This kind of thing never happens. We were shooting a story for Le Monde in Yellowstone national park when we saw this huge elk wondering through a burnt out forest. I moved closer thinking the elk would see me and run away but instead the elk stayed. Crouching down I waited with my Alpa…. the Elk walked straight towards camera until he was about three meters away. Even in July it was pretty cold up there at 8’000 ft, I could see the steam coming out of his mouth….and hope’d he wouldn’t charge.
There will be a small edition of prints available in various sizes.
November 29th, 2012 by
Nick Meek
Last August we shot the the largest ever print campaign in the history of DDB for the global launch of the 21st Century Beetle. The campaign took its inspiration from Julian Koenig’s iconic Think Small campaign of 1959 ( ranked as the best advertising campaign of the 20th century by Advertising Age ) Koenig used massive amounts of white empty space on his page and the folks at DDB UK wanted to echo the same sensibility for their new campaign… but with a more human touch. Jeremy Craigen and Grant Parker saw an image of mine (Chevelle ) where I bleached out the background whilst keeping my subject solid and up front. This served as a great foundation for the photographic style of the campaign.
In total we shot twenty one print executions in sunny Los Angeles.
Art Director, Grant Parker
Executive Creative Director , Jeremy Craigen
Production by Produceit
November 16th, 2012 by
Nick Meek
It’s so great to be chosen as ‘ad of the week’ by Lürzers ! I feel like this blog is all about the Beetle campaigns at the moment though.
Having just finished nine ads in China and another forty pictures in Los angeles including the launch campaign for the new cabriolet there are plenty more to come………
AD’s Grant Parker, David
Mackersey
ECD, Jeremy Craigen
Agency, Adam and Eve / DDB
November 12th, 2012 by
Nick Meek
Last week saw the awards party for the launch of the Creative Review Photography Annual 2012. We’re super happy to be selected in their advertising section !
This image was part of a massive 21 image campaign we shot to launch the new VW Beetle for DDB UK.
To get this unusual angle we employed the use of a remote control helicopter. Together, the pilot and I flew the machine into position high above our multi-storey car park in downtown L.A.
To make life interesting we only had 4 cars available to us so it was all hands on deck. We got the chopper in position, fired off a few frames….. then the crew ran into the cars and performed an incredibly swift and well rehearsed manoeuvre.
Being careful to keep the chopper in exactly the same position we then shot a few more frames…. it made for a very simple retouch.
I really want to work more with that toy !
Art Direction by Grant Parker
ECD Jeremy Craigen
Production by Produceit L.A
Retouching Steve Layer1retouching
October 31st, 2012 by
Nick Meek
We were in Switzerland shooting personal work a little while ago when Publicis Zurich called. Luckily I was able to pop straight round for a chat.
The resulting campaign turned into a great adventure around the Grisons area of Switzerland and ticked off something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while.
As a keen ski mountaineer I have a real love for the mountains so when we had a chance to be heli dropped on the summit of Piz Palu (4000m) I was super excited.
It snowed quite heavily the night before the shoot so it was impossible for anyone to climb the mountain the next day. This meant that for our shot we had the summit all to ourselves.
We jumped out of the chopper, roped up, crampons on, ice axe in hand and set out across the snowy ridge.
Art Director, Conny Jaeger
Creative Director, Roger Ruegger
Produced by KT Produktion
Retouching; Steve Rochford at Layer1retouching.com
October 30th, 2012 by
Nick Meek
Here are three of my favourite pictures from a brochure that I shot to accompany our launch campaign for the 21st Century Beetle. Art directed by Lisa Kirchner, Retouching Stephen at layer1retouching.com
October 23rd, 2012 by
Nick Meek
To coincide with the start of the Olympics in London AMV BBDO asked Nick to shoot this campaign for EDF, the company that is powering the games.
At the time of shooting the stadium wasn’t finished. Nick needed to shoot for super-sites that require massively high quality images. They created what they believe is the most detailed night time shot of the stadium ever captured. To do this the team hired a helicopter and recorded their co-ordinates exactly using gps. Nick then shot the stadium in daylight to capture every detail in super hi def using the new Phase one IQ180 and gyroscope to steady the camera. He then flew back to the exact co-ordinates and did the same shot at night time but using a faster more grainy capture. Nick fused the two images together to create the highest quality image of the stadium at night in existence. The finishing touches were created in CGI by the ever so talented folks at Solid London. Retouching Steve R @ www.layer1retouching.com
The campaign was art directed by Andy Booth and Jim Seath.
July 27th, 2012 by
Nick Meek
I’ve never been asked to collaborate with another artist before so when Liz Leavitt of LLreps called to ask if I would like to collaborate with Pomme Chan I was super excited. I’ve enjoyed Pomme’s work for a couple of years now and when the Beach Boys project came along it seamed like the perfect opportunity to do something magic.
June 7th, 2012 by
Nick Meek
I love shooting pharmaceutical campaigns. So often it’s impossible to show a product so the visual idea is even more important.
This campaign was for a drug to help protect adults and children from the flu virus.
I worked closely with the good fellows over at Solid who created the CGI, and I must say…. it was a good experience.
Art directed by Andy Barnard, Creative director Andrew Spurgeon
April 14th, 2012 by
Nick Meek
More great art direction from Nick Pringle and Steve Wakelam at BBD Sydney.
October 26th, 2011 by
Nick Meek
