OGO Headquarters, Rotorua New Zealand: It’s actually been almost two years since I flew out to New Zealand to photograph the OGO. At the time, it was a somewhat classified operation on my end and I needed wait a while before making the trip and photos public. I’ve been wanting to blog this photo shoot ever since and now that I’m all caught up on my photos for other clients I can!
Andrew Akers, the co-founder and inventor of OGO, called me up one day and told me he needed a library of photos for OGO promotions that would be in print, on the web and at trade fairs. I had just started up my photography business only three months earlier and here I was getting an offer to go do a commercial photo shoot in Rotorua New Zealand — of course I said yes! Now it’s not exactly like Andrew called me out of the blue, we share a mutual friend and he had followed much of my 365 Project back in 2009. Still, as someone who had just made the transition to professional photography I was blown away by his faith in my abilities.
In only a couple short weeks Andrew and I put together a plan. Two brand new shiny OGOs, an H2OGO and Fishpipe were ready and waiting for the shoot. Models would be arranged and the weather looked good. I had grandiose, and in retrospect very unrealistic, visions of creating the next Luerzer’s Archive feature with slick looking photos and witty copy that would go viral instantly. Andrew wanted mostly natural looking photos that would appeal to wide audience including children, adults, families and local residents. Given our time frame, budget, my burgeoning photography skills and the fact Andrew knows better than anybody what is needed to market the OGO it was good call.
I spent four of my six days in New Zealand photographing around OGO HQ. The task was no where near as easy as I had expected. As I mentioned before in my Top 20 Photos of 2012 post, “From a photographic point of view, OGO’s are essentially giant reflective spheres and reflective spheres are considered to be amongst the most challenging objects to light and photograph. It was my job to get clear images of people having heaps of fun inside these rolling, water filled, steamy, reflective capsules.” Of course, I had to go on all the rides so I could infuse the feeling into my photos 😉 It took a lot of work, but I feel we were able to put together a great library of images. I’m really happy to see many of them being used on OGO’s website. Below are some of my favorites.

























