A day in the life of a styling student

5:55

My third alarm has gone off, the one labelled “get your lazy ass out of bed!”. So I finally drag myself away from the slightly fake tanned sheets, throw on my gym gear, and hit the button on the coffee machine. It’s photo shoot day! My brain doesn’t work at this time of the morning so luckily, I wrote a list last week and checked the props off as they were purchased and packed, so everything is ready to go. I like my paper diary and my lists, it is like my second brain. While I put plenty of reminders and such in my phone, my diary has thoughts from 2am scrawled on random pages or rough sketches for shoots throughout, things that just can’t be done digitally.

6:20

Luckily my mum comes with me to the gym which gives me a chance to frantically put on my make up in the car and re-pin my hair which, I have generally done the night before. People look at me weird when I tell them this, but I’m far too lazy to get up earlier in order to make my mop look presentable. My day-to-day beauty routine is oh so basic, it consists of my favourite primer from two-faced, my Nars foundation, light blush and some mascara.

6:30

I attend my morning F45 training session and try not to die doing dead lifts with less-than-impressive weights!! That’s exercise for the day done so I’m off for a quick shower and then rush to catch the train to the shoot.

7:30

I’m just excited to be sitting again at this point, and as I have an hour and a half in transit, I make the most of my time checking emails, multi-instagrams and social media accounts. As I near school I refer to the images I collected trolling through Pinterest last week as I was prepping for this shoot. I had a company send me some jewellery to promote on my Instagram so the images I have is all about hands and jewellery and my idea behind the shoot is to portray the piece as “the artists bangle”, something simple and elegant which isn’t going to get in the way of creativity. So along with me on the train is an artwork I found at Kmart that is predominantly black and white tones that will be the backdrop for my shoot. I also have paints, paintbrushes and charcoal.

9:00

It’s class time and we quickly set about organising our flat lays. Images from the train still rolling around in my head, I refer to the sketches I did in my notebook of exactly how I want my items positioned.

I completely pull apart the frame around the image I have bought and cover my hands in paint and charcoal to make it look like I’m right in the middle of creating. It is important to look through the lens of the camera (or in this case my iPhone) and figure out what space you are trying to fill and plan how you are going to place your items within it. I also try to move things around and not just stick to what I had thought initially, quite often it is the more spontaneous shots that are the best. I have had to create a small dark space to avoid reflection on the glossy image so I’m working in quite a cramped space and making quite a mess.

12:30

It’s lunch time and thank goodness for that. I am always starving. Especially when I have been up early. I will pull out whatever I have packed myself to eat, sometimes this is a uber healthy meal I have conjured up and frozen for the week, sometimes it’s something I picked up on the way, sometimes its left overs, it really depends how my week is going. However, just being back from America, I am on a juice cleanse to apologise to my body for my eating behaviour so today its green juice and a banana (and likely a coffee – I have will power, but not that much). I usually spend the first 15 minutes of lunch eating and socialising before I hit the couch for a quick nap. I find I need a refresh before the afternoon.

1:30

It’s back to class and I scroll through my images, saving my favourites to an album and then picking the best to edit and put on my Instagram. Captioning takes its time too, making sense and saying a lot is difficult with few words so I usually take my time with this process.

7:00

Home again. Finally. I am exhausted with such long days. At the moment, on my health kick I’m making something uber healthy for dinner and keeping left overs in the fridge for tomorrow.

9:00

I’m making eyes at my bed; longing, loving eyes. Packing my bags for the next day I consult my list and diary to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything. If my hair needs washing I will do that, and generally will dry and curl it too, or alternatively stick it in a bun that will last through tomorrow. Make up comes off and teeth get brushed and I hit that pillow. It all starts again tomorrow.