New Zealand! Day 1 - 3 Aug

3pm – Booker calls, asks me to come by the agency to pickup my e-ticket for my flight to NZ which is leaving ‘tomorrow morning’. Convo goes something like this:

 Hope: Ok, just so I know, what time does my flight leave?

Boooker: mmm I’ll just look. (ruffles through papers) ………. Oh……… Shit……… You leave tonight…… at 6.20pm… Oh and you might be going to the snow.?!

 The race begins!!

 She sends my ticket via email – I pack my bag in a flap.. What to bring? Maybe snow!? -Lots of warm stuff.

 My boyfriend and Mum were with me so they took me to the airport and after all the rush we find out that the flight is delayed. Time to slow down….

 

Wait, wait, wait, fly, then land in Christchurch at about 12.45 midnight. I found Jarred my colleague for the next few days and we caught a cab to the address we were given. It was like some magical mystery – all we knew was that address, that we left next Saturday, maybe snow and that the client was Japanese. We didn’t even know when they were coming to get us!

Day 2 - 4 Aug

After waiting around a while our friendly Japanese client from ‘Glitter Magazine’ turned up. We jumped in the van/bus and they said ok, today we have a ‘Day Off’ – Jarred and I were not complaining. But then it got better …‘today we have a day off to go skiing’. !!!!! So we drove about 2 hours away from Christchurch to Methven. Find our accomodatoin and then headed up to the local Mt Hutt. As we got closer the horizen was simply mountain after mountain topped with perfect white snow. Beautiful.

Chains on

Maybe it was a little windy...

At the summit much to my sadness and tantrum throwing we found out that the lifts were shut. It was far too windy… I was like a small child. So excited – the let down was too much!

Arvo I chilled out while the client went and looked for shooting locations. Then we fit out ski gear and went to have a lovely dinner. 

Day 3 - 5 Aug

First day of shooting. Make-up and hair 6.30, up the mountain in curlers and full face of makeup including fake eye-lashes – strange looks all round. We sat down and got our selves a little corner of the room and we did a little more hair and make-up. This made me more comfortable because it looked like I had a reason to be so extravagantly made up!

We found out later that the jacket that Jarred is wearing in this picture was a female jacket...

 Eventually the sun came out and it was time to start shooting. Mucho excited to get my skis on as it had been a few years! All felt a little strange but, just like that old ‘riding a bike’ saying it all came back quickly. Jumped off the chair lift mid-way and went down the slope a little (SO FUN!) and stopped. Right. Skis off, camera out, final touch ups stand, wait for GUST of freezing wind and SHOOT!!! We punched them out, waiting for a burst of wind each time (also trying to look ‘sexy’). Got it, great. Back on the skis dooowwwwnnnn the slope. Sweeeeeet.

First picture

Everyone having fun while I sit inside and get my hair done. In the foreground you can also see some disabled athletes, amazing to watch them zip down the hill.

Shot two. This time Jarred was included he was going to be my fake boyfriend for the week, but I think we look more like brother and sister! The very cool editor of Glitter Kazumi told Jarred he was part of the landscape! Haha. We got out and then found out they had stopped the lift for a while because the winds were above 50km/hr…. No time to wait, so we started climbing up the mountain! This was hilarious. The hair stylist Jun offered to take my skis, I declined but then he grabbed them off me – he regret this later. We probably hiked up about 100m, we were all breathing out of our jacksies and the Japanese crew were crawling up on all fours by the time we stopped!! We did a couple of shots here and then changed outfits up there, the rest of the Mt. Hutt population were watching from below! Bemused I’m sure. 

Hilarious- Jared mooning Mt Hutt. Japanese client chanting 'sexy santa, sexy santa'

The rest of the day was shot after shot, some more chilly then others, including one skirt that was definitely more appropriate for a Japanese girl, it juuustttt covered my butt! They didn’t want me to wear any stockings so I was standing there on the edge of a cliff with mountains behind me, bare legged in the 0degrees with wind blowing!

 

Here I had only these sandals on, toes touched the snow...

That night we finished around 6pm and drove 35km to the next town to find a Thai resturant. Yum.

Day 4 - 6 August

5.30am start. Face- done, hair - done, back up the mountain. Found our possie in the ski lodge again and got ready for some beauty shots (tight head and shoulders focusing on makeup).

What time do you need to get up to have hair and makeup complete before the sun rises?

Note: Naked arm.

 This meant extravagant hair and make-up which was kind of better because as I walked around and people stared I think (I hope) their thoughts were more like ‘Oh she must be doing a shoot’ instead of the day before when I think their thoughts were ‘why does she have THAT much make up on and her hair done like that for the snow?’. The weather was perrrfect, sun out about 3degress not too much wind. So we took the big lift that wasn’t open the day before allll the way to the top. Stunning up there. Behind our Mt Hutt were hundreds of other mountains topped with snow which we had no idea about! So there was out backdrop.. We went right to the highest point, took off my wwaaaaarrrmmmm jacket and started shooting in a singlet top and fur shawl thing. Finished that and went down. From top to bottom I’d say the run was about 10minutes at a casual pace, perfect!

Next we changed makeup and hair. THIS was funny. Blue eye shadow everywhere, BIG 70’s hair. We thought to save time I’d wear the top for the beauty shot and then a different ski suit over the top so we could shoot both. This was no ordinary ski suit. Very special indeed. BRIGHT pink. With golden pointed buttons – So if you can try to imagine this whole combo, plus sunglasses – ttheenn try to imagine the looks I was getting. Priceless. People really thought I was some freakin psychotic high maintanence maniac. All I needed was a little poodle to ski down the slopes with. 

Once we got to the top I wasn’t laughing any more. The first beauty shot was down in my little singlet in a really windy part. Everyone was helping so much, hugging me every second they could! Jun even let me put my FREEZING hands on his belly! So funny. But then it got worse. Kazumi sprung a change of clothes on me. (they were doing several stories at once, one for ski wear, one for autumn wear, one for underwear). She got me to put on a thin little cotton dress… I believed that I could do it… But then she pulled out little high heals and the thought of taking off my pants and warm socks and ski boots must of shown on my face because she yelled out to the photographer in japanese and turned back to me and said that we could just crop it at my knees and I could pull my pants down to my ankles!! So there I was at the top of mt Hutt. With my pants at my ankles in a thin cotton dress with only undies underneath! Here is where my body wasn’t happy with me. I turned from my mostly happy enough self to a bit of a diva. We finished shooting and shooting and I was so bitterly cold. The coldest I’ve ever been. My hands were passed numb they started a strange ache I’ve never felt… We then had to of course shoot the pink ski suit. I did that, definitely not smiling. As soon as they said DONE. I left everyone behind, ran down to my skis and bolted down the hill. This time it took me about 5 minutes.

Me to the right in pink suit!I was little miss grumpy face after this. That was it for the mountain, next we were moving to a new location to shoot underwear. I had this in mind all day and didn’t want to eat heaps, as to not feel like a fattie while shooting (I know it sounds lame but you probably havn’t been shot in your undies), but then that all went out the window when they put food in front of me! I still couldn’t feel my feet and hands and I hadn’t smiled for about an hour – but as we drove down the hill and I ate the wedges, a burger and some sushi I felt lots better!!!

Next we got to a little home that they had asked to shoot at and shot underwear/sleepwear all afternoon. This wasn’t that exciting, just the usual. BUT they did have a super cool brown Burmese cat which made me happy. Her name was Marlo. I think it was the long lost sister of my brother's brown Burmese, his name is Milo! Cute!

Marlo!

New Zealand! Day 5 Aug 7

5am start – it got better every morning… My skin was quite tired by now, so my lovely makeup artist gave me a face massage, I wanted to stay there all day. While Jarred got a nice sleep in till about 9am we went halfway up the mountain and shot the sun rising behind me. Amazingly beautiful, but cold and too early. Then down again to do two more looks on a road with the mountains behind. 

Today's make-up.

9am hit, we picked Jarred up and went to another location the crew had found. The Methven B&B. Here we were to finish off what we started yesterday. More strange combinations of underwear and knit stuff. 

A bit of a Blurry shot at the B&B
Six shots later and then FINALLY Jarred had to do some work. Kazumi had sketched some little relationship scenarios she wanted us to act out. You know the ones in magazines that lead into ‘relationship problem’ stories? Them! I always wondered who shot them and when… Now it was me! Although slightly awkward it was quite fun. If there’s ever a time to act a fool I think Jarred and I are supreme candidates. So there we were, him hating me/me hating him, me loving him/him hating me, me slapping him, me not being interested and then pretending to be interested etc. Everyone had a good laugh!

Some of the couple shot outfits. Us being 'awkward'.

I liked this dress! It was by Moschino.

By the afternoon I was becoming quite hyperactive as the prospect of the end of day was getting closer and closer. We finished up in Methven and drove to Christchurch. On the way a herd of sheep ran into us! Quite amusing. 

The Japanese client wanted a picture of Jarred in front of the sign?! My hair looked funny so I wasn't allowed in!

We arrived in a sunny little town with beautifully kept streets and parks, quaint houses and greenery everywhere. I was completely impressed with Chirstchurch, proud to be half NZ (mums side!). Shoot blah shoot shoot blah blah… All I was worried about was finishing!!

 Finally we wrapped it up and then we drove to our home for the night at the Holiday Inn. We planned to meet back in an hour and go to dinner. We went to a great Korean restaurant – So fun! I hadn’t tried Korean before and I really liked it. I even had raw meat which was surprisingly nice.

Everyone in! L2R. Jun (Hair), Kazumi (editor), Moto (Photographer), Stylist, Coordinator, Yo (photo assistant), Jarred, Me, Kiri (Makeup)p.s. It was so hard to catch everyones Japanese names!! So some I never got a grasp of! Horrible I know...

Moto kept telling us this was very 'healthy' korean drink...

 Next we roamed around the town – A little festival was on with art instalments and an ice rink as well as some token Harry Christner singers that I joined for a dance! 

Around Christchurch - Cool little art installments everywhere.

Now I’m just on our flight back. 7am out – 4.30am wake up… But that wasn’t unusual.. I think I’ll be Jetlagged when I go back home from all the early starts! A 4.30am start in NZ is 2.30am in aus.

The end! 

Last few days mashed together!

28^th 29^th May 

Sorry for delay...

By now we felt we had seen all the main attractions that were completely nessesary so for today we thought we might just wonder and ponder and hope that we would find things we liked. We returned the bikes and also planned lunch with a friend of mine, Kate, who was in town. She told us to meet her and her friend around 2 so we pottered about our area then headed downtown to scout out where we were going to have lunch. There were quite a few beautiful home decorating/interior design shops in this area which was quite cool for us to look at as we are now trying to find our own taste in homey stuff. One shop in particular stood out. I don’t even think I know its name but the attention to detail and vast range of products were amazing. Mostly all of the pieces were independent designers and reworked vintage pieces. Very rare and interesting fabrics as well as inspiring ideas for window and shop displays. I took lots of pictures so have a look.

After we met up with Kate and her friend and had a lovely lunch. Sort of Middle eastern style. It was nice to hang out with other people, we had only been around our selves and strange American's all week! Kate gave us some local tips and told us about her model life in New York.

 

Think i got a little carried away with the chairs...

Downtown Broadway was our next destination. We wanted to have a look around at some of the clothes shops and I had one in mind that I thought Kaz might like. We got there and went straight into Topman and pretty much didn’t leave for about 2 hours! Kaz was in love. He walked around and around finding every single thing he liked. They had a great range of on trend guys clothes all in the same place, back home in Australia we’d have to shop around a fair bit to find such a range. Kaz tried on several shirts and blazers all different fabrics and colours and cuts. Everything looked great and there was so much he could have bought but in the end he cut it down to about 5 nice pieces. We then went upstairs to Topshop which is the original womens store which Topman is modelled off – I had a look around but the girls section wasn’t as exciting! 

After this we were feeling rather sleepy. We went back home around 6pm with the plan to catch up again with Kate and go out that night….. That didn’t happen! We konked out at about 8pm and slept till 6am the next morning.

Last day.

Waking up early has it’s benefits. We decided to make the most of our last day in New York, we were all ready and about to head out the door when I realised that I didn’t have my wallet in my bag. Kaz didn’t have it, it wasn’t in my suit case, no where in the room, nowhere to be seen at all… Uh-oh.. The next two hours were spent calling all the train stations and lost property's we could think of as well as the local police stations in 3 districts. No luck at all. I’m pretty sure that it had been knicked out of Kaz’s backpack when we were standing in peak hour on the train. They got pretty lucky, we had a bit of cash in there and all my cards for everything ASWELL as Kaz's.... After a small moment of crapping our pants we realised Kaz had left his credit card in the hotel room. It was only the day before when we needed to use a credit card for something that I rolled my eyes at him for not bringing his! Just as well he did leave it because we would have been in a right mess otherwise!

We didn’t want to let the thief dampen our spirits but it sort of did. We ended up getting out and walking around at about 11am, had a lazy long breakfast and then wondered down to the bottom edge of central park. We saw the school of Julliard and then walked allll the way up Amsterdam Ave because when we rode down the day before I thought it’d be nice to look in some of the shops.

They were quite beautiful. More interior stores, fashion shops and such. After a lot of bumbling around we had had enough and had to get back to get to the airport. We were advised to leave at 2pm to get on a 6.30 flight in case traffic was bad… I thought it was a bit unnecessary so we pushed it a little tighter and still ended up waiting at the airport for ages anyway.

Read it!

We were really sleepy by the time we finally got to San Francisco and were hoping to sleep the whole 16 hrs to Australia. We didn’t do too badly. But by the end we were happy to be off the plane and home!

Here it all ended. Such a special, busy, crazy, exciting week and 21^st birthday – And the best part, I got to share it all with the one I love!