Jessie Casson

I have the contact sheets for the first 22 shoots. I felt like I was awaiting exam results. I thought I had done well but I wasn’t 100% sure of the grade. Matt drove us up to Upper Hutt after collecting the goods and I flicked through the shoots trusting sheets in front of him to glance at. They are good; I am happy and feel light of foot and energised. We celebrated with a bottle of pinot noir and some crayfish, of which we have 6, given to me by Trevor who owns a crayfish factory. I now must research hard for the North island tour. There is plenty more work to be done before we finish.

Yesterday I met up with Loren Horsley for a shoot, an amazing actress and beautiful lady. She is always a pleasure to spend time with and photograph.

We have just left Bluff. After 2 days of unsuccessfully trying to track down the Oyster shucker competition champions we decided to cut our losses and head North. Yesterday was our first day of solid rain. We hung out in the caravan and by 3pm we were bumping into each other and tensions were high. The only place for some light relief was the local pub.A few G & T’s and pints later Matt had beaten every local in the bar at pool and was on the verge of being chased out of town and Dylan was helping an old lady in the gaming room. It was time to leave. Our visits to various local drinking holes have highlighted the benefits of a high bar stools, a glass of lemonade and a straw for keeping a 2yr old out of trouble for about 30 mins.

I write this with a backdrop of dramatic mountains beside a clear running stream 30kms North of Gore. We are the only people spending the night with this beautiful view just sharing the field with 400 odd sheep. We have had an indecisive day. First we headed out to Cattle flat, our resting place now, then we couldn’t find the right road, became wimps and couldn’t cope with the high winds so turned around back to Gore. I called Ray to tell of our change of plan. He sounded hugely disappointed saying there was no wind at their farm, we were almost there and it would be such a shame if we didn’t make it… I felt we might miss out on something so we turned again towards Cattle flat. It turns out that we are their first guests since advertising with the NZ motor caravan association two years ago, no wonder they sounded disappointed. Ray and Denise own the field and tonight they are taking us to a stag auction. I will continue writing when we return.

We almost bought 5 fine stags because Matt scratched his nose at the crucial point in one auction. We learnt that these deer are being bred for the velvet that grows on their antlers. Their antlers are crushed down and sold in China for medicines and their aphrodisiac qualities. And I thought it was all about venison sausages.

It may be a bold statement with eleven weeks still to go but it feels like broken windows are old news now.

I got some great news last week, Random House Publishing have agreed to publish the “Winners” project. I woke my Dad up at midnight, in England, to tell him and then sat and smiled for a while. In fact I am still smiling, although at times I feel the magnitude of the mission ahead. We leave in two weeks. The caravan arrived back from the spray painters today with a fresh coat and a 1970’s orange stripe around its middle, it looks like its just stepped out of a very funky show room.

Two weeks ago I bought a semi-pro video camera to document the trip. I have had two lessons from the lovely Alan who is patiently showing me the ropes, but I am still firmly in the all-the-gear-no-idea camp. Moving pictures unfortunately do not translate perfectly from stills, in fact there seems to be few rules of thumb that apply to both. But I am on a learning curve that is almost perpendicular.

This week I photographed a lovely older couple, Alf and Rosetta, for an ‘At home’ shoot for Sunday Magazine. They are very much still in love, I think I would like to be like them when I reach 73. Every day at 4pm their neighbour, Joan, calls round for ‘happy hour’, which involves opening a bottle of wine and catching up on the gossip on the street. Their pace of life seems enviable in comparison to my own.

Alf and Rosetta have lived together in the same house for almost 60 years and Alf was born in this house. In one bedroom all the walls have been wallpapered in a beautiful 1970’s brown floral paper. When they gave me the tour of the house I marveled at it and mentioned the caravan. The next day when I popped round they had found a spare roll tucked away. I am so excited! I am now trying to find someone to wallpaper our caravan, a small but fiddly job. Matt reckons we need a pro, and as NZ House and Garden Magazine now want to feature our splendid home on wheels, I tend to agree. With only one roll to play with there is no room for mistakes.

Only 5 weeks to go until take off …