Day 1 – Sydney > Singapore > London > Sweden

Saying one last goodbye to my rock pool.

Cacia and Jess getting nekkid for my lens.

First stop, Singapore. 1 hour to refuel and and I was in this queue to board again for London.

The sun rising in London. Not as grey as I expected!

Gothenburg! Ice Ice Baby.

My lovely boutique design hotel room complete with Fritz Hansen side table and a pair of Marc Newson embryo chairs out in the hallway.

Said Marc Newson chairs! Not surprisingly, they’re just as un-comfy as they look.

Everything is in the right place. My inner industrial design geek is lovin’ it!

The bathroom, where I had the best shower I’ve had this year. Fuck I felt so much better!

I smashed a small bottle of red and went for a walk soon after settling into my hotel room.

A church a few blocks down from the hotel.

Water! And yeah, it’s cold, not unbearable, but cold enough to wear gloves.

I’ve got a big mouth, and keeping secrets isn’t a strongpoint of mine, so keeping this huge trip to Sweden away from social media has been a challenge and a half to say the least. The trip is huge for a couple of reasons: 1) it was only mentioned a couple of weeks ago so I’ve had very little time to plan or get my head around it, 2) I’ve never travelled alone, let alone this kind of distance before.

Having just recently returned from a great trip to Melbourne. I was meant to be jetting off to Queensland to test tyres on the race track, shoot Amber (Max Stats) who I’ve been meaning to shoot for a couple of years now, as well as visiting my great friend Liz to celebrate her 40th.

Just a few days ago this Sweden trip ended up being pushed forward a couple of days as the flights on the intended travel dates were booked out, this meant that I would have landed back in Sydney on a Sunday night and then I’d be on my way to Sweden the very next day.

This stressed me out pretty hard as it meant I had only a couple of days to get ready for Sweden weather (it’s -5 there so I had to buy winter wear!), pack my bags for Sweden before leavening for Queensland and basically land and go.

Luckily, or unluckily, whichever way you choose to look at it, my Queensland trip ended up being cancelled due to a cyclone (testing tyres on the track has now been re-schedule for Calder Park in Victoria when I land back in Sydney and I later found out that Liz also postponed her Birthday Party due to bad weather). This news acted like a release valve for my high stress and anxiety levels. It meant that I could have made it to Halfway Hangs, an epic car meet between NSW and QLD, but I decided against going, and instead played host to NYC based Model and Artist Cacia Zoo instead.

As I type this I’m on a plane to Gothenburg in Sweden. It’s a short 1.5hr flight. I’ve had the first coffee since the last one I had in my own kitchen in back in Sydney. My back is a little sore, my ass is numb. I feel greasy, empty and beyond tired.

Rewind back to Sydney; the house got up early. Cacia, Jess and I walked over to the beach house to shoot. Cacia stripped down (she’s been so comfortable with being nude she’ll happily take her pants of without going to a change room), Jess followed suit. Cacia; damn, this girl moves, fast (which really suits me as I shoot fast). She dances, she goes through a spectrum of emotions, my lens loves her.

After the shoot we had brunch, then I was on my way to the airport. My thinking was that I could edit the shots during my long trip from Sydney to Gothenburg, but there really wasn’t any one time where I could work with my back to the wall. I wasn’t sure how the people sitting next to me would have felt if I was editing nudes, so I didn’t go there.

I’m renowned for teleporting in any case, and teleport I did. From Sydney to Singapore I watched the latest X-Men flick (loved the Sentinels! Took me back to the X-Men comics I used to read in high school), then I slept and pretty much woke up in Singapore. Teleporting on the flight from Singapore to London was a little harder, but I still managed to sleep most of the way. I tried to watch Godzilla, but fell asleep. I watched ‘LUCY’, which was great (I’m a Scarlett fan), and ‘Nightcrawler’, which wasn’t as dark or stylish as I was hoping it to be. The best movie I watched was ‘Whiplash’, which I truly got into (I felt it reunited my love for Jazz and I urge anyone who loves music to watch it).

I’ve flown British Airways the entire trip. I usually really look forward to airplane food, not sure why, always have. Maybe it’s because it makes me feel like I’m an astronaut eating space food, something like that, but I tell you what, this had to be the worst airplane food I’ve ever had.

Anyways, the plane is descending into Gothenburg. The sun is up. It’s been a dark trip. I didn’t even get to see the sky in Singapore and landing in London at 5am was pitch black and cold out on the runway as the sun was rising. I’m looking forward to being outside! More news as it comes!