FOR ALL MAIN BLOGS READ BELOW, SEE ALL PHOTO ALBUMS RELATING TO BLOGS ON FACEBOOK PAGE & DAILY LIVING UPDATES ON TWITTER (SEE LINKS ON RIGHT). SAMANTHA KATE JOURDAN, STA TRAVEL EXPLORER.

todays forecast: too much radness.

This week a long awaited trip to the airport brought me to kate george and steve, running in open arms. I used to live with Kate at uni and have missed her and the girls daily since i arrived, but now i had a little bit of home with me for a whole week & couldnt have asked for a better christmas wish than this :)

The first day they arrived it was early monday morning & so when we got home, after i was given the amazing gifts of PG Tips and English Curlywurlys (my fav, and although sold in oz are crap compared to ours!) they crashed for a much needed but short nap careful not to mess up the jet-lag. If they thought they were going to sleep all day they had another thing coming...later that day i gave them the full-works guided tour around flinders/ fed square/ southbank/ MCG and City Centre! We spent the eve getting 'christmassy' watching Elf the movie and relaxing & reminiscing in the Spa.

The following day I was assisting a shoot for photographer Rob Earp and Stylist Amber Renae , a fashion editorial for X&Y Magazine shot in Glow Studio (http://www.xandymagazine.com.au). I was up at 5:5Oam and was a full on day, shooting models on harnesses suspended in the air, models submerged in watertanks and floating above wading pools. At one point i found myself upside down in the air testing out a harness and then later up a ladder pouring buckets of water over a model mid air...such a good shoot! Photographs looked amazing and cant wait to see the post-edited obscured twists & flips that are planned to be be applied to them. I could say alot more about this shoot but check out the photo's linked to my f.b page for a better understanding of its beauty! That sunny evening I took Kate & Steve and their two mates Rob & Laura to meet a group of my friends in a park opposite my house called Wattle Park for an ozzie barbecue. There was plenty of beer + feed, cooked curtsey of the free public BBQ facilities, and a great love for the carlton draft bottle-top fact game!

Wednesday I had work at Bettina all day, but I was actually happy to be inside an air conditioned studio as it was 42degrees out, ouch. However a perfect night for the Rooftop Cinema which I had booked for us. We ate firstly at The Lounge, Swanston Street, the food was oh so good and my 'David Attenborough' cocktail was equally scrumptious to match. The Cinema opposite is on top of the 6th floor of the Curtain House Building, 252, and is an open air rooftop lined with lazy colourful deckchairs, a big screen and a bar, what a combo....or as the sign states, and i quote, 'todays forecast: too much radness'. The film, Adventureland, unfortunately died on us half way through and we all had to abandon with refunds but i'll still be back! We finished the night with with drinks in the Carlton bar,this now becoming quite a regular tradition.

Thursday, (I have to break this blog into days as we've done TOO much) compared to the wicked 42'er the day before, rained all day long. I decided to take Kate to Chadstone Shopping Centre, the largest in Victoria or maybe the Southern Hemisphere, something ridiculous, it really is that big. Lucky for me its 15mins on the bus from mine so we enjoyed some retail therapy having I got the day off work. It was a successful shop, peaking at the moment we walked into Tiffany's, giggling at diamonds and the shop-attendant proclaiming 'shit' as he dropped something before cheekily reccomending that we heard nothing, okay? We rushed into the city later for Chinese and to meet friends for drinks at the Prince of Wales bar...quickly realising we were in part of a Gay Bar, but enjoyed the transvestite show anyhow. Before home we made a quick pit stop in Mink Vodka Bar for cocktails, i had the 'Amy Winehouse Experience', cleverly lined with Absinthe.

Fryday, hot again, giving us the perfect beach day & so we toddled off down to st Kilda to catch some rays. Before reaching sand and water i took the poms through Acland street, the main metropolitan beachy strip. south of the city grid, lined with surf shops, beautiful European-esk bakery's, bars, cafes and that ozzy holiday feel. Sunburnt a few hours later, we got a tram to the West Docklands for fish & chips in the setting sun and went to meet my boat as I had work that night on the waters.

The Saturday meant Kate and Steve's last day in Melbers, and so we got tickets for the SLAM day festival happening on st kilda beach as the sunshine kept on coming. It kicked off early arvo, got busy really quickly and soon enough we were raving and dancing amongst the crowds until the evening came and i had to run off to work on the boat again for my last christmas cruise. I got home late but Kate George waited up so we could have a final Spa and wind-down from a crazy but brilliant week in this unforgettable place that I feel lucky to call home.

so let me begin.

Late evening on Sunday the 2^nd august 09 I joined the queue outside STA travel, Southampton, in a bid to win one of the one hundred and fifty ‘£10 POM’ tickets being released across the UK. I queued up for four unexpectedly fabulous days and three strangely compelling & comical nights, and then on wednesday 5^th august, became the fourteenth of fifteen £10 POMS at our store!

Three weeks later on the morning of 24^th august 09, I was checked in, boarded, up in the air & sipping on baileys on my way to Melbourne, Australia. I was welcomed down under at the airport by my two mates met previously when travelling in Oz, Bubsy and Junior, and was home with a cuppa, watching Flight of the Conchords before you could say home sweeeeet home.

As I am a recent graduate in fashion photography (november 08) I decided to dedicate this time in Melbourne to working my way into the creative photographic industry. This will be the first time I have given all my time to my favoured subject and am ready to see how much I can work & learn in this fresh, vibrant & artsy city.

So let me begin… the first couple of weeks when I arrived, firstly involved buying warmer layers, it was bloody cold! After wrapping up a little more, I got set on emailing my CV and story to as many photographers/ magazines/ galleries/ art spaces & organisations as possible, this was a long process, and at times did fancy throwing the mac out of the window from being sick of the sight of its presence. Eventually though after persistence, I started to get responses back, and found everyone incredibly helpful, even if, they had no work opportunities available for me themselves. Their emails gave me a lot a lot of tips, info and links to others in the industry whom they thought might have something I could be interested in...this would lead me onto emailing others and then getting further connections through them and so on! I call this the ‘tripleN’ (network, network, network) stage of my journey. Also during this time I was getting to grips with living in a new place, getting lost on trams & discovering new areas, falling in love with the city CBD and its unique little alleys that lead to hidden delights amongst the metropolis grid, having dinners with friends from my earlier travels, walks along the beach in the sunshine and essentially trying to create a familiar living impression for this pommy the other side of the world.

putting words into action.

The first job that I did in Melbourne was with photographer Josh Robenstone. http://www.joshrobenstone.com. Josh is a Melbourne based freelance photographic artist, specialising in documentary and street photography in the city and across the world. I got excited by his website when I fell upon it during a daily photographic google search for Melbourne in the “tripleN’ period and emailed him straight away about work. He got back to me with an assisting job offer for the following week as soon as he was back from his travels in Europe. The first time I called him when he was back, was when he was at the famous MCG watching his much-loved team St Kilda win the match on the final whistle and was greeted by a huge cheer! I met him a day or two later at his studio on easey street, just off the stylish and quirky smith street to get briefed on the job. The studio was shared by the likes of graffiti artists, t-shirt printers, graphic artists and more photographers and the space was decorated in a cool collaboration of all these individual’s visual talents, and partly scattered by a litter of beer ring pulls from a recent big studio party. The job was for a large advertising agency, Clermenger, who wanted a small brochure/ booklet that showcased the brands that they manage to use in an ad-agency competition. Over the next week we photographed on location for brands such as Mercedes, M&M’s, Ski Yoghurt, Carlton Draft, Sorbent & Dulux. We worked on the shoot with the art director & others who were involved and had input into the images, it was great to see in a professional environment how everyone worked together and how much input the different roles played into the final shot. As assistant I was mainly on lighting control, but as everyone got more comfortable with eachother over the week, I started giving more personal opinion in regards to what was on screen and making small suggestions on how to change or improve the shot. one key lesson from this job was the need for coffee! Some days I was up at 5am to get on location and me and Josh were on coffee hunt from early hours or chilling in Chibi’s café (I cant remember exactly how this is spelt but it’s a sweet little coffee place just round the corner from the studio which I absolutely recommend. it also sells novel & unique little ornaments./ household accessories/ cute origami to add the the coffee experience. if your ever in the area, go) The last shoot on friday was conveniently at the carlton draft brewery and so after a long but good week we all went to the pub and had a couple of pints of Fat Yak beer. the exec’s left for home and josh, rone and myself went back to gallery above the studio for more beers at an exhibit night put on by an artist to display his new work. The night carried on until the early hours and I felt lucky to have only been in the city for a few weeks and have had a great photographic encounter already. off to a good start kiddos.

nice to meet you

We were all so knackered after the Clermenger job, I had a couple of long sleeps after to rejuvenate and refresh back to my norm and then when I woke up I was a little lost. I had kind of abandoned the email world when I was working so hadn’t lined up anymore work for after josh’s. I got back into tripleN and set up a few meetings & interviews with different photographers across the city. I cant remember how many people I saw now, or, even exactly what every meeting was about, but there were a fair few ‘nice to meet you’s’. I couldn’t bring my whole portfolio over from England as it was too much in baggage weight so I mocked up a selection of my work in a charming little leather-bound number to be able to show those in question which seamed to do the trick. Photographers advised that assisting in shoots was an important and dedicated job and they weren’t shy in making this blunt & blatantly obvious that they essentially wouldn’t take any shit! If your going to do the job do it properly or not at all, which is a fair point to make I reckon; there is a lot of competition out there and if your not going to do it right then they will just move on to the next assistant more willing than yourself. The thing I actually found quite hard to do in this time was to dress for situations on the minimal clothing selection I had brought from the UK!

One studio I went to was called Glow Studio. I was meeting Rob Earp http://www.fusefoto.com.au the owner of the studio, five time international photography award winner & creator of fusefoto. The studio had a great creative vibe and look, after meeting with Rob I was invited to hang around the studio to meet others that worked in the building and so stayed for some food and a fashion shoot. I was asked to come and second- assist a fashion shoot on location that was taking place the following week by photographer Kyte McKenzie, the beginning to my second lucky break. The same afternoon I met photographers Ivan Lee http://www.ijproductions.com and David White http://www.davidwhitephotography.com.au in another studio in north Melbourne for a quick vodka mix and chat, they both also work at Glow Studio’s.

Between encounters with the industry I was getting into ozzy social traditions, such as going to watch local afl footie in support of my housemates and attending the weekly Geebung Polo Club sunday drinking sessions! It was also the time of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week so I brought a ticket for one of the catwalk shows ‘once upon an afternoon’ to be shown in ‘The Toff’, a great little venue in an awesome high-rise block of bars on Swanston Street. I loved being back in that beautiful- people- slightly- egotistical fashion minded environment again, took me back to fashion at uni, dressing up for seminars and my old lecturer exclaiming ‘only pretty people at the front please!’.

one shoot, two pom's down.

As promised to Kyte, I waited early on the corner of Flinders on monday morning, mochachino in hand and a piece of toast in the other, fuelling up for the photoshoot ahead. We were soon on our way to the scouted location, a modern mansion on the outskirts of the city. When we arrived the stylist and hair & make up artist were busy titillating the male and female model’s looks so we set to work on lighting the first shot (the stylist, Amber was actually very recently on the show Project Runway as a contestant whom I had actually seen on foxtel when I arrived just a few weeks ago!) The shoot went really well…and all the better for me as the 1st assistant kept disappearing on the job so I took up the slack which looked good on my part ☺ Kyte had loads of info to share and was a really helpful with advise which was refreshing as a newbie in the ‘real-world’. one top tip; lies & fibs will work wonders at getting you a jobs…and so in this new light, I’m no longer a newbie, from now on I’ve been ‘assisting for 2years’ fact.

About this time I had also had abit of a spring walk down the beach and decided that I wanted to look into photography on boats! I had emailed a few places and people and got a response from Jeff, Captain and owner of the Lady Cutler, Melbourne Showboat. I went to meet him on the boat one cold morning and we had talked about me becoming their official ship photographer on selected cruises. The boat can be hired for various events, but I was most interested in the club night & corporate cruises to make abit of extra cash. I also went for a last-resort job interview for ‘santa-photographer’ over the christmas period, but after being called back, ended up giving this one a miss! I got offered a job in a photography studio called Verve portraits too, but it was a full time position and I wanted more time to assist photoshoot’s on a freelance basis; after the Kyte fashion shoot I was hooked on the assisting role, paid or unpaid I didn’t care as long as I was involved! It was a risk to turn down these two full-time position job offer's as these would have given me financial stability, but where is the fun in that aye, I didn’t feel like the job hunt was over yet, there was still more out there.

I was excited that a fellow £10 Pom was on his way down under too, my que-mate and tent buddy, Jamey T! He arrived to Melbourne with a lost bag and nothing but the few things he had on him, but that didn’t put us off going out on a big one to celebrate in the city. He had sat next to Dj Fergie form the UK on the flight over who had hooked us up with guestlist for the friday night at an awesome little club called Brown Alley (585 Lonsdale Street) where we drank pot’s and partied until 7am the next morning, ending up with macker’s on the tram home! two pom’s down, thirteen to go. good times.

on your marks.

Melbourne is a especially sporty city, a sporting capital of Australia. The first big sporting event that I witnessed was the 2009 AFL Finals Series, Grand Final - St Kilda vs Geelong Cats at the MCG. Well saying I witnessed this is abit of a lie because I was assisting Kyte on another fashion shoot in the studio which ran over the whole match! But like most gaming affair s in Australia its really just an excuse for a booze-up, so I joined in the festivities at a houseparty post-shoot. The highlights of this night had to be Kenny (now my housemate) chucking a whole raw chicken aka chook on a cold bbq and then off the balcony, seeing raw sausages flying across rooms ending up as smithereens on walls and speaking in French all night to randoms, oh dear!

The next event on the cards was the Races. Horse races here are as as big as Ascot and all that en anglais, even allocating a day of public holiday on one of the bigger dates, the Melbourne Cup in early November. I went the Flemington races in october, had to borrow heels and all things nice to wear as I had nothing myself (still no money for shopping!) A lot of people went to the members area, but me and my friend parella headed for ‘the pits’ where all the commoners put on their bets, a tip in hand and beer in the other. We watched from the front row of the green around the track to see the vast majority of our horses lose, which was unsurprising to me as my tactic was bet on the ones with the most comical name! I won one bet at $5.50 return on the win, result.

I had a little photography breakthrough aswel… There is a photographer in Glow Studios, Andy Tavares, who freelances for a child modeling agency called Bettina. He shoot’s the kid’s in Glow studios a couple of times a week for their model profile images, Tess assists him in this role. Tess had been speaking to Kyte about wanting to find someone to fill one of her days at Bettina as she had too much photography work on herself, and that’s where my name came in. I went for an interview that same day that Kyte had recommended me, and had my first shift the next day! My role is to go through the pictures after each shoot, select the final profile images, do abit of post-production work on them if needed (smile transplants for example!) & abit of photo-sales which I make good commission on. The main advantage of this job is that I am now a regular in the Studio each week and makes it easier to pick up assisting jobs, on my first shift I got asked by two photographers to come in to assist two different shoots …get set…go!

I just want to shout a mention at this point to my tutor, mentor and hero, Brendan Lea…his words not mine! Ha, no seriously thanks Brendan you taught me great skills which has so far lead me onto good things J Oh, and apologies again for having to give that awful reference for the santa photography job, at least we saw the funny side!!

Après.

As the saying goes, if you play hard then you should also work hard, and so the hard work began. I now had a job one day a week at Glow, was organizing & preparing business with Jeff the captain of the Showboat to proceed with the photography onboard and was continuing to assist more photographers from the Studio. I also got in contact with various organizations at the time, for example CCP (Centre of Contemporary Photography) and the ACMI (Australian Centre of the Moving Image) with possible volunteer work in mind which I could use to learn a little more, meet new people & to more importantly build up my CV. I am now part of both their volunteering databases and receive weekly shift notifications but haven't had time yet to start any work...this is something I hope to do when i'm financially a little more stable, but the groundwork is done and im set to go when ive made my riches (hmm)!

I assisted a couple of times for photographer Ivan Lee- I J Productions. Together we photographed products for a shopping mall's Christmas Catalogue, things like iPods, jewelry, novelty xmas toys & sunny's (because of course you need them for an ozzy crimbo!) I learnt particularly on this shoot how important but fiddly & sometimes tedious creating correct reflections on a product can be, but well worth the effort; amazing what abit of silver/ gold/ black or white can do, or five bits more like, always at the most awkward angles to hold, you need a steady hand! We also more recently did a shoot for the 'Good Guys', which is a store equivalent to the UK Curry's or Comet, photographing training guide visuals for in store recruitment. very random but thats another thing you realize in the industry, there's a picture for everything and someone's got to take it and so there we were! These shoots were paid which was good for my bank status, and I also got my first freebie, as the bag that Ivan had with him on the day I mentioned I liked, and so he cleared it out and gave to me at the end! Love this job.

I also did my first photoshoot with Rob, the owner of Glow Studios and FuseFoto who I contacted and met originally. This was a food shoot for a new recipe book for celiac's, a gluten/ wheat free publication which I was excited about as the allergy runs in my family a little, so I got to learn a few tips in two loves of mine, cooking and photography; grandma your getting sent a copy of this book when its out in stores! One of the bonuses of doing a food shoot of corse is that you get to eat every dish/ course after the image is perfected. Its definitely not over-rated, its delicious, until you've eaten too much you feel sick, i didn't eat dinner that night or much the next day, but i'd do it all over again. One top tip that I learnt here was grabbing a bunch of leaves from a tree outside and arranging them in front of your flash can work wonders for natural shadows and diffused light, but don't tell Rob I told you that :)

I helped out on a Test Shoot too, for Tess, the girl i share the Bettina model agency job with. This was on location at a derelict old school, it was a fashion shoot and comically & temporarily named Dere-Licked (think Zoolander)! The set was pretty scary as it was pretty windy and so the broken hanging strip lights & metal work were banging and swinging about, not to mention the junkie needles scattered on the floor! Hair/ make-up and styling was done at this cool warehouse/ studio round the corner, everyone chipping in for free as it was a Test. We had two great models to work with, one female one male, the latter, Tess and I had to be as professional as possible with as he was too good looking, but it turned out he was the flirty one and us the well behaved! The shoot went really well, blessed with beautiful sunlight all day and we got plenty of single/ double page spread variations to play with as the final images were to be sent out for magazine submission. Not a bad day 'in the office'.

bits & pot's.

It wouldn't be right to do a blog in Melbourne without talking more about it's bars! It's littered with chic hidden little places for drinks and conversation after work, all day drinking sessions or long nights out into the early hours. I am learning through peoples recommendations and stumbling along my own finds day by day of new venues deep into the secluded city grid-alleys to experience, people all have their own favorites that you MUST try, and i'm always willing! A few that myself and jamey T have sampled & loved are The Carlton (www.thecarlton.com.au, 193 Bourke St), decorated heaps of rainforest foliage and exotic stuffed animals, small boutique booths and a garden balcony- dont go if your a vegetarian or have issues with dead animals! The Toff in Town & the Rooftop Cinema ( both on 252 Swanston Street) are my favorite so far...its a building of about 6 floors with all different venues on each, the rooftop bar obviously being the top floor and is an open air space with deck chairs beers, & a fantastic view of the city. They also show classic movies in season when the sun goes down, you have to be early though to get a seat, its not just my favorite! I more recently went to The German Beer gardens, a pub and huge outdoor garden which has all the beers you need served in traditional unusual glasses, with live music to accompany your drinking session :)

I went to a cocktail bar with Ivan called 1806 (named the year that the word cocktail was first defined in print, 169 Exhibition St Melbourne) and tried the 'Japanese Slipper', Melbourne's most famous cocktail (Midori, Melon liqueur, Cointreau, Lemon Juice). It looked abit like a drink I used to drink in Revolution, the Del Boy, green in appearance and finished with a tacky red cherry, loved it!

When i'm short of cash, a good way to still spend some time out in the city on the cheap is to go to an exhibition opening or individual show. I've been to a couple of art expo's & a jewelry one, these put on by uni's showcasing students work or individual artists. They normally put out food and give out free wine...one I went to we had walked around the gallery in 10mins so then sat and drank & chatted for an hour, so you dont have to be interested in the subject to enjoy the event!

I have been working on the Melbourne Showboat doing a few cruises, mainly dance party's which are fun. It's basically club photography but on a boat with amazing views, I get to meet alot of people which is great & make money from it at the end of the night. As christmas is coming up there are going to be alot more events coming up as the boat is booked out for various corporate functions etc. All the crew onboard are really friendly, I have been out a few times with them after cruises, we go to a club called 'Sorry Grandma' a funny concept for a club, on fridays the night is called 'high tea' so being english I'm in my element! ha. One day we had an early start & had to sleep on the boat to leave port at 4am, after our shift though we relaxed on the boat rooftop all the way back to melbourne and i got snappy- happy on the camera admiring the scenes. I also started working in the office for the boat just one day a week, doing banking/ finance/ business tasks. At first I wasn't sure about doing this, as I would have preferred all my work within photography, but it has actually been really good to do, as I'm learning the runnings of a small business & skills that will no doubt help me in the future being a freelance photographer and having to manage my own work.

bring on the sunshine.

hot hot hot. The past couple of weeks have been very heated down under...just as you think you could maybe get used to it, the weather throws a bigger scorcher at you and you melt all over again! and this is just the start of summer, oh my. However, i cant complain, its nice to wear summer dresses into work and leave the house without multiple layers, eat ice cream (espc cold rock cafe ice cream..mmm) and get down to the beach. I have been to a few different smaller beaches too apart from the main bay of st kilda which are beautifully australian. The sea's are warm to swim in and they aren't packed on a hot day unlike the english who all commute to every available spot on the shore at any sign of rays breaking through the clouds!

Recently I have assisted three different shoots. The first was for Rob, the concept for the final image was to have a nude female curled in a fetal position, whom was later super imposed in post processing into a opened sardine can..i'll try get you some images to explain further! Pretty random i know but good shoot, we set up a paddling pool under the lights and I had to spray down the poor girl with a hose! The images looked great and I saw rob shooting the sardine can the other day with a huge brand new silver umbrella so looking forward to seeing two & two together. After we had champagne and went for some tapas & drinks a local bar/restaurant.

The next was for Tess, she was asked by a personal trainer to take some images of her doing various stretches and pilates poses so that she could make a leaflet to give to her clients to practice and remember from home. We went to a pretty palm-tree planted park with a big lake to use as our backdrop for the shots. I was chasing the moving light around with a daylight reflector board trying to avoid the shade! We agreed on a free P.T lesson each for our time for the job, so will be cashing that in soon for advice on the summer-body plan of acton :)

The last one I recently did was for Ivan, this was a fashion shoot for the clothing label Vigorella. It was THE hottest day and we were in the main studio which has no air-con but is quite a large open space so we had about 6 fans & a cooler going..still boiling! The thing with fashion is that trend forecasting and prep for the next season has to be done well in advance so we were shooting australian autumn/ winter 2010....poor model had so many layers on, she was not happy! We had a full day and pictured the whole range, Ivan aka Navi also got me to shoot some behind the scenes & a few of the actual images for the Vigorella catalogue which was great :) I also had the very important job of going on an ice-lolly run for all the team, good shout Navi! Post-shoot we had some well-deserved beers, and went out to grab a pizza & more cocktails, yum! I also got another freebie, one of the clothing items from the shoot, so all in all it was a successful day...the heat wont stop me yet!