Celebrity photographer

<-- That's Rikki on the left, in case you didn't know. The other lass is The Lucky Winner.

I wish I knew some people who were actually into Idol, so I could impress with my brush with B-list fame.

But *I* am now up there with the likes of Lord Snowdon and Diana Arbus - celebrity photographer me.

We've been down in Sydney for the weekend, for Lovergirl's family Christmas activities (Christmas pageants with children wearing Dads' white t-shirts and tinsel halos, trips to see Santa, Nippers, more trips to see Santa, presents under the tree, etc) and in the middle of it all my keen photographic eye was co-opted.

Lovergirl's Sydney-based sister Samantha is involved with a teen girls' fashion chain and they had had some competition running in which the prize was a shopping spree with - gasp! - Rikk1 Lee from Australian Idol. Was she last year's winner, or this year's winner, or something? Anyway Samantha asked me to take the photos, so there I was at some Westfield shopping mall, fighting off gaping passers-by (okay, there weren't that many gaping passers-by) and saying, 'Just stand over here and hold the jewellery up to me,' and 'Grab armfuls of stuff as if you're going to buy it all,' and so on. It was a LOT of fun. I really liked bustling around importantly being The Photographer and teenage girls are great to photograph - they love playing at being models and once you tell them a few times they look completely gorgeous (and mean it - why do we never know that when we are teenagers?) they relax and play up to the camera.

Now if this was a movie of my life, Samantha would casually mention my name to someone she happens to know in Brisbane and my photographic career would take off.