Upon seeing this shoot by our stockist Neon Collective we were ready to pack our bags for New Zealand! So we chatted with the team to hear all about their shoot ~ and crafting a little travel guide for you to have your very own Spell adventure.
Follow Neon Collective’s journey through New Zealand…
From Neon Collective ~ we flew from Tauranga – Auckland, Auckland – Queenstown and then drove from Queenstown to Wanaka where we decided to base ourselves for the shoot.
Stay ~ We stayed at a lake front Airbnb at Wanaka ~ with insane views, is was a really nice place to stay. It would be amazing in the middle of winter and is only minutes walk from town.We would highly recommend and the host was really lovely.
Eat ~ Well first night was Thai takeaway and a lot of wine haha. Second night we dined at the Federal Diner which was delicious and would highly recommended. Third night we ate from a Mexican food caravan – they have a place in the back streets where a few food caravans park up, it’s a really cool little vibe and we sat there and talked how we felt Wanaka has a very ‘Byron vibe’ to it!
To begin the shoot we left Wanaka around 7am so we could make it to the Clay Cliffs just on sunrise. After arriving at the cliffs we trekked up from the carpark with about 20 kg of shooting stock and props – good pre morning work out! This place was magic, and the scenery we were surrounded with was unreal. We have the perfect morning weather wise and couldn’t of been happier.
We then drove to Twizel (there was a lot of driving on this shoot). The South Island is very vast but the scenery made the drive worth it. After a quick brunch in Twizel, we continued on to our journey. Next stop Lake Pukaki. The best we can use to describe the scenery on this day was heavenly. The light was defused into the distance and the clouds melting into the mountain tops and then that mind blowing aqua pale water – the shots we got here were some of our fave of the whole shoot and from all our shoots to date. It was a dream!
Our next stop was Mount Cook with a few stops along the way – that insane grassy field in front of the mountains was very much a sound of music moment. It looked cold but was warm and we all actually got sunburnt here haha! Then we headed to the infamous Mount Cook, the amount of tourists here was incredible and its obvious Mount Cook has become very much ‘Insta famous’. The track we wanted to walk was unfortunately closed but we still managed to get some epic frames here in front on the mountain.
Our final pics we shoot roadside and middle of the road. On shoots you always seem to get your very best frames at the end of the day. I’ve never sure why but this was the case. Bridie in the middle of the road in the waterfall taupe robe walking towards Mt Cook was the shot that nailed it for me! It’s such a satisfying and buzz to walk away from a shoot knowing everything came together as you had all imagined or better!
A massive thanks to Bri she was the master minder / location planner behind this shoot, having been to the South herself before made it so helpful and she researched all the locations we shot at. We couldn’t of pulled it off without her knowledge. And a huge thanks to our little but mighty team, this was a mammoth effort but it totally paid off.
Photography Brijana Cato
Muse Bridie Holiday
For Neon Collective