No Gladiators
4th August 2011
As always I was working the first gangway. I didn’t mind, it saved me from a second day of embarkation and I love gangway. This time I was teamed up with David who was decked out in his Gladiator dress.
The lads really aren’t too keen in walking around in a burgundy velvet-looking mini dress. We were the only ones on the gangway this time and had a 500 target. We thought it’d be a piece of cake as we normally get near the target with two costumes.
The lads really aren’t too keen in walking around in a burgundy velvet-looking mini dress. We were the only ones on the gangway this time and had a 500 target. We thought it’d be a piece of cake as we normally get near the target with two costumes.
We started on the tour gangway and waited, waited and waited. Finally, nearly an hour later the tours started coming out. There were plenty of declines, in fact, there were more people refusing than those having their photo taken! It was the complete opposite to what we were used to.
Smudging like hell, and we were getting nowhere. The excuses were the same as ever “I’m tired”, “it’s too early”, “I have no make-up on” but the one that stood out the most “I had my photo taken with you last night”. People didn’t spot the difference between Hernan, Zoran and David.
There were a few jokes about that later on in the evening as Zoran and Hernan could pass off as the each other behind the mask. But David? David’s black with a thick South African accent! How can they confuse him with someone who is as white a sheet? It wasn’t just the person, people thought the Gladiator was the same as the Centurion that was posing with the guests the previous night. Even though the outfits are completely different, it didn’t matter. If the guests thought it was the same, they wouldn’t have their photo taken.
Smudging like hell, and we were getting nowhere. The excuses were the same as ever “I’m tired”, “it’s too early”, “I have no make-up on” but the one that stood out the most “I had my photo taken with you last night”. People didn’t spot the difference between Hernan, Zoran and David.
There were a few jokes about that later on in the evening as Zoran and Hernan could pass off as the each other behind the mask. But David? David’s black with a thick South African accent! How can they confuse him with someone who is as white a sheet? It wasn’t just the person, people thought the Gladiator was the same as the Centurion that was posing with the guests the previous night. Even though the outfits are completely different, it didn’t matter. If the guests thought it was the same, they wouldn’t have their photo taken.
The place was dead after the tours so we nipped in for a coffee. A coffee turned into a quick breakfast.
Feeling more awake, we headed out onto the main gangway. The place was full of Italians and neither of us spoke Italian. It didn’t help matters as Italians are very stuck in their ways. If you don’t speak Italian you can get stuffed. They don’t want to know. David tried smudging the Italians but they refused. A couple of times I’d shout out to the same Italians “let’s get a photo” (in Italian) and they’d agree. They’d have their photo taken if they thought you could speak Italian.
Feeling more awake, we headed out onto the main gangway. The place was full of Italians and neither of us spoke Italian. It didn’t help matters as Italians are very stuck in their ways. If you don’t speak Italian you can get stuffed. They don’t want to know. David tried smudging the Italians but they refused. A couple of times I’d shout out to the same Italians “let’s get a photo” (in Italian) and they’d agree. They’d have their photo taken if they thought you could speak Italian.
10am arrived and it was time for us to go in. Hernan and Sanela would be replacing us on the gangway. Realistically we should’ve waited for them to come and replace us but we know exactly what those two are like.
While getting my equipment from security X-Ray machine, Sanela came over asking for the lab key. She needed to get her Quantum battery, camera battery and memory card. I didn’t have the key. Knocking on the cabin door, Sanela asked if she could borrow my battery. No, it needed to be charged. I’d been working on gangway and therefore had a half empty battery. Sanela was knocking on the doors trying to pick up bits of equipment from everyone.
Hernan was lying in bed watching TV in his costume, waiting for Sanela to get her act together. Forty-five minutes after they were supposed to be on the gangway, they were ready to go. We told them about the problems we’d had on gangway. We’d missed our target by a long shot and struggled to get passed 100. It wasn’t until the end that we slowly started to rack up counts. Sanela had to beat 182 images. Did they? Did they heck!! They came back with 82 images.
While getting my equipment from security X-Ray machine, Sanela came over asking for the lab key. She needed to get her Quantum battery, camera battery and memory card. I didn’t have the key. Knocking on the cabin door, Sanela asked if she could borrow my battery. No, it needed to be charged. I’d been working on gangway and therefore had a half empty battery. Sanela was knocking on the doors trying to pick up bits of equipment from everyone.
Hernan was lying in bed watching TV in his costume, waiting for Sanela to get her act together. Forty-five minutes after they were supposed to be on the gangway, they were ready to go. We told them about the problems we’d had on gangway. We’d missed our target by a long shot and struggled to get passed 100. It wasn’t until the end that we slowly started to rack up counts. Sanela had to beat 182 images. Did they? Did they heck!! They came back with 82 images.
A couple of hours later on, Camila was banging on the doors in the Photographer's Corridor to brag that she’d got 400 images in 1.5hours. She'd been shooting Leandro who was dressed as the Pizza Chef. We weren’t sure about it as she was a slow shooter compared to us. Plus, David is by far one of the best smudgers so we doubted two new hires would be able to do so well when we’d failed miserably.
Going down to the lab later, I checked with Ritesh. Everyone wanted to know if she had hit her target. Yes, Camila had hit her target – one photo horizontal, one vertical. Usually, Ritesh will discount our doubles. Bad cropping where she hadn’t separated the guests, just took two separate photos. In one picture, Leandro who was the Japanese pizza chef, had an arm wrapped around him… the person had been cropped from the image!!
Not only that, you can see when Jomar came out to check her exposures. The first 300 odd images were badly burnt and just about saveable. So yes, she hit her target, but did a shoddy job of it. No one seemed to care though. 400 images were 400 images – they didn’t care about the fact very few would sell. I guess it depends on Ritesh's mood!
Not only that, you can see when Jomar came out to check her exposures. The first 300 odd images were badly burnt and just about saveable. So yes, she hit her target, but did a shoddy job of it. No one seemed to care though. 400 images were 400 images – they didn’t care about the fact very few would sell. I guess it depends on Ritesh's mood!
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