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Redwood London, the agency that produces Mazda’s Zoom-Zoom Magazine, approached photographer Mark Skovorodko last summer about shooting an editorial project featuring Mazda’s CX-3 GT model. Senior Designer Laura O’Brien felt Mark would be the perfect fit for this project because his automotive photography seamlessly blends outdoor lifestyle and adventure photography; or as we would call it at Wonderful Machine — brand narrative.
The team wanted to engage their Canadian audience by taking them on a visual road trip traversing Canada’s famous Icefield Parkway. The plan was to photographically capture beautiful stretches of road, pristine glacial lakes, and the rugged Canadian Rockies with and without the CX-3 GT in the frame. For this three day shoot, they focused on the section of the parkway that lies between Banff and Jasper National Parks, a mecca for outdoor enthusiasts.
Pre-production mainly consisted of crafting a list of photographic points of interest and a general itinerary based on those destinations. Google Earth, Street View, Image Search, and Instagram all helped Mark to narrow down the locations while also determining what time of day would give him the best available light. From there, Mark was able to optimize his itinerary to cover those places in the most efficient manner possible, while still leaving room for creativity to arise.
With our shot list locations all in place, we still aimed to maintain a healthy degree of spontaneity for the shoot and pull away from our itinerary a number of times when a good opportunity presented itself.
Since breathtaking vistas in Banff and Jasper are ubiquitous, Mark found the most challenging aspect of this project was balancing his time between each location while making sure to capture only the most picturesque sights. He often found himself having to make the difficult decision to forgo a location because of the limited timeframe. Mark could have easily shot for another two weeks and still have had plenty of gorgeous scenery available.
While it was impossible to see everything, Mark’s plan had additional time built in so he could take advantage of any unexpected opportunities that happened to arise. This plan paid off as he found another perfect backdrop on the afternoon of his second shoot day.
…I had planned for us to shoot at Pyramid Lake in Jasper National Park. On our drive up, right before reaching the lake, we passed through a forest of aspens that had already turned yellow but hadn’t completely shed their leaves yet. It was a perfect backdrop with a beautiful road in the foreground, and the best afternoon backlight I could ask for…
Mazda Canada and various levels of management at Redwood London have given Mark extremely positive feedback regarding his photographs. With the project completed and published, Mark is looking forward to future opportunities with Redwood London.
See more of Mark at markskovorodko.com.