Investec — Zebra

Client: Investec Bank plc  Agency: Gravity Global

One of the campaign's core images, shot at the animal's eye level.

I spent over a decade photographing zebras for Investec's "Out of the Ordinary" campaign, one of the most exciting and, at times, rather dangerous-to-achieve bodies of work in my career.

The original idea was the genius of Paul Anderson, now Executive Creative Director and joint founder of Gravity Global, and someone I've worked alongside for more than thirty years. The metaphor was simple and brilliant at once: a bank that saw things differently, told through an animal nobody else was using. It helped make Investec a genuine superbrand.

None of it was easy. A typical shoot meant three or four handlers around me while I frequently lay on the ground, at the animal's hoof level, working for the poses and angles the campaign needed. Most shots needed this angle to be looking up at the Zebra, and giving it due grace and aura. 

Zebras are not calm subjects. Their temperament shifts by the minute, the light shifts with it, and I was often working with flash to hold everything together as both changed at once. Every image in this campaign hides days of planning and preparation behind it. What looks calm and considered on the page was rarely calm to make.

We got there every time. The results ran on posters, in stations, on the sides of London taxis, and truly established this superbrand.

 The full campaign visual, as it ran in print.

The campaign at Waterloo station, London.