Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Was Queen Victoria a man?








I never thought I'd ever return to Turkey but here I am on my way back with seventeen lovely people and crew. I'm blaming John Harman for all this. I was happy just floating around on my treddly and sipping latte's at Tasty Express but I made the mistake of enrolling in one of John's writing classes. I thought, 'Hey, this guy knows what he's talking about' and he got my mind buzzing.

So I rang the 'Ghost Writer', half expecting to hear weird noises on the phone and invited JH to coffee. 'How about we run a weekend workshop together?'
'I'll chat about pixels and you can chat about pencils'
We shook hands and the deal was done.

Three years and six workshops later I met John for coffee again in Old Theatre Lane in Claremont.
'Let's run a workshop overseas' I suggested
John's brow wrinkled.
('Mmmm', I thought 'Might have to use Photoshop on that brow')

"Aaahh ... where were you thinking?
I could see I had some big time convincing to do.
'Maybe Iran .... Pakistan .. or maybe Turkey'
'Turkey sounds ok to me'

So ten months later here we are on our way.
Around the boardroom table under the watchful gaze of Queen Victoria we held our information day.
Iitineries, cameras, injections, writing tips and stories about squid rings. Lyn Fowler snookered us with her pose - for the technically minded 1/15 sec @ f4. I just can't get that malevolent gaze of Queen V out of my mind. In fact, I had a top five list of people I wanted to
photograph before I die - three are now gone - Osama, Gadaffi and Princess Di - that only leaves Paris Hilton and Julia Gilliard. I don't fancy my chances of finding either of them in Turkey. More chance of finding Tony Abbot in a Turkish bath. So I've just packed a water filter in my camera bag just in case I come across my old mate, Mr Rabbit.

But still images of Queen Victoria haunt me - reminding me of something out of Underbelly Razor - no wonder they refer to 'Victorian' thinking and ''that's very Victorian'. Or maybe, just maybe was it King Vic in drag?