Greek Goddess No More

Greek Goddess No More

17^th July 2011

Once again I’m gracing the gangway with my presents… as the Greek Goddess! Again I’m not wearing the Image Greek Goddess costume. Originally I was supposed to be shooting Hernan, the Greek God. 

Last night, when Luci handed out the schedules she told the couple of people present to “be prepared”. Looking at the schedule, Sanela was scheduled to be the Greek Goddess with Fede shooting her. Fede was far from happy. Not only did he want to shoot Sanela because she’s apparently boring on gangway, she doesn’t get a good image count. 

The previous evening Jomar was banging on about us not hitting targets and then he puts Sanela AGAIN on gangway. All the female costumes have been going to Sanela for the last cruise and a half. Luci said the exact same thing and I wasn’t disagreeing. 

Fede picked up the phone to call Jomar. He told Jomar they were switching the Goddesses as Sanela was scheduled for gangway and sail away with the same costume (something we don’t do and for a good reason!)

The entire morning schedule was completely rearranged by Fede. Sanela would shoot the rail rather than Zoran. Zoran would shoot Hernan, the God. I’d replace Sanela as the Goddess with Fede shooting me. Sanela would wear the Image Godess costume for return gangway and sailaway. That would give her a chance to practise smudging in costume. 

When Sanela was told about the changes she was far from happy to say the least and wanted to do both gangways. When she asked why, she got the honest truth, a response she really didn’t like and looked even more miffed! Not long afterwards, she stormed out the office. She honestly thinks there’s some sort of vendetta against her!

The next morning I dragged myself out of bed once again and climbed into my dress. Boy, was I tired! 

At 07.00 Fede and I headed up to the Savoy Theatre. Our orders were to “shoot as many children, blacks and Brazilians as possible”. This, as always, had us rolling up laughing!! Especially as during the meeting someone had to turn to David, fake having a gun in their hands and shooting him. David would start laughing his infectious laugh and shout “you’re all racist!” 

Once up in the theatre, it wasn’t long until we were on a roll. I was skipping about pulling people in for a photo with Fede snapping away. We got some great shots on the stairs leading down to the Savoy. The morning tours had gone and we had over 200 images. 

We decided to go outside onto the gangway for a while to join Hernan and Zoran before coming back in to go to the Lotus Lounge for the afternoon tours.

Walking outside and the heat hit you like a ton of bricks. It was so bright outside Hernan and I (the ones who couldn’t wear sunglasses) were having troubles keeping our eyes open. Fede even said that the heat today in Athens was similar to what he’d experienced in Jamaica. Apparently it was 38ºC and guests were asking if I had sun protection on! The poor guests were worried I was going to burn as I’m as white as a pint of milk (and that’s with a tan)! 

Fede and Zoran had to count to three to enable Hernan and I a chance to close our eyes, opening them only at the last second for the photo. It was an attempt to stop us from squinting. It worked a little, but not much. Without a doubt there are going to be so many dodgy, squinty photos!!

Going back onto the ship at 11.30 we had an hour of photographing the tours coming out of the Lotus Lounge. 

There’s a Brazilian Congress on board with their very own vicar. He was standing at the entrance of the Lotus with one of the Congress leaders. Fede kept asking me to go and get my photo taken with the vicar. I somply couldn’t bring myself to do it because I was wearing a relatively see through white dress with was exposing rather a lot of cleavage. I was looking far from virginal to say the least! “That’s exactly the point” Fede told me. 

In the end, after too much begging and pleading from Fede, I walked over to the Congress Leader and vicar and said in my very best Portuguese “Come, I want a photo with you both” and once the Congress Leader agreed, the vicar did too. Saying thanks I jogged back to Fede who was trying his best to keep a straight face.

12.30 finally rolled around and Fede and I called it quits. We had about 450 images and this gangway had proved to be a lot more difficult than normal. Most of the guests were already complaining that they were “pictured out”. 

Seeing Hernan and Zoran in the photographer’s corridor, we asked how they had got on and the response wasn’t a good one. They’d only managed to take 200 images. To be fair, I can understand where they were coming from and why they’d got such a low count. Outside, no one wanted their photo taken, it was too hot for them and all they wanted to do was jump on the shuttle bus and get to wherever they were going. It was incredibly hard for Hernan to smudge the guests in when he couldn’t even open his eyes. At one point both of us were standing on the gangway with our eyes closed rather than struggling to open them and squinting.

Quickly showering and getting dressed, I grabbed my things. Luci and Camila left a message with security for me saying they were waiting for me outside. They weren’t there. 

Regina, David, Hernan, Fede and I jumped onto the shuttle bus towards the port. It was a Sunday so there's no chance anything but a few coffee shops being open. Not even our local internet haunt was open. O’Connell’s (an Irish pub of all things) was closed for the first time ever. 

As we were heading towards another internet café we bumped into a few crew members who had an internet connection in a small coffee shop. It was too hot to move so we went inside rather than walking around to the other place. Unfortunately the internet was slow but I managed to upload a few photos of the crew party to Facebook for the parents to see. The other crew members were slowly leaving to head back to the ship for work. 

After a couple of hours, Fede, Hernan and I, the last ones standing, decided to call it quits.  Fede had set up at 16.30 while Hernan and I had work at 18.00 so we were going for a quick kip.

Once again it was another night in the gallery and studio for me. I’ve gotten to the point where I prefer working in the gallery, selling, rather than taking photos in the studios. There are some rude guests on this cruise along with some spoilt kids so there’s plenty of snappy remarks and getting ignored. 

Tonight I was shooting Bow for a second time. I didn’t make sense to shoot the same background twice when we have so many others. This time I had the ship’s wheel in front of the background. To make it a bit more interesting and fun, I borrowed David’s captain’s cap. I was aiming at kids… that’s if there were any awake during my 21.30h to 23.30h shift. 

Surprisingly enough, there were loads and it wasn’t long until I had a steady stream of people coming to have their photo taken. They loved wearing the hat and paying captain of the ship – even the adults!! I was only taking one or two photos of each guest and by the end of my shift I had 105 images! Everyone else had between 20-40 which was proving to be normal during these times. 

Back in the office, to download my images, Jomar asked how many images I got, when I told him he didn’t even batter an eye lid, carried on looking at the computer screen and said “that’s what we should be getting”. You can’t please everyone… especially a boss who obviously has a chip on his shoulder!

We are now sailing towards Kusadasi, Turkey. The Greek God and Goddess costumes can now be laid to rest. It was the last time we’d be using the costumes on gangway in Athens and with the way things are going in Greece at the moment, it’s unlikely we’ll ever return. It’ll most probably get dropped from the agenda. 

From now on, the Greek God and Goddess are no more… roll on the Matador and Flamenco dancer!

(Just found these photos from a previous Athens. Luci and I shooting Sailaway)

Checking Exposures for Sailaway

Athens, Greece Sailaway

Luci During Sailaway

Luci LOVES Romero Britto's Work

Quasimodo’s Sister

Quasimodo’s Sister

7^th June 2011

Okay, so as predicted I woke up at 6.30 with a face that resembled Quasimodo’s sister. Not only that but I felt like someone had given me a good hiding!! Seeing Luci, I showed her my face, the only advice she gave me was a shrug and “lots of makeup”. Still feeling like death warmed up, I had to get onto the gangway and work, there wasn’t anyone who could fill my position so early in the morning and the schedule was already set.

On the gangway I felt so sluggish it was untrue. Luci was bugging me to put my arm around the guests to stop them to have their photo taken. It’s what I usually do without a problem but this time my body was aching. The bright sun was making my eyes sting and water, keeping them open started to become impossible. I’ll have Chinese eyes in some of the photos – and those are the photos I have my eyes open!!

Stu was dolled up in his Greek God costume and working the opposite end of the ship where the tours were exiting from. Both he and Fabio later came up to join us. We took it in turns to have breaks. I was downing water as if it was going out of fashion!

Paco our AMS was signing off today and Luci would be taking over. She was looking forward to it but seemed a little nervous about things. She was more pleased about never having to wear the Image “scarf” (evening wear) again.

The rest of the day was a blur of sleep, sleep walking and working! Whatever happened, I really don’t remember.

Greek Goddess

Greek Goddess

14th May 2011

As you can guess we are in Greece today. After formal night and finishing at 1am it was a struggle dragging myself out of bed at 5am. The only bonus was that I was dressing up as a Greek Goddess. 

Tugging my bed sheets off at 6am and numerous failed attempts I managed to get the sheet to look something along the lines of a toga. In the end about three people were helping me as I wasn’t quite ready when the gangway opened. We used my belt to fasten the sheets around my waist. If there was a strong wind, the guests would be getting a glimpse of my very unflattering cow pyjama shorts. Lou from Spa lent me a wired head piece with white flowers and greenery wrapped around and a Greek style bead bracelet.

Stu arrived a little before we headed onto the gangway and helped me sort the sheet a bit more to make sure it was secure. Stu was also in costume – a Greek God. He was luckily enough to have a Greek God costume. A bed sheet was simply used to go across his back and drape around his arms. In true style Stu wore his dirty Converses which stood out like a sore thumb against the whiteness of his costume. This caused a few laughs amongst the guests.

Jeni was shooting the rail. David was photographing Stu. All were shooting at the back exit of the ship. This was where all the tours were departing from so the area would be busy. Luci was shooting me at the forward exit. This exit was for guests who were going out and about on their own. Our section was far quieter but most people were saying yes to have their photo taken. Having said that, we weren’t giving them much choice. As soon as they walked out I’d put my arm around them, literally trapping them into having their photo taken, while Luci took the shot. She was standing there ready so the second the guest looked up, she’d take the photo and we’d move onto the next. People were lining up to have their photo taken; what one does, the other follows. Most guests just joined the queue without knowing what it was for.

When things didn't go quite to plan or I'd freeze up a little with nervous, Luci was straight on my case. "Grab them!" and "Don't let them go!". Having Luci on your case can be hard going but it makes you push that little bit harder to get over your nerves, get the job done and get her off your back! Luci's a great teacher to be fair.

Towards the end of the 4 hour stint on gangway Stu, Jeni and David came up to our part. Stu had a moan at me for not smudging enough. That was kind of ironic as Luci and I had the quietest section yet double the photographs!! When I started smudging he told me to not smudge the guests he’d just had a photo with. This boy was doing nothing but complain and nag me and it was starting to get on my nerves. For a while we were both having our photos taken with the guests. Athena on one side and Zeus on the other.

After gangway Luci and I headed to a great little café to use the internet. The café makes its own pizzas and pastries. The food is absolutely delicious! The place was empty so we had a reasonably fast internet connection. Unfortunately the parents weren’t online. I’m used to not seeing them all the time but I do miss speaking to them every day or every other day. Maybe another day.

Back on the ship I was in gallery. Stu was displaying the prints from gangway so I thought I’d give him a hand. The gallery was fairly empty. It was great seeing the gangway photos in print! Again, everything that I did was wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have done, but I pointed out that it feels like he’s now being overly critical. Some of the images were about half a centimetre out and he’d move them along so all the prints were directly in line. It was the small nitty gritty things that he's picking at. Stu quitely reminded me, rather needlessly, that I’m a Photog 1, he’s Photog 2 and it’s his job to show me how things are done and how to do it properly. He’s only trying to help. That may be true, but it still feels like everything I do is wrong and it’s putting a real downer on me. When Stu talks really quietly, you know he’s doing it to avoid an argument – not that I was looking for one! I just wanted to know why the hell he was on my case so much. Hernan doesn’t get the same amount of shit I do. Thankfully a couple of guests came over so I could get away from him for a bit. I have no idea what’s up with him at the moment. Normally Stu’s a great laugh and I love working with him but at the moment, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Natasha left the ship today. As nasty as it may sound, there were a few sighs of relief. Before she’d resigned she’d been giving so many people grief and it only got worse when she handed in her notice. I’d quite frankly had enough of being spoken to as if I’m a servant and getting shouted at. David and Hernan were the same. On embarkation she had a go at Hernan for something that wasn’t his fault. He asked a couple to stop and have their photo taken and completely buggered up his English and took a couple of seconds to recompose himself and carry on. By then, two couples had walked past. She said he wasn’t doing his job properly etc. It’s easy for someone who only speaks one language.  Even though I speak fluent Spanish, I sometimes fluff my words and get muddled up. And yes, sometimes you do have to take a second or two to recompose yourself when you get nervous and/or embarrassed about not being able to get the right words out at the right time, and more importantly, doing it quick enough! Hernan’s English is getting much better – sooner or later he won’t have half as much troubles as he does now. It’s just a matter of time and practise.