Claire

Chaotic day and I am utterly knackered but it has been fun.

Dentist earlier in the day for filling, which left my face utterly numb - it was very strange and left me unable to have a cup of tea for two hours which was horrible. The inadvertant drooling was another side effect that was not very attractive.

The afternoon was spent prodding my numb face and giggling about the fact that I couldn't feel it. Until I could, then it hurt and I had to take painkillers.

Fortunately, after some delays and false starts, my mind was taken off matters of dentistry by the arrival of Claire for a photoshoot. My apologies to friends and colleagues for late notice and lack of communication - to be honest, it was probably better that you didn't get here - we were in a perpetual state of disorganisation.

Claire is a fire performer who tours the festivals in the UK and then works over in New Zealand for these guys. We have been emailing back and forth to set something up for her for some new promotional shots. I now have over 1400 images to work with in the next two days, some 'posed' studio type shots, some on location and some in the garden with fire hoops and sticks.

At one point, in the garden, Corin very calmly said to her "Your hat's on fire" - neither of us believed him, then we realised he was telling the truth - he had to retrieve the hat from her and extinguish it, as she had fire palms (little metal flowers attached to her palms with fire coming out from them) and the fire hoop on the go.

Given that I hadn't met her before today, we got on really well from the minute she arrived. Very cool lady, with the most amazing laugh and vibrancy about her. I could have spent another 7 hours with her.

These are a sample, thrown together with nothing but crops at this stage - I want to start working with the images tomorrow, but with a fresh pair of eyes.

For now, that's it...I'm off to meet with a longstanding friend from my school days tomorrow - we haven't caught up in a long time (face to face) and I don't want to be a grumpy arse because I am tired.

Night all
xx