Saturday, July 30, 2011

Kiwi Babes v's Aussie Check'm out!

We shot this the morning I was leaving, on my first stint in New Zealand with Clyne Models. It was all over and done within a few hours on my way to the airport. I look younger here then when I started my modeling career.









Beau magazine cover and editorial 94' 
Photography Jonathan Broadbent
Make up Carolyn Travaglia

Friday, July 29, 2011

The Usual Suspects.

In this industry you meet and work with alot of different people, its a life of the fleeting one day friendships and crushers. There is a geat amount of security in a regular client.





Brian Rochford

Fortunately for me, over a span of a few of years, I had three regular clients. The first of these was the coverted campaign, catalogues and in store posters for Brian Rochford. Originally made famous by super babes Tanya Bird and Alison Brae. I was very proud of this achievement. 







 Bras and Things

 Each month I would show up in peoples letter-boxes around the country selling knickers and nighties.







Women's Day

If you had visited any doctors surgery's in the mid ninties then you have seen me in the pages of Womens' s Day. My most constant client,  I may have been a little embarrassed about this, however looking back now with complete fondness.



 I was lucky to have fashion editor Marie Usher as one of my regular friends/clients. She was a very stylish and intelligent women who gave me lots of good advice. Each shoot day I was tranformed into a different character, we were playing dress ups. I  enjoyed working with Marie and photographer Tim Robbins, these were big shoot days and I would always go home with a smile on my face. Years later when my personal life started effecting my work, Marie was one of the only people who saw through my bravado and could empathize with me. (but that's a story for later)





Wednesday, July 27, 2011

One 'Elle of a hair do.

 Returning from the crazy Taiwan adventure was a pleaseant feeling coming home to this story published for Elle Magazine.

3 hours in the Hair and make up chair to create those wicked dreads. I kept them in for 2 weeks. It drove my agent crazy. ;)





 Photography by Ben Watts  


Tuesday, July 26, 2011

What a scam.

I was contracted to work in Taiwan for 3 months. The whole experience left me with both positive and  negative feelings toward the modeling industry. The work ethic was very different to what I was accustomed too. Castings were set from 8 -14 a day, meaning, work hours were  12hrs+. The idea was   " the more work , the more money" , it wasn't uncommon to work 2 jobs per day. The clients would also make sure they were getting their monies worth, so it was time to "model your little heart out." I had a modeling companion on this trip and we kept each other as sane as possible, we were young and unexperienced, it was our first time away from home working in a foreign country , we couldn't speak the language and we didn't  know how to protect ourselves when it came down to the "business" side of the modeling industry.



Katie and I would stay up late at nights and find ways to entertain ourselves. We watched MTV (in Chinese) most of the time, however some nights when we were tired and moody from our day we would just go bat crazy. I remember one night at the apartment which also doubled as the modeling agency, Katie and I had just had enough! We had made ourselves pumpkin soup and started a food fight , honestly I have never seen such a mess, in the midst of it all we decided to make pumpkin soup bombs and throw them on people in the street . We thought it was pretty funny, fortunately for the passers by, it was raining so their umbrellas saved them from the massive splurges of pumpkin being hurled at them from the apartment above. When it came to our realization that we had to clean up, it took us a couple of hours of scrubbing every nook and cranny in that place. The next day I remember the agent talking to me in the kitchen/dinning room about my castings for the day and I looked up and spied pumpkin soup in the cracks on the sealing, I was desperately praying it wouldn't land on her head.(but sort of wishing it would)

Large posters/billboards throughout local shopping centres .



Another way we kept entertained were nights at the Hard Rock Cafe. In many Asian countries, you can be sure to have english speaking customers and make some friends at an international bar. I had just turned 18 , Katie was still under age but we were always served at the bar. Because we were some of the only westerners in the place we were constantly asked for autographs, I always signed the name "Sharon Stone".





One weekend Katie and I had 3 days off, We went to a friend of her families house out in the country. When we returned to the apartment/modeling agency everything was gone! The bookers, the furniture, the desks, the computers everything! A telephone was left on the floor, fortunately we still had our beds and our clothes were still there, sadly they'd also left the little dog Kiki behind. 
Obviously our time on Taiwan had come to an end.

All this admittedly was one of the hardest learning curves for me, however I took from this a new and positive experience. I learnt to work with the language barrier, I had become professional enough to keep working hard, even though I could've screamed from exhaustion.  And I can safely say, I learnt how to "pose" for the camera due to the amount of images required for each and every catalogue. This would later become one of my best assets, I also learnt one of my greatest lessons, always have your contract checked by a lawyer before entering into anything. 



Me and Kiki cruising back streets near our apartment .

Monday, July 25, 2011

This is my "Time to Shine".

 Casting for Bianca Steffani was very interesting. There was a relatively long line of girls outside the building waiting for the client to arrive. Across the street were a couple sitting and watching us in their car. Thinking nothing of it, I chatted and shared ciggies with some of the other girls. Eventually after 20 min - half an hour, we we're ushered into the studio. At a large table sitting poised ready for "the judging" are the client Bianca, a hair/make up artist and photographer, Kenji Maeji.

At a casting each model is given time to show their portfolio of modeling images, hand over comp cards and have a brief discussion about what they have been up too, who they have been working for etc etc. If you have ever had a job interview, then castings are this very thing, however you can be cast for modeling jobs from one a week to 8 or so a day, sometimes even more. It can be a stressful experience and obviously very competitive. At most castings your interview "time to shine" is all over within 10 - 20 mins. If you're unlucky (or this case, very lucky) the interview can be over with in a spilt second.  At this particular casting as I enter the studio, Bianca expresses very openly, and I haven't even hit the table yet, "Oh, YOU already have the job! I did the casting whilst I was sitting outside in the car." "  

And I didn't even get to a chance to say" Hello my name is....." 






Bianca Steffani Campaign Spring/Summer 94'
Photography by Kenji Maeji

Sunday, July 24, 2011

I can work this.


Occasionally at the hairdressers, you ask for a "trim", you leave with a "Bob".... you embrace the change and a new modeling era has arrived.










Friday, July 22, 2011

One of these kids is doing their own thing.


composite card (sometimes called a ZED) is a model’s business card. In most cases, your comp card is your one and only opportunity to make a good first impression. Most composite cards are printed in black and white or full colour, and are handed over to all prospective clients . 


As is the nature of things that tend to happen in my life, my "Comp Card" was....... a little more colourful.

 My 1993 comp card was printed for me by my uncles printing company. I'm not sure wether it was a happy accident, a pure stroke of genius or just the colour that was set in the machine at the time. But when I receive my 100 cards, they show up  RED and WHITE. I 'm really not too sure how to react to this, I have to get used to the idea, I guess...... 
So I wonder up to the agency,  bravely hand over my bundle of colourful business cards and  
my booker (the person who books my jobs)  places mine almost directly in the centre on the wall of pretty faces.
Oh boy, thank you uncle Norm for making me stand out.... ( I think to myself embarrassingly). 

And gee did I stand out! 
As fortune has it, this is a complete stroke of genius, thankyou Scanlan printing in Toowoomba and uncle Norm !! Apparently my card was chosen, first up, by all the clients out of  the great wall of talent.
Weeks later,  back at the agency,  a number of mysteriously similar coloured cards have sprouted up, like, little flowers amongst the sea of black and white faces. But not one of them could match the colour or printing quality of my very first composite card.

In this business, it pays to be a little bit colourful.



Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Freaky dilemma of a teen cover girl.



In the midst of sorting out dating issues in Girlfriend magazine, modeling scarves for Amway catalogues and moving into my cousins house in Coogee Beach, I end up in hospital.

Early the morning of shooting my very first magazine cover, I awake a little before 5 am with a slightly swollen face. Within an hour my entire top lip has swollen, reaching to in-front of my nose. A massive cyst is sitting boldly and shinning brightly, right on top of my lip. ..... OH MY GOD!!.

Totally freaking out and a little frightened, I call my agent, waking her in between my sobs of, "there's... something..... wrong with my..... face..... I.. cant do.. the shoot." 

"What ! What do mean there's something wrong with your face ?"

It didn't take too long to convince her I was looking pretty bad, I think she could tell by the urgency in  my voice that this was quite serious.

Immediately I call my mum, we organise a flight directly home, in these circumstances home is exactly where I want to be.  I high-tail it on the next flight out of Sydney. By the time I have met my mother at the arrivals lounge in Brisbane airport, the "entity" has grown double in size! .... Its hideous, A group of traveling football players almost hurl, when my mother pulls my hands away from my face and they catch a glimpse of the first prized pustule sitting on top of my big fat lip.

"Thats it" mum grimaces " we are going straight to the hospital". I don't remember much between getting to hospital and being admitted, only the never ending trail of nurses and doctors coming in to see, the "Elephant cover girl."

Eventually I am told I had developed a golden staf infection.....ahhh what?.......
  How did this happen you ask??

I pooped a zit in that exact spot 2 weeks before!!and I still have the scar to prove it.

Never, I repeat NEVER pop a pimple in the T zone on your face Ladies and Gents, it could cost you the cover of a teen magazine. True story.


                                          

Monday, July 18, 2011

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Solace.

  4 am make-up calls before the sun light hits the beach.
Fashion editorial  for Canadian Magazine 
Location : Great Keppel Island
Some jobs can be exhausting shooting from sunrise to sunset , fortunately the location makes up for the long days.










Location : Great Keppel Island
photography by Robert Kenny

Saturday, July 16, 2011

90's Chic.


I remember this shoot well, as the stylist accidently dropped her scissors and stabbed my foot. I bleed all over the back ground-paper roll, it was comedy for the crew.(no stitches required.) Some of my favourite images from the early days.



















Images © Aref photography