Photo shoot: Amy Part 2

Amy Jenkins
25
Thirroul, Australia

My friendship with Amy has a solid foundation that is based on our mutual consumption of tea. We both love the stuff! Hot or cold, with milk or without, flavoured or non - it was how our friendship started and I thought that it would only be fitting for our last photo shoot to be around it.

Part of the reason why the two of us love tea as much as we do (well aside, from my mother force-feeding it to me while I was growing up) is that Korea has the most gorgeous, fun tearooms I have ever been into. Forget sitting in a straight backed chair, sipping Ceylon out of bone-china. Instead, picture yourself sitting on brightly coloured cushions hidden in nooks and crannies and surrounded by chandeliers of multi-coloured crystal. Picture yourself in a room splattered with sickeningly sweet pink and looking out at the passers by while you sip your tea and indulge in delightful icecream sundaes.



I decided to take advantage of one of these picturesque cafes and Amy and I chose Noriter, which has recently opened a second branch in Shinae. With props in hand, we entered the cafe and chose our poisons (mine being a Cinnamon Hot Chocolate just for a change of pace). After finding a seat under a staircase and making ourselves comfortable, the shoot started with Amy pretending to study and *ahem* "pretending" to graffiti the table and underside of the staircase. I think that the other customers must have been a bit freaked out by our incessant laughter, but that is always the case when Amy and I get together - Korea should be used to it by now.



There are two things that I am going to miss about Korea more than anything else - the tea rooms... and the photographic opportunites. Oh, and Amy. Who actually ranks above everything else.

Photo shoot: Amy Jenkins

Amy Jenkins

25

Thirroul, Australia

From the moment I saw the umbrella, I knew that I wanted it to be mine. The fact that it belonged to Amy Jenkins, my KBFF (or Korean Best Friend Forever for those who are not so in touch with the lingo), was the only thing that prevented me from stealing it. If it had been anyone else's it would have been gone within minutes and hours later, the owner would have been scratching their head or tearing their apartment apart in the search for it.

What made this umbrella so special (aside from belonging to Amy, of course)? I had three umbrellas already! What was it about this one that drew me in? Well the colour had something to do with it. The bright red broken by white hearts and compounded by a black stem all melded together to create the perfect combination of colours to make me want to have it. But what was even cooler was the way that it twisted open. It reminded me a little of the cocktail umbrellas that you sometimes get in drinks, and I wanted it!

What makes Amy so special that I wouldn't have taken it from her? Well, as I said earlier, she is my KBFF, and she is that for a million and one different reasons that will all probably sound really silly to anyone but the two of us. All that I know is that stealing it from her would be like stealing something from myself – hurtful, pointless and just plain silly. Instead of stealing it, I decided to capture it on film together with it's owner.

The umbrella required glamour – not just any t-shirt and jeans or sundress would have done it justice, which Amy well understood. She returned from Australia prepared and triumphant, bearing a gorgeous and, we discovered, rather revealing (for Korea at least) dress. It was perfect! The black contrasted wonderfully with the red and we just happened to do the shoot on a day when the sun was shining brightly and it was possible to wear a sleeveless summer dress without catching frostbite.

We started in the park where Amy made friends with some of the trees and rocks, posing away for me and my camera. Soon it was time for the umbrella to make its much anticipated appearance, and I captured shots of Amy walking along bridges, sitting on rocks, posing as Mary Poppins and just plain having fun – you could tell by the wide smile on her face and the non-stop laughter that was emanating from our direction causing the local ajummas and ajoshis to be rather alarmed. When our imagination had run dry, Amy took out a book and started posing with that instead until she spied one of her students and we decided that enough photos had been taken in the park. Instead we walked down to the river, which wasn't nearly as beautiful as it had been just a few days before when it had been frozen over, and took a few shots there before going home.

Because the river wasn't quite the way we had expected it to be, our second shoot (which would have had a winter theme) was put on hold, and we are currently trying to think up a second shoot that we can do before I leave on Friday evening. So check back here soon for more photos of Amy.