Tears of a Clown...

This week I have mostly been playing tour guide to my parents, who are here to visit for 10 days. John (my step-dad) had never been out of Europe and Mum had only been to the U.S, never toward the east, so they are both really excited to be here.
We've seen the Tian Tan Buddha, Victoria's Peak, they've been to Macau and tomorrow we're going to the 10,000 Buddhas temple and Kam Shan Country Park to see the wild monkeys. It was Mum's birthday the day they arrived and so we took her down to Shek-O beach so that she could paddle in the South China Sea and get sand between her toes <3.

It's wonderful having them here, showing them the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of what has very fast become one of my favourite places in the world, and my home. We've been here 6 months now and every so often I do still stop and think "Wow! I actually live in this place. This is my home!". Normally when I'm on the ferry going across the harbour or on a hike looking across the sea and the outlying islands.

Now, I promised all of you who have joined me on my Facebook Page that I'd have some new images to share with you tonight. Fear not! My Dropbox folder has been pinging all day and I've finally got the last of them downloaded.
They're from my recent shoot with HumbleJim Photography, Albert Chan and Taxi makeup, one image from which I posted in my Model-versary blog a few weeks ago.
I had such an amazing time working with those three and sincerely hope we get to do it again some time. Taxi's styling skills are phenomenal - she was the makeup artist, hair stylist and wardrobe stylist for the shoot and, let me tell you, there was no "jack of all trades" going on there! Absolutely brilliant attention to detail and she's wonderfully creative and talented!

I absolutely *adore* the emotion in my face here. Like some sort of sad Chinese clown!

The bath really was this colour! 

I hope you enjoy, and please do let me know which one is your favourite! I just can't decide!


Hannah xx

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Junk trips and photo shoots!

Just 6 days until I'm sitting on a plane on my way back to the U.K! I'm incredibly excited, can you tell? 

As well as that, I'm looking forward to my second junk trip of the year on Saturday with a lovely group of new friends. We've got the junk all day with unlimited wake-boarding and banana boating! Hiring a junk for the day is a great way to get out of the city, chill out and get to know new people as the minimum booking is normally around 12-15 people, so there are always people you don't know. I had a great time on the last trip, and I was the only girl who got up the courage to jump off the boat into the water!

Posing like an idiot in the captain's chair

Going....going....going.....GONE! It's a lot higher than it looks!

As well as jumping off boats into the sea, I took some time out to dye my hair a super amazing ginger colour and shoot with the fantastic photographer Kinwai Cheung, stylist Nikei Mak and make up artist Shue Lai.

I just got the images back yesterday, I hope you enjoy them.

Hannah xx

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Cocktails, Comedians and Clams

Ras and I are famous! Well, maybe not famous, but....
The staff at the apartments we are staying in asked if they could take some pictures of us around our flat for some promotional material. Easiest first Hong Kong publication ever?
I guess it counts, despite them not asking me because of my super awesome modelling skills; rather because we have one of the executive suites and they probably would have asked anyone who was staying in it, but who cares!?

The pictures were all over big 6 foot tall boards at their 3rd year anniversary party on the roof of the building. It was amazing to be sipping (free) cocktails and eating (free) food whilst gazing out over Hong Kong's skyline.
The entertainment was great too, they'd booked a live Latin band, the world flair champions (you know, the cocktail waiters who throw your drink around for half an hour before giving it to you) and Vivek Mahbubani, an Indian descent, Chinese, fluent English speaking comedian. We spent a while chatting to him about metal music (turns out he's also the drummer in a heavy metal band) and then posed for a polaroid with me which he then signed.

Other than attending cocktail parties on roofs and posing for photographs, I've also been extending my culinary tastes. By which I mean Ras and I were taken to a very local restaurant the other night by some Chinese friends who proceeded to order razor clams for us. I won't lie, they didn't really do much for me, too salty and chewy for my tastes!


Right now I'm going to curl up on the sofa with Ras and watch a film. I love lazy Saturdays :)

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We're not in Kansas anymore...

Goodness me has it really been 2 months since I last updated? I am so terribly sorry but I've been so busy that I kept forgetting about this!
So, as you may have guessed from the title, I'm not in Kansas (read: London) anymore. As of 3 weeks and 1 day ago, I now live in the amazing, gorgeous, vibrant, busy city of Hong Kong! Let me tell you one thing: they don't tell you about Hong Kong winter weather. There I was, expecting lovely warm sunshiney days and what do I get? Wind and rain. I might as well have stayed in the U.K!
It's warming up slowly however, although the Hong Kong Observatory did see fit to release a "Cold Weather Warning" last week. They were warning all residents of HK to stay inside if they could or to wrap up warm if they went out - the temperatures were going to drop to an arctic TWELVE DEGREES! Not that I'm complaining, mind, I saw that those of you in the U.K had to deal with temperatures of around -10 a few weeks back.
I won't pretend I didn't point and laugh in the general direction of England when I heard that ;)

So I'm all settled in, have spoken to a local agency which is run by a lovely lady called Helena, so watch this space on that front and I've been busy making our little flat feel like home by putting up all the cards and presents you guys sent us when we left, buying houseplants and leaving my shoes in strategically untidy positions, you know, to give it that 'lived in' feel.

Our friend Josie crocheted the little red dragon for us and Donovan the Dinosaur comes with us everywhere :)

We headed over to Kowloon very shortly after arriving here and spent some time taking pictures of the gorgeous Chinese New Year display, which was almost entirely made of paper and wood!

I was born in the year of the rabbit, which this is supposed to represent.

I'm hoping to get up there again very soon and take some proper pictures with the boyfriend's camera and tripod I think.

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Happy New Year!

Well, it's 2012! I thought I'd follow on from my post on the 31st Dec where I talked about what 2011 bought me and write one today about what I hope 2012 will bring me.
In just 36 days I will be sitting on a plane, reading books, watching films and thinking about the new life I'm about to begin. In 36 days I'll be moving to Hong Kong with my boyfriend for 2 years. I'd never even been to Hong Kong until June of this year (you can see what I thought of it here). It's a stunning country, fast paced in places, relaxed in others and full of sights, sounds and smells so different to London and yet somehow very similar.

So, as the majority of my year will be spent in a different country, I've tailored my New Years Resolutions to what I want to achieve when I'm there. Here they are!

1) Continue learning Cantonese. I'm moving to a country where a lot, but not all, of the people speak English. However, just as I appreciate someone learning English when they move to England, I have made it my aim to learn enough Cantonese to get by at the markets, ask directions, go along to Cantonese-speaking tours of the monuments and understand them.

2) Continue working as a model when I get there. I can't work unless I get a work visa and I can't get a work visa unless I get signed by an agency. So I guess this is more "Get signed by an agency", but I think the two go hand in hand!

3) Learn a new skill. I've always wanted to learn to play the piano, and since I'm probably going to have a lot of free time when I'm out there, I figured I'd use that time to try something new!

4) Cook more. I enjoy cooking and have tons of recipe books but tend to always fall back on Spaghetti Bolognase or pasta bake. With all the exotic foods and new things to try on the markets in HK, I really want to learn to make authentic Chinese food. I'll start with that yummy noodle soup I love so much I think!


5) Actually stick to a work out routine this year! I'm blessed in that I don't tend to put on weight (over Christmas I lost 5lbs!) but no matter how slim I am, I do need to keep my body toned and flexible, so bring on those early morning exercise routines in one of the many parks in Hong Kong!

6) Finally, I want to have enough to tell you, modelling and photography related, that I keep this blog going. If I'm unsuccessful with the agencies in Hong Kong and find that I can't work as a model, I intend to start borrowing my boyfriend's camera and learn how to take pictures! I'll have plenty of gorgeous things to take pictures of and I'd love to look back in a few years or decades time and not be annoyed at myself for taking rubbishy pictures just because I couldn't be bothered to learn about exposure or colour balances and all of those technical things.

So! Now that I've published these, I've got a great incentive to try and keep them all! I'll try not to bombard my blog with pictures of food I've been cooking or news about how I had a conversation about the weather with a lady at the market, but we'll see how that goes in the coming months :)

Happy New Year!

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News time!

Good morning! I have NO idea how I managed to keep this vaguely quiet for the last goodness knows how long, but I have some news for you all :)

You may remember that earlier in the year, my boyfriend Ras and I went on a long holiday to Hong Kong. Well, it was a holiday but it was also a sort of chance to get to know the city. 'Why?', I hear you ask!
Well, as of the 7th February 2012, Ras and I will be moving to Hong Kong! We'll be there for a trail period of 6-12 months, but all going well we'll be staying for around 2 years. Ras works as a business analyst for a software firm in the financial industry and that's what's sending us out there.

So, I do expect this blog will turn into a bit of a "My life in Hong Kong" blog, but it'll also keep you updated as to when I'm planning my trips back to the U.K, images from shoots I do over in HK and generic holiday style news!

Until then,

再见 !

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Hong Kong, Magazines and Vintage Chic!

So much has happened! I flew off to Hong Kong for 3 weeks with my partner, Ras, for a holiday in June/July, which is why I haven't been around much! We are planning on moving to Hong Kong late this year/early next year, so this was Ras' chance to show me around and make me fall in love with the country I'd agreed to move to (before having even been!). As luck would have it, I fell in love instantly, depsite the monsoon style rain for the frst 3 days.
Hong Kong is such a vibrant, fast, bright city full of friendly, interesting people and suprises hidden around every corner! Before setting off, I asked a few friends of mine who had been for some ideas of what to see and the overwhelming response was "The Big Buddha!". So, as well as sampling the amazing local food, seeing the wild monkeys in Kowloon and dodging giant spiders (hand sized, bird eating monsters) on Cheung Chau, we headed over to Lantau Island for a wander around a traditional Buddist village (complete with a Shaolin Monk show) and the long climb up to the biggest, outdoor, bronze, seated Buddha in the world!

Moments later, they all ran away, so I was quite lucky to get this shot!

Hope he doesn't fall off!

Samping the local cuisine

Golden Silk Orb Weaver. They are HUGE. Thank goodness for giant zoom lenses!

I take no creit for this beautiful photo, it was taken by my partner, Ras.

Funky angles, anyone?

 I won't bore you with more pictures from Hong Kong - we were there for 3 weeks so, as I'm sure you can imagine, there are a LOT of photographs!
In all, it was an amazing experience and I simply can't wait until we finally move over there! It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, one which I am going to grab with both hands and enjoy to its fullest extent!

Just before I went off to HK, I was shooting at the fabulous Light Spot Studios in Hackney. Whilst there, a photographer who I worked with back in February at another studio mentioned that she'd seen me in a magazine. As I was unaware of this, she told me which magazine it was and I started a hunt for a copy of it (it was an old issue, and the company had run out of back-issues). After a day or two, a lovely photographer from Net-Model offered to give me his copy. So when I arrived back in the U.K, I was greeted by a copy of Advanced Photographer magazine, with my face gracing on of the pages!

The picture in question was taken by Phil Winterbourne, a fantastic photographer who I worked with in March.

Whilst we're on the subject of publications, I may as well tell you of another magazine I found myself in, but this time it's an online magazine for a vintage clothing company called solovesvintage, for whom I did a shoot a few months ago. I was very excited to get the e-mail from the lady who owns the website, as not only am I in their online magazine, but I have the front cover and 6 pages inside! The clothing is beautiful and it was a really fun day! You can see the magazine at the website - just click here

In other news, I've now added an "About" section to my blog, which you can access from the link at the top. My website is under construction at the moment, so for the time being, this is my internet base, as it were. I'm still working on getting a small gallery up here somehow, so watch out for that!

 Today will mostly be spent working on aforementioned gallery until 4pm, when I'll be heading to the National Portrait Gallery with my friend Anita DeBauch to see the Glamour of the Gods exhibition, a collection of Hollywood portraits, featuring Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor and Clark Cable, to name but a few!
It should be excellent, and will also give us the chance to pop into the BP National Portrait Awards exhibition and take a look at that, including the stunning painting of our friend Ivory Flame in a painting titled "Holly" by Louis Smith, which was awarded 2nd place.

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