Leading the Pack

Leading the Pack

19^th February 2012

This morning Carolee and I were in the lab setting up. Carolee was mainly there to supervise me. She’s still feeling a bit rough from yesterday. Although Carolee’s feeling better, she said her head and neck are in pain. She took quite a knock when her head connected with the floor.

While setting up the lab Dave and Diva came in for a meeting with us. As Clarita is leaving, Carolee and I are the senior and most experienced photographers. Dave commented that I’d need to act and take on the responsibilities of a photog 3, before he promoted me. To cut a long meeting short, Carolee and I are to lead the pack of new photographers. If the other photographers complain about anything such as their schedules, we are there to put them straight. “The tell about your experiences on Royal Caribbean ships and let them know how hard it is to work there”. I’m going to have to lie through my teeth, if I’m to tell the new hires life on Disney Magic is better than my previous Royal Caribbean ship.

We have another new hire too, Inna from Ukraine. She told us last night that she’s studied photography for six years at the University of Kiev. So, we have a new hire to replace our P3, Bjanka. Inna will be in Disney training for most of the week so everyone needs to step up a gear to cover for her, mainly when shooting Ressi.

Questions are also being asked about Carolee collapsing the other day. Originally, it was said to be down to exhaustion. Now, there are queries as to whether she over dosed on the medication given to her by the medical facility. Like Carolee said, the Americans are big on painkillers, pills etc. In Jamaica, Carolee doesn’t take medication, she hardly ever gets sick. Yet in America and on ships, you pop pills for pretty much everything: headache, more energy, sleeping pills etc. The main question is, were two 350mg tablets too much for her body to cope with? Especially if she’s a person who isn’t used to such dosages. Makes you wonder.

Key West is the place where my Dad wants to visit. He’s very jealous about me being here today. With five hours off work, I was running off the ship as soon as the gangway was open. I’d never been to Key West before and shamefully knew nothing about the place. My ignorance to the place emphasised my shock when I saw Key West. It was like taking a step back in time with modern day tourism thrown into the mix. Quite bizarre, really. The buildings looked ancient, made from wood and made you feel like you were talking through a film set. For me, the only thing that spoilt the place was that Key West has been over commercialised. It spoilt it’s overall feel of being a quaint town from the 1800s. 

Turkey is famous for its shop keepers smudging and I have to say, they are the best – especially if you heard something original. It’d have you rolling up laughing. I never expected to see the Americans at Key West giving the Turks a run for their money, even if they were less original! With signs stating “$5” the owners/workers were shouting at the top of their lungs “everything for $5, that’s 5, $5. 5 Bucks. Come grab a bargain, we have everything”.

No wonder so many people from Disney  Magic were running around trying to grab endless amount of $5 bargains. When they realized the $5 bargain shops weren’t a one off, they seemed a little put out about it. If I’m honest, I quite enjoyed standing on the outside of it all, just watching. It’s strange how people work. Give them a bargain and the crowds will come running. When they find out it’s not the only place, they feel they’ve been misguided. Just comes to show how our reactions change so quickly.

Unfortunately, in such a rush to see the sun and get some fresh air, I forgot my camera. Something I’m not too impressed about. A photographer forgetting her camera – smart move there, Lou! Not to worry, we’ll be docking in Key West again in two weeks’ time so I’ll be back and armed with the camera. I’m thinking of sneaking my Nikon D90 off the ship (the lens belongs to Image and must stay on the ship at all times, unless I’m working in Castaway Cay).

In the end, I must have been walking around Key West for nearly two hours. Popping into shops for a nose, collecting a couple of magnets and just generally taking it all in. Seeing sites like these, with such an abundance of tourism, always reminds me of Martin Parr’s photography work. 

While walking past the Hard Rock Café there was a mass domination of crew armed with laptops. Heading over to the Tourist Office I picked up a few leaflets on different attractions: The Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory, Key West Aquarium and Key Wests Ship Wreck Treasures Museums. It may sound a bit touristy but I couldn’t care less. I want to use my limited free time to the best of my advantage, use it wisely. Plus, it’s not like I’m going to be coming to all of these places again, so it’d be a shame to pass it all by in favor of sitting in the Hard Rock Café with all the other crew members.

Strolling back to the ship I saw Maryna, one of the Image new hires. She claimed to be “not depressed but feeling depressed”. Maryna was getting down about always going out into the ports on her own, not having many friends on board and generally finding ship life hard. It’s something everyone can relate to.

Ship life is hard but I was lucky enough to have some great friends and a fantastic team on the Mariner of the Seas. Coming to Disney Magic I was plunged into the “you’re on your own” scenario and it’s not nice. So I spoke to her about trying to gather up a few people to go out together in one of the ports, as a group and do something fun, worthwhile. It may drag you out of the depressed like state, mixing with other members of the team or crew in general.

Surprisingly enough, people on land don’t seem to realize just how easy it is for crew members to slip into depression. It’s apparently very common, more so than I realized.

Only this year there was a suicide on Celebrity Constellation, a member of the Laundry team walked to the ship’s top deck with a bible in hand, climbed up onto the railings and threw himself off. There was no hesitation and everything was done in seconds. Gone. 4am, at sea, it’s pitch black and although the ship turned around and sounded the Man Overboard alarm, he was never found and classified as Missing At Sea.

Another case, which is a mystery, was the British girl who is Missing At Sea from Disney Wonder (the so called "cursed" ship of Disney Cruise Line’s fleet). Questions are still being asked as to whether she jumped or was pushed. This happened a month or two before I joined my first ship. Some say she was depressed, while aren’t refused to believe it. One thing you need to keep in mind is that everything is intensified on ship, both the bad and the good times.

Back to today. During the evening, after a long stint in Shutters, I was on Lab Duties. My AMP, Diva was showing how to print, another thing I have to master before I’m promoted to Photog 3. After a while I got into the swing of things and started to pick up pace, obviously I’m a long way off from Diva’s speed – she’s a machine!

It was great being able to print a large chunk of the character portraits and see the sort of cropping we need to use when shooting. When you have a more experienced shooter, there’s a massive difference in the cropping compared to a new hire. With experienced shooters, you literally just have to touch a print up here and there, the cropping is consistent and most of the time, spot on. New hires chop Goofy’s hands and hat off on a regular basis and generally their cropping is wide open and all over the place.

At the moment I’m doing my best to sponge all the information up and get as much experience under my belt as possible. With a bit more practise I’m sure I’ll be whizzing through lab setup, printing (especially formal night) and finally get onto maintenance of lab equipment. One step at a time though!