asia-Pacific

Agency: Nectar9

Creative Director: Robbie Bempasciuto

Art Director: Tom Kelly

Account Service: Andre Chen

Production: Ugly Duckling Projects

Executive Producer: Annette Fausboll

Styling: Arina Abu Bakar

Hair & Make-up: Andrea Claire

Photographer's Assistants: Zam, Halid & Jun Yang

Digital Imaging: Dave Phung / Procolor

This past May I was asked by my friends at Nikon Asia to create a collection of images using the new Nikon 1 V1 mirrorless camera, F-mount adaptor and five different AF-S Nikkor lenses of my choosing.  They also requested that I make a short film about my personal experience working with the camera and lenses.

Although I didn't know exactly what I wanted to shoot for Nikon, I did know precisely whom to call for some creative assistance: my close friends and frequent collaborators, documentary filmmaking team Mike Rogers and Meghan Shea.

Coincidentally, Mike and Meghan were just about to depart Singapore for the United States to film a television pilot with folk and roots musician Ben Taylor at his home on Martha's Vineyard.  They suggested that I join them and use the Nikon 1 to document behind-the-scenes and the making-of the TV pilot.

I loved the idea, Nikon supported our proposal and -- most importantly -- Ben graciously agreed to star in our photographs and short film.  The next thing I knew, I was traveling around the world from Singapore to Massachusetts to join Mike and Meghan and the rest of the team working on the production.

Together we spent three remarkable days with Ben on Martha's Vineyard.  We visited his home-recording studio where he shared with us the sources of his creative inspiration and his songwriting process.

We enjoyed downtime with Ben, paddle boarding on Menemsha Pond at Chilmark and sitting on his balcony at Tisbury as he serenaded us with his acoustic guitar.

And the climax of the entire experience was a small, private concert Ben hosted at his home on our last evening.  He invited about 30 of his friends from the Vineyard to join him around the campfire while he and his bandmate, David Saw -- along with a handful of his musician friends -- sang late into the night.

Mike filmed me as I went about documenting each of the moments we experienced using the Nikon 1.  In this short film by Mike, go behind-the-scenes of our shoot and visit here to see a collection of the photography I captured during our three fantastic days on Martha's Vineyard with Ben Taylor.

One of Ben's songs, "Worlds Are Made of Paper" -- from his brand new album Listening -- is featured in our film. Download Listening from iTunes starting from August 14.

First started in 1994, the Great Singapore Sale (GSS) is an annual shopping event organized by the Singapore Tourism Board.  Aimed at promoting both the retail and tourism businesses in Singapore, and with the goal of establishing Singapore as an Asian shopping destination, the GSS attracts both locals and tourists to malls and shops across the island.

This year, for two months from 25 May to 22 July 2012, "shopaholics from the region and beyond flood to these shores to get their hands on bargain buys...at the main shopping belts and in suburban shopping malls throughout Singapore".

MasterCard is the Official Card of the GSS and is offering card members an opportunity to win a "priceless trip"to Sydney, London, Beijing or Dubai by using their MasterCards during the GSS.  A couple of months ago MasterCard's advertising agency, McCann Worldgroup in Singapore, contacted me about shooting the advertisement to communicate this promotion.  My brief was to photograph a young couple on an airplane as they departed on their second honeymoon to one of these exciting destinations.  We decided to shoot this ad on a private jet in a hangar in Seletar, Singapore.

Having never personally been aboard a private aircraft (let alone shooting an advertisement inside one), this was an exciting experience for me.  It was also a technically challenging shoot for me and my team to produce because we were only permitted to shoot at night and there is very limited cabin space inside a private jet.  Therefore, we had to light the interior of the aircraft using only artificial light originating from outside the airplane.

Working with the hangar staff, we wrapped three 20' x 20' sheets of diffusion fabric around the entire body of the jet. Then, using three Broncolor Scoro 3200w power packs and six flash heads set up outside the windows along each side of the aircraft, we were able to fill the entire cabin with soft "daylight".  Finally, using only a single Nikon SB-800 speedlight set-up off-camera inside the plane's cabin, we were able to light our main subjects for the advertisement.

I had fun collaborating with a great team on this shoot. Maybe next time we shoot in a private jet we'll actually get to leave the ground.

Browse more of my advertising photography portfolio here.

Credits

Client: MasterCard Asia/Pacific

Agency: McCann Worldgroup Asia-Pacific

ECD: Todd Waldron

CD: Emma Savage

Art Buyer: Karen Leong

Account Service: Hedvig Lyche

Production: Ugly Duckling Projects

Executive Producer: Annette Fausboll

Producer: Maureen Audetto

Styling: Sheh Alkaddri

Hair & Make-up: Andrea Claire

Photographer's Assistants: Zam, Halid & Jun Yang

Digital Imaging: Dave Phung / Procolor

Instagram, the wildly popular mobile-only photo sharing social network, is my favourite app for sharing my iPhoneography.  And although I enjoy posting my images on Instagram for my friends and followers to see, I enjoy even more viewing the photography that other people around the world are making.  I find it incredibly inspirational to see the places people live, work and visit and how they interpret these spaces, moments in their days and the people they encounter along their way.

A few months ago I stumbled upon an Instagram user called @penguinstagram.  I was immediately taken with the imagery on the Penguinstagram feed, but what really caught my attention was how the photographs were coupled with extended captions -- in fact, passages from books -- helping the viewer actually visualize the literature.

Upon closer review, it became clear that Penguinstagram's photographs were actually crowdsourced from the Instagram community, with the work of many different photographers exhibited on the feed, coupled with relevant excerpts from books written by Penguin Books' authors.

Created for Penguin Books India by Ranadip De, Edwin Tam and Suhaimi Saadan from digital agency Futurist in Singapore, Penguinstagram is actually a clever, interactive marketing campaign.

According to Ranadip, the creative challenge facing their client is that the printed word now competes against a vast digital landscape including videos, blogs, tweets, and other online news.  Futurist's creative brief, therefore, was to devise a campaign that would help Penguin Books India stay relevant to a digitally savvy audience with short attention spans.

Futurist's consumer insights where that "humans are social animals -- or rather they’re social media obsessed animals -- who love consuming bite-sized web content on the go. And people visualise what they read."

Thus, Penguinstagram was born as a ‘stealth’ social media campaign that meets these challenges and "celebrates the beauty and power of the written word, and the pictures they conjure up in our imagination."

Uniquely, Instagram users can not only comment and 'Like' Penguinstagram's photos, but they can also collaborate on the project.  In fact, Ranadip recently contacted me and asked if I would be interested in contributing some of my iPhoneography to the Penguinstagram feed.  In the spirit of collaboration and community, I agreed.

Alongside around a dozen other talented Instagram users, a handful of my photographs have appeared on the

Penguinstagram feed so far.  It's been exciting for me to see my work paired alongside literary passages, often casting a different light on my imagery and giving new meaning to my photographs than perhaps I intended when I originally made them.

I love the digital world we live in.  Our ability to connect and share (photography, literature) with like-minded individuals, whether around the world or in our own backyards, is a wonder of our modern time.  It is incredibly exciting that I can find creative partnerships anywhere. What's more exciting is sometimes they even find me.

Browse my Instagram feed @scottawoodward or see more of my iPhoneography on Flickr.

Many years ago -- while casting for a Reader's Digest Magazine cover I was shooting -- I met Canadian model, Lisa Crosswhite.  We chatted as I flipped through her portfolio, and I quickly realized that Lisa was an extremely talented and creative young woman with an entrepreneurial spirit.  Although we didn't work together on that specific shoot, we did stay in touch.

Since then Lisa (the model) has starred in many of my images.  From advertisements for GlaxoSmithKline and Meritus Hotels & Resorts, to editorial work for Condé Nast Traveller, to personal creative projects such as "Orphan", I have photographed Lisa numerous times over the years, and we have become close friends as a result.

But when Lisa (the entrepreneur) recently launched Gnossem -- a Singapore-based online fashion retailer -- and asked me to shoot the brand's launch campaign, I was excited for the opportunity for our friendship to grow into a creative partnership.

Lisa wanted the imagery for her inaugural Gnossem campaign to convey a strong sense female empowerment, yet maintain soft, romantic undertones.  Together we chose to shoot the photographic collection at Ku De Ta restaurant and lounge.  Perched atop Marina Bay Sands, teetering 56

stories in the sky, Ku De Ta offers one of Singapore's most spectacular vistas, providing us with a backdrop Lisa felt would "enhance the feeling of celebration and ownership of one’s being."

Featuring fashion artisanship from a handful of independent designers from across Asia-Pacific, including Pepsi Herrera (Philippines), Trioon (Singapore), and Fang Fong Projects (Hong Kong), it was a fantastic day of aesthetic collaboration with Lisa and another fellow Canadian, hair and make-up stylist Andrea Claire.

Watch a Gnossem-produced behind-the-scenes video here and browse more of my advertising photography portfolio here.

It is always exciting when a client comes directly to me with a creative concept for a shoot.  In this case it was Megan Williamson, owner of Bistecca Tuscan Steakhouse in Singapore, who approached me with a unique idea for a fashion-inspired photographic series she wanted me to create.

As a broad concept, Megan wanted me to integrate wild European animals and beautiful, fashionable women into each of five photographs to be used as advertisements to promote Bistecca and as art to hang on the walls of her restaurant.

Admittedly, it was a rather uncommon brief, but I was attracted to the challenge of creating and capturing these fantastical scenes.  Megan was very flexible about which animals I could use, and she gave me the creative licence to conceptualize and art direct the five images myself. Megan's only stipulation was that each photograph needed to be set and created inside the restaurant itself.

My producers, Annette Fausboll and Maureen Audetto of Ugly Duckling Projects, brought together a team of Singapore's most creative and experienced fashion, hair and make-up stylists, and we all met late last year to conceptualize the shoot and brainstorm creative ideas.

The five executions we agreed to shoot were: "Mouflon", a woman going head-to-head into battle with an angry ram; "Pheasant", a localized interpretation of "American Gothic", the famous painting by Grant Wood; "Cows", an homage to the iconic Richard Avedon photograph, "Dovima with the Elephants", substituting giant 7-foot Chianina cows; "Boar", a wry take on a wealthy woman walking her toy poodle on a leash; and "Deer", inspired by the 19th century John Collier "Lady Godiva" painting.

Of course, once we determined and agreed on our concepts, the next puzzle that needed to be solved was how we would bring these animals -- some giant, others ferocious -- to life inside Bistecca.  It was crucial to me that every wild animal look completely lifelike.  I therefore quickly determined that compositing existing stock photographs of these animals into the scenes would not yield the faithful outcome I was seeking.  Additionally, bringing the animals to Bistecca and shooting giant Tuscan bulls or a raging wild boar inside the restaurant was clearly going to be impossible.

I reached out to Procolor, Singapore's preeminent digital imaging studio, to help me tackle the challenge.  We agreed collectively that the best course of action was to shoot the models alone and then, in post-production, photo-

realistically illustrate these animals and composite them into the frames.

Annette, Maureen and I then began searching for a concept artist who could could manage a job of this complexity.  We settled on Calvin Chua, a young graduate of Nanyang Technological University, who joined the team and worked alongside me on the shoot to layout each scene with enough consideration for the life-sized animals he would illustrate and Procolor would composite into the frame.

It took more than six long weeks of illustration and digital post-production, but this past Monday we finally completed the job.  It was the most challenging creative assignment I have ever undertaken; hundreds of hours of blood, sweat and (quite literally) tears were shed by the illustrator, digital imaging team and my entire production staff -- a true labour of love, resulting in finished artwork of which we are all very proud.

Explore "Orphan", another fantasy-styled collaborative fashion series I recently completed here.  And see more of my fashion and portrait photography on my website.

Credits

Client: Bistecca Tuscan Steakhouse

Production: Ugly Duckling Projects

Styling: Furqan Saini

Hair & Make-up: Andrea Claire

Hair & Make-up Assistant: Mag Yang

Photographer's Assistants: Zam, Simin & Jun Yang

Models: Nataliya Zapolina & Fabiana Cassol / Phantom

Illustration: Calvin Chua & Dave Phung / Procolor

Digital Imaging: Dave Phung / Procolor

In September and November of last year, Mike Rogers, Meghan Shea and I spent nearly two weeks at Sala Bai Hotel & Restaurant School in Siem Reap creating documentary photography and film about the positive work the organization is doing for Cambodia's disadvantaged youth.

As outlined in one of my previous posts, for nearly ten years now Sala Bai has been offering tuition-free hospitality training to 100 impoverished young people annually.  Sala Bai's mission is to provide their students with the capabilities and experience necessary -- in one of four disciplines: restaurant service, cooking, front office and housekeeping -- to secure gainful employment in one of Siem Reap's numerous luxury hotels, guesthouses or restaurants.  These skills, and the resulting economic independence, not only improves the students' quality of life, but those of their families as well.

Like many NGO's, Sala Bai relies heavily on the generosity and support of private donations and corporate benefactors to fund it's operating expenses and help meet it's financial obligations.  In the spirit of this, the Southeast Asian edition of Travel + Leisure magazine has donated six full-page advertisements to Sala Bai over the course of 2012. The first advertisement -- featuring a portrait I made of Sala Bai student Srey Mao -- appears in the January 2012 issue of Travel+Leisure.  The ad reads as follows:

Village to Vocation.

A Victory Against Human Trafficking.

Meet Srey Mao from Kra Yatbong.  Her family lives on less that $25 per month.  In July, she will graduate earning more than three times that amount.

A good reason  to smile.

In 9 years, the non-profit Sala Bai Hotel & Restaurant School in Siem Reap, Cambodia has graduated 803 young men and women from our yearlong vocational training program.  Without fail, each has been employed within three months of graduation.  To learn more about how you can help, please email us at info@salabai.com or visit us at www.salabai.com or www.facebook.com/SalaBaiSchool.

If you would like to make a donation to Sala Bai, please click here.

One of my proudest professional achievements is the partnership I have been fortunate enough to cultivate with Nikon Singapore over the past seven years.

In 2004, I made the leap from film to digital photography when I purchased a Nikon D70, my first-ever DSLR camera. Around this time, I met with a marketing executive from Nikon Singapore and learned about Focus magazine, a publication produced by Nikon for owners of their photographic equipment.  Shortly thereafter, I was profiled -- along with a selection of my photography -- in an issue of Focus; this marked the beginning of my relationship with Nikon.

Since then, my photography business has grown significantly, due in large part to Nikon Singapore's ongoing support.  A few years ago, Nikon Asia-Pacific honoured me as “One of Asia’s Finest Photographers” and, shortly thereafter, Nikon Singapore named me -- along with five other Singapore-based photographers: Stefen Chow, C.S. Ling, Alex Soh, Alan Lim and Imrah Ahmad -- as a Nikon Professional Photographer and ambassador for the Nikon brand in Singapore.

Nikon provides me with both photographic equipment and technical support; they have sponsored many of my photography exhibitions and a documentary

film I collaborated on with my friend and creative partner, Mike Rogers.  In return, it is my pleasure to support Nikon whenever possible.  I have spoken at seminars and workshops on behalf of the brand, provided photographs for Nikon camera advertisements and appeared as a guest judge on the past two seasons of the Nikon-sponsored reality television series, The Big Shot.

Our latest collaboration is a wall mural that appears in the lobby of the Nikon office in Singapore.  Featuring a single photograph from each of the Nikon Professional Photographers, the mural showcases both the talent and the breadth of the ambassadors' photographic styles. I am proud that my image, "Closing Time" -- which I made in Dili, Timor-Leste last year -- shares space on the wall of the Nikon office in Singapore.

In May, I was commissioned by J. Walter Thompson (JWT) advertising agency to photograph a series of print ads for their client, the Economic Development Board (EDB) of Singapore.

The EDB is the Singapore governmental agency tasked with planning and executing "economic strategies that enhance Singapore's position as a global hub for business, investment and talent".

The ads I was hired to shoot are part of the EDB's ongoing Future Ready marketing campaign, which is aimed at promoting the city-state, both regionally and internationally, in an effort to attract talent, investors and businesses here to Singapore.

In this specific case, the advertisements I photographed are part of a targeted campaign aimed at German executives through business-to-business (B2B) print media in Germany.  The work was a creative collaboration between the JWT Singapore and JWT Hamburg offices.  It involved me photographing three prominent German CEOs who have relocated themselves and their families to Singapore to lead the Asia-Pacific offices of their respective German organizations.

The goal of the campaign is to show that "nothing much has changed" for the CEOs since moving from Germany to Singapore.

Marc Lohoff of Conergy still has his business lunches, only here they are slightly more colourful; Dr. Jens Hardenacke of DMG still enjoys sailing his yacht, only here he can do it throughout the year; and Dr. Markus Waechter of TUM can still enjoy nature, only here it's located just minutes from the city centre.

Additionally, director Tai Heng of Moviola also created a series of online videos of Mr. Lohoff, Dr. Hardenacke and Dr. Waechter as part of this same EDB advertising campaign.  Although I did not collaborate with Tai Heng on these shorts, they were filmed in the same locations and at the same time as my still photography.  They are well produced and showcase JWT's EDB communications campaign in its entirety.

See more of my advertising photography portfolio here.

Many years ago, when I first began taking photographs professionally, I shot a lot of family portraiture.  My style was to make candid, natural photography that showed the real-life relationships between mothers and fathers and their children.  I sought spontaneity and honesty in my imagery, never having the subjects look at my lens, but instead encouraging the family to simply be together while I documented their interactions.

It was a great little business for me, providing me with a steady revenue stream, a chance to meet loads of new people and a fantastic opportunity to practice my photography skills and experiment with different techniques on real, live (paying) subjects.  But most importantly, shooting this type of imagery helped me develop a personal style for photographing people, as well as a large portfolio of family photos.

This style and portfolio has served me well over the years, and has been instrumental in my being awarded a number of family- and baby-centric advertising jobs around Asia. From Johnson & Johnson to Unilever to my most recent work for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) here, I am grateful for all those early mornings I spent photographing families in the backyards, playgrounds and parks of Singapore.

For this GSK campaign, I worked together with the TBWA/Tequila advertising agency in Singapore to produce 40 photographs that, rather simply, illustrated "Love".  I sought to capture the intimate times shared between mother and child, trying to make photographs that were honest and inquisitive.

And even though I had to shoot this campaign in a studio using only artificial light -- and I collaborated with hair and make-up stylists, wardrobe stylists, art directors, account service personnel and clients -- I still approached the two day session in much the same manner as I would have if it were just me and the family alone: I tried to stay out of their way and be observational, letting the magical moments between mother and child unfold naturally.

These are a handful of the GSK advertisements that were recently released in markets across North and Southeast Asia.

See more of my advertising photography portfolio here.

As anyone who's shot with me already knows, Lightroom is easily the most important piece of software in my digital photography workflow.

So, as I have written before, it was a great privilege when last year I was approached by Adobe, the makers of Lightroom, with opportunities for creative partnership and collaboration.

It started with an interest from Adobe in licencing the rights to use a selection of my photography on their Photoshop.com website, and it then progressed into working with Adobe's digital marketing agency, to be profiled in the "Spotlight" section of Photoshop.com.

I am extremely proud of my association with Adobe, which is why I am so pleased to share "Believe". Alongside talented and accomplished photographers Kelly Castro and Emily Ibarra (both of whom have also been profiled on Photoshop.com here and here respectively), "Believe" is an electronic direct marketing initiative by Adobe to promote Lightroom 3 and demonstrate how photographers like Kelly, Emily and I use it in professional photography environments.

Download Lightroom presets: "1970's Nostalgia" by me; "Polar Cream" by Kelly; and "Contrast & Vignette" by Emily.

In June of last year, I shot an advertising campaign in Shanghai for Bonsey Design Partnership and their client Karma Life Yoga.

The campaign's launch advertisements were introduced last September as part of the yoga education and fitness centre's sixth anniversary.  Since then, Karma Life Yoga has rolled out more visuals, two of which are shown here.

The idea for the campaign was "Your sanctuary in the heart of frenetic Shanghai", while the visual execution of the concept was inspired by the "Wonderland" mixed media series that I produced in 2009 in collaboration with young Singaporean visual artist, Allison Low.

All the yoga models were Karma Life Yoga instructors, which I photographed in a studio over one day.

I then made the outdoor street images over two more days at a variety of iconic locations around Shanghai.

Karma Life's talented in-house designer and art director, Trasson Doon, then brought the two collections of photographs together into the campaign you see here.

See more of my advertising photography portfolio here.

Toward the end of last year, I photographed nearly a dozen portraits for Meritus Hotels & Resorts, a hotel chain with six properties spread across Singapore, Malaysia and China.

The portraits, shot in my studio, were of the Meritus Ambassadors wearing their iconic red cheongsams.  The photography brief was to capture "Asian grace, warmth and hospitality" for a series of advertising initiatives by Meritus in the year ahead.

The first of these initiatives rolled-out a couple of weeks ago with the printing and distribution of the Meritus Hotels & Resorts 2011 calendar.  My copy of the calendar arrived this week; here are a few of it's pages.

See more of my advertising photography portfolio here.

Happy New Year from Adobe and me.

Here's to a happy, healthy and photo-filled 2011, indeed.

Via Photoshop.com.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I have been partnering with Adobe in the U.S. over the past couple of months. They were initially interested in licencing some of my photographs for use on their Photoshop.com website, which I was more than happy to agree to.

Then, while we were finalizing the details and licencing agreements, I had an opportunity to speak a few times with an employee in Adobe's Digital Imaging group.  One day we talked at length about Adobe's suite of imaging software and how, specifically, Lightroom is such an integral part of my digital workflow.

A short time later, Adobe asked if I'd be interested in being a profiled photographer on the "Spotlight" section of Photoshop.com.  I had a few telephone calls with Adobe's PR agency in San Francisco so they could learn more about me and my business, the type of photography I make, and how I integrate Lightroom into both my editorial and commercial photography workflow.  The agency then drafted a profile and I prepared a small portfolio of work to be uploaded online.

The result is the "Choosing a New Adventure" spotlight that went live on Photoshop.com this morning. I am extremely proud of this association with Adobe, and look forward to sharing more of my work as it appears on Photoshop.com in the future.