From boudoir photography to Mount Everest!

 

Last Friday I was at a blogger get together. I was there with a handful of other bloggers and I turned to ask Jeanette the name of her blog, Choc Ice and Chips she replied. We started talking and I discovered she takes photos of women in their knickers, ‘Boudoir photography.’ The conversation deepened. ‘Nice camera,’ I said looking at her Olympus SH 21. ‘Oh they (Olympus) lent it to me for my trip to Everest next week.’ came her reply. Well I just had to find out more and here, in her own words is her story

You know when you agree to do something, and then sort of regret it? You know when you think that you are living in a parallel universe and you didn’t actually agree to do the thing you sort of agreed to do? Ummmm, well, as you are reading this, I am on my way to Everest Base Camp.

Yep, 9 months ago, I agreed to climb to Everest Base Camp for charity. Now, to be fair, in January, I compiled a ‘Bucket List’ for this year – the year that I turned 40. On this list are things like driving an articulated lorry around a race track, do a wine appreciation course (so when I choose my £3.99 bottle from the Co-Op, I can at least appreciate it’s cheapness), and to, errr, do a ‘personal challenge’. And so Everest became my personal challenge.

If I told you that I was the most unfit person in the world, that would be the understatement of the year. Sofa surfing to me was a sport – and one I was very good at. I could lie on that sofa in so many ways, you wouldn’t believe it. In fact, during the Olympics, I would have got the Gold medal if they were giving them out.

Suddenly, August arrived and I had a mahoosive mountain to climb – and in just 15 weeks. A friend of mine introduced me to Josh from Pulse Personal Training, who took up the challenge to get me fit. He certainly had his work cut out. I don’t think it really helped turning up hungover on quite a few occasions. However I kept at it, and I am now fit, have dropped 2 dress sizes (and that is without dieting at all), and I am feeling fantastic. My training now consists of me doing bootcamp – on the snow at The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead 3 mornings a week. Think about running up a slope, in -4 degrees, wearing ski boots on snow. Bloomin knackering!!!

In order to raise money for Reach Out Plus, the charity I am doing this for, I have held a music and comedy night at The Snow Centre and a Champagne and Bacon Buttie morning for the mum’s at school. My personal target is £3,000 (all the money raised is going to the charity as the trip has been paid for privately), and as I write this I have £2,834. I am hoping that, by the time I return in 3 weeks, I will have smashed that target.

So, yes, this is a huge challenge for me, both physically and mentally. I will be away from my 2 boys (aged 8 and 6) for 3 weeks (is it wrong for me to say I am secretly quite looking forward to that??!!!), and pushing myself to the limit. However, I am so excited about this, and that isn’t just the opportunity to sit on a long haul flight without having to entertain two children. As I am a photographer, I am also so giddy about the photographic opportunities too. I have never been anywhere like this, and I am going to be going camera crazy, especially as the fabulous people at Olympus have lent me a camera for the trip too. OK, so it’s not exactly beauty or boudoir photography which is what I normally shoot!!!

 

Find out more about Jeanette’s boudoir photography over at Cocoon Photography and if you feel inspired by her personal challenge and would like to donate please nip over to her Just Giving page every penny counts and she only needs a few more pounds to reach her target…