Outside The Frame | Episode 1: Pacific Aria Cruise Ship Photography for P&O Cruises
Step aboard the Pacific Aria as we take you behind the scenes of a high-end commercial photography project for P&O Cruises.
A Day of Cruise Ship Photography
Capturing the details of a luxury cruise ship’s brand-new fit-out comes with its own unique set of challenges—tight deadlines, shifting light conditions, and the sheer scale of a floating venue.
In this episode, Matt Reed and Henry Whitehead focus on crafting imagery that showcases the Pacific Aria’s refreshed interiors and expansive decks. With no people in the shots, the challenge was to highlight the ship’s elegance, design, and atmosphere through carefully composed frames. From architectural details to sweeping wide shots, every image needed to convey a sense of space, style, and sophistication.
With just one day while the ship was docked in Brisbane, our team worked quickly to capture a comprehensive new library of images. Navigating the fast-paced environment of a working cruise liner, we adapted to shifting conditions while ensuring precision and creative vision. This is commercial photography at its most technical—where every frame must tell a story of place, design, and experience.
Production Team
Director // Matt Reed
Producer // Shelley Leary
Camera // Henry Whitehead
Sound // Matt Reed
Editor, Colourist // Henry Whitehead
Location // Brisbane, Australia
Order of Appearance // Matt Reed, Henry Whitehead.
With special thanks to P&O Cruises.
First published 15 Feb 2016 on YouTube @photographyproject
Video Transcript
Matt Reed: G’day, it’s Matt here, here with Henry, behind the camera. And never a dull day in commercial photography. We’re off to Brisbane on the East Coast of Australia to photograph a cruise ship for P&O. The ship’s had a brand new fit out, so it’s going to look amazing inside. Now, like a lot of our shoots, the challenge will be, this ship’s docked for like six hours. Passengers are fully disembarking, new passengers boarding and it’s really a case of do it once, do it right and we’re up for it. We’re ready.
[upbeat music]
The ship has just been fit out. It’s brand new and it looks amazing.
[upbeat music]
Time to shoot the pool deck, which is actually challenging. It’s bright and glary and, obviously, we don’t want any nastiness in the background.
So, we’re scouting the main pool deck for interesting shots. And as usual with any photo, it’s just trying to, I guess, distil the vibe of the setting, keep out any distractions, and ultimately come up with the strongest marketing image.
[upbeat music]
So, that’s a wrap, done. Photography finished, the shoot was awesome actually. It was so nice to explore the ship and see all the different spaces. That’s really quite incredible. And in terms of photography, we succeeded. We got nice shots throughout the ship. The photography side of things finished. It’s now off to the editing to do the final polishing and get these images on their way.
[upbeat music]
