This was such a fun shoot for Queensland Rugby League’s 2015 State of Origin poster.

The concept was ‘born and bred in Queensland’ and included players from across the state—hailing from the dusty outback to the East Coast. The brief was to visually portray the team as strong, proud and maroon, so we had a pre shoot day to see how that could look.

It’s always an amazing experience when I get to work with my colleague Mark Duffus, I don’t know anyone who is more passionate about exploring potential concepts. That’s where the fun began.

The pre shoot day involved lining the studio with a LOT of plastic (looking not dissimilar to Dexter’s play area), then exploding coloured powders using a variety of different delivery systems at our volunteer crash-test dummy Craig.  He suffered multiple blows in the colours of Queensland dirt through to Maroon, all with a grin.

We tried many different options to fit the concept and refined the technique—as on shoot day, the time we have with the players is very short.

The downside is always the cleanup. Absolutely everything in the studio was covered in outback coloured dust, even the ceiling.  It took longer to wipe down every piece of gear,  vacuum,  mop and repaint, than it did to shoot the test shots. I think it took me a full day of blowing my nose, to clear the powder out of my system.

This was our draft poster concept.

Doesn’t it make you proud to be a Queenslander!