Chalium Poppy: Mount Maestro

With a Welsh dragon tattooed over his heart, a love of swimming in winter and a husband who works in fashion, the mould was clearly broken when Chalium Poppy was born. Performing since he was four years old and all over the world, he’s arguably one of the most experienced classical musicians in the country.

WORDS JENNY RUDD PHOTOS SHAWN ROLTON

My voice broke at 12 and I thought my life had ended. I felt like a bad angel about to be cast out of heaven. When the time came for me to be dismissed from the choir, we had a big party. Every boy got one. We called it our puberty party. It was hard saying goodbye to the other boys and I cried for weeks.

My parents put me into a local school but that didn’t last long. I hated it and let everyone know. One week, my mother was called to the school every day. I don’t really want to say what I did but I was very naughty. I was ‘moved’ to another school.

I flourished there. They had a great music program led by talented teachers. They allowed me to play the organ in chapel for services now and then, and help conduct the choir. The chapel became my second home.

INTERNATIONAL STAR
One teacher sent a recording of my singing to a university in Austria. Someone came over to hear me sing live. In a few weeks I received an offer of a full scholarship to study music in Vienna. Although my father loved classical music, my parents absolutely did not support it as a career choice. Knowing they would have forbidden me to go, I ran away from home and have never been back since.

My seven years spent studying at the Academy in Vienna were amazing. I worked with tutors and academics who were leading authorities in their field of music, travelled, studied and performed in Italy, France, Germany and the Czech Republic.

My grandmother had been a contralto soloist of considerable talent, although her piano skills were terrible; a bit music hall-like. It was she who diagnosed my musical abilities and that of my two brothers early on. I had the voice of an angel, she was convinced. My brothers didn’t fare so well. She declared my elder brother tone-deaf and advised him never to sing in public.

At four years old, I auditioned successfully to become a choirboy at Oxford Cathedral, where my family lived in the UK. The training and education of choirboys is an ancient tradition. Our lives are centred around music-making in the context of worshipping God; education, both academic and physical, is really quite secondary to that. Oxford Cathedral is an exceptional place – much of Harry Potter was filmed in its beautiful halls and quads.

All 23 choirboys do absolutely everything together, and we were busy every minute of the day with a continuous round of rehearsals, services and studies. From the beginning, the principles of respect and kindness were instilled in us by the choirmaster. We followed his guidance above all others.

One year, Christopher Hogwood, the great conductor, brought his orchestra The Academy of Ancient Music to record Messiah while we sang. I didn’t appreciate his brilliance and knowledge at the time, I just kept thinking what cavernous nostrils he had.

TEA PARTY
Besides our vocal studies, we were all required to study an instrument. I chose the piano, having taken private lessons since I was five. My father woke me early one Saturday and took me to the cathedral. The organ was undergoing maintenance and repair – they had opened the enormous wind chest up and you could see all the pipes and mechanisms. We sat inside the wind chest having a sandwich and a cup of tea whilst my father explained how it worked. I decided to learn to play the organ too, even though my feet didn’t yet reach the pedals.

After completing my Masters (in Protestant Church Music), I moved to Canada and worked full time as a musician: organist and choirmaster in the cathedral, as well as singer, conductor, teacher, lecturer. I was often asked to conduct Gilbert & Sullivan operas. They thought that being English I was automatically an expert.

Although exciting professionally, this was also a very lonely time. I worked very hard. The life of performer was beginning to lose its lustre and appeal as I got older.

I am a creature of habit. On Sundays, after the morning services at the cathedral, I would walk to my favourite Irish pub for lunch and a pint or two of Guinness, and then return to the cathedral in the afternoon for Evensong. One Sunday, something happened that would change my life dramatically and for the better. I met Michael.

LOVE
There was a young chap sitting at the bar enjoying a drink and chatting casually with the barkeep. He had the most striking red hair and a wonderful smile. I was electrified. I summoned all my courage and asked him to join me for lunch. He was a New Zealander travelling through Canada on his o/e, an avid snowboarder exploring Canada’s world-famous slopes.

I wasn’t sure how he would respond to my chosen career path – being a church music specialist isn’t very glamorous. To my eternal surprise, he asked to come to Evensong in the cathedral that afternoon.

I fell deeply in love with Michael that day. Two weeks later I asked him to marry me. We have just celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. I couldn’t ask for a better, more loving and supportive partner in life.

As Michael was only in Canada on a holiday visa and I was estranged from my own family, we decided to move to Mount Maunganui. We arrived on the first day of winter 2009. I knew very little about the country.

We watched the sunrise over the water on the day we arrived. Surfers and swimmers were all heading towards the water. I thought to myself – if this is New Zealand on the first official day of winter, what a wonderful place to live!

MUSIC, FAMILY, NEW ZEALAND

Aside from performing and conducting locally, I’ve worked in Auckland, Gisborne, Napier, Whakatane, Kerikeri, Dunedin, Rotorua, Hamilton – all over the place.

In Canada, I performed primarily at a professional level. Here in New Zealand, there simply aren’t the choirs and orchestras to provide much work at that level. My objective is to make music at the very highest level that I can – whether I’m singing Messiah in a barn in Kerikeri or works of Bach in the Auckland Town Hall with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. What’s important for me as a musician is to have the same level of musical integrity no matter what the circumstances.

I’ve been put up in fantastic hotels in Auckland when I perform, or slept quite comfortably on a pull-out couch in someone’s living room. That is what makes the life of a musician in New Zealand different from anywhere else I’ve been.

When I’m not music-making, we usually like to spend our time close to home. We are both home bodies and foodies. Michael is an exceptional cook so we are rarely alone at dinner time. Just over a year ago, we adopted Paddington. He keeps us on our toes. If I have a gap in my schedule, we pack up and take Paddington on an adventure somewhere. Of course we live right at the beach, so I like to get into the water as much as I can – Paddington too.

Chalium is the Musical Director of Scholars Pro Musica, a Tauranga-based chamber choir of exceptional talent.

Peter Williams – King of New Zealand broadcasting

To stay in such a hotly contested industry for four decades, and be held in high regard by peers and the public, Peter Williams has weathered a few storms, stayed flexible, worked hard, and had a good laugh at his own expense from time to time.

WORDS JENNY RUDD PHOTOS QUINN O’CONNELL

“You can go on all you like about the journalism aspect of my job, but really it’s about performing.” The twinkly eyed guardian of living rooms over the last forty years is relaxing with Team UNO. over post-golf refreshment at Latitude in The Mount.

The performer in him clearly enjoys the reaction he gets from us as he spills all sorts of industry jokes. His smooth, clever delivery means we are playing catch-up as he moves from insider stories to smartly voiced political views.

BLOOPERS

“You need to learn pretty quickly from your mistakes, which is easy once you’ve been publicly embarrassed. Good interview questions should be short and to the point, with no opportunity for a yes or no answer.

“At a press conference for the Beach Boys in Christchurch in 1977 I broke the initial silence with ‘Do you think one of the reasons for the Beach Boys’ longevity as a group and staying together for so long-when so many other groups of your generation have broken up – is that you were all friends at high school, or because some of you are related, being brothers and a cousin; are those close relationships the major reason you are still playing more than fifteen years after you first started playing together in California all those years ago?’ Even as the words were coming out I wished I would stop. Anyway, Dennis Wilson replied, ‘Yes’.

“Forty years ago superstars such as The Beach Boys, Kenny Rogers and Elton John all held press conferences where non-entertainment journalists, such as myself, were let loose on them. That would never happen now. There was none of the tight control which exists today.”

EXOTIC FOREIGNER

“Halfway through my last year at school in Oamaru, I went to the States as an AFS foreign exchange student in upstate New York. The school had a radio club which had half an hour each week on the local radio station on Saturday mornings. I can’t imagine any of the big commercial stations today allowing a bunch of teenagers to chat away about whatever they want on primetime slots, but they did back then. I was asked to be interviewed on the basis I had a funny accent.

“They said I had a good voice and so invited me to join the radio club. That was my first taste of broadcasting, apart from the kids’ radio quiz competitions in Invercargill I often entered, and sometimes won!”

DUNEDIN RADIO

“On my return to New Zealand from the States, I had a few months to kill before going to university, so I walked into Radio Otago in Dunedin at the age of 18 and asked for a job. I had a half-decent school record, wasn’t bad at English, had sat ATCL speech exams (and failed!) and had some performing skills after being the lead in a few school plays. But I had never been to a tertiary institution, and still haven’t. They took a punt on me as a filing clerk in the copy and advertising department. I was in.

“By today’s standards, Radio Otago was a huge operation. It was called 4XO, and had a signal which barely took it out of Dunedin City. Whole radio networks were virtually unheard of then and network TV was only a couple of years old in 1972. There was a staff of over 30, including six or seven journalists producing news bulletins from 6am until midnight. Nowadays I doubt if there are six radio journalists in the whole of Otago and Southland.

“I liked the concept of telling stories on radio. The journalistic side interested me more than being a music DJ. I thought the career looked rosier, although my mate Brian Kelly did very well on that path.

“Because I had an interest in sport, I was given the opportunity to be a sports reporter. The Sports Editor left and I was given his job at the grand old age of 19 with a staff of just me. I was also the DJ on the midnight-to-dawn shift. What a life for a teenager.”

Any thoughts of a university education disappeared with a full-time job paying $38 a week. The rent on Peter’s flat was $6 a week. Good times.

There were big opportunities in what was then called the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (NZBC) and Peter passed the audition to become an announcer. This involved roving round the country at the NZBC’s whim to Masterton, Blenheim, Invercargill and Christchurch for about seven years. Then came the move to TV in 1979.

COMMERCIAL TV

“A background in radio was invaluable for my subsequent life in TV. You can do all the tertiary education courses you like, but there’s nothing like on-the-job, real-life training. That’s why I feel sorry for young people trying to get into the industry today. They spend thousands on tertiary courses of varying quality and aren’t guaranteed a job at the end of it; employers now won’t hire until the course has been completed.

“There’s no way an 18-year-old school leaver could get a job today the way I did – or the way Mike Hosking and Paul Henry did too. There aren’t too many university degrees amongst the old grunts of broadcasting.”

MONEY AND SPORTS

In the early years of Peter’s career, there was quite a bit of money to be made from advertisers by news broadcasters. Newspapers understood how to capitalise on the limited supply of advertising channels available and did well, making good money and financing well-documented jollies for journalists over the years. Television broadcasting didn’t fare so well, possibly not capitalising on the potential of their reach, and being state owned, having different drivers for success. As a result, there have always been big budget constraints in broadcasting.

His sports commentary roles required a great deal of verbal dexterity, as New Zealand TV changed in 1975 from a state-owned broadcasting behemoth to the snippy demands of a commercially driven enterprise.

“In the good old days, there was hardly any advertising at all during sports matches and none at all on Sundays. We could commentate without the worry of any commercial breaks. The duration of half time in rugby matches didn’t matter much at all.

“In the 80s, their duration became very important. We used to have some huge fights with the Rugby Union to try and get them to make half time last five minutes so we could squeeze in a four-minute commercial break. Often, by the time we were back on air, a couple of minutes had already been played with game-changing tries already scored. When we complained, the officials said the players didn’t want to get cold.!

POLITICAL APATHY

Having been exposed to the biggest newsworthy stories of the last half century, Peter has developed an understanding of what the public deems news.

“Above all, it has to be interesting, and it has to be told in an interesting way. Crime has been a staple of news-reporting ever since news-reporting was invented through distributed pamphlets in the 18th century. At times I think there is too much crime-reporting, and there’s definitely a type of crime which is more fascinating than others.

“More interest is shown if the victim is white and middle class: even more so when both the victim and the perpetrator come from the same demographic, and that interest is shown by the vast majority of us who don’t commit that level of crime. For instance, the death of a female jogger in Remuera in January sent a real shiver around the country.

“Yet the biggest scandals in our community, domestic violence and child abuse, are becoming so common that very little of it is reported. It’s almost as if we’re inured or desensitised to it. That is truly sad.

“There is still considerable reporting of political matters; not so much about parliamentary matters, more about the political personalities who are an integral part of TV news.

“It’s become obvious that the community’s political engagement is reducing, almost year on year. Election turnouts illustrate the apathy perfectly, particularly at local government level. It’s actually a sad reflection on us as a nation. I always make the effort to vote, even for the District Health Board. If I don’t vote, then I have no right to complain about politicians’ decisions.

“The reduction in the community’s political engagement has led to a change in the way politics is reported; there’s little reporting and analysis about policy and the actual laws our parliament passes. But there’s plenty of reporting done about the personalities who make those laws, and of the consequences of those policies and laws.

“The most attention-grabbing news is about conflict and argument. Whether it’s war, politics, sport or community issues, the news industry just loves conflict, and the more the better. If it bleeds, it leads.”

SPOTLIGHT

Peter’s broadcasting career is littered with glittery accomplishments: seven times presenter of the Olympic Games and the Winter Olympics in Nagano; six times Commonwealth Games presenter; commentator of all New Zealand’s home international cricket matches in the eighties, including New Zealand’s famous win over the West Indies in 1980 and the nail-biting test win over Pakistan in 1985; newsreader on some of the biggest news stories in New Zealand’s history, including the devastating Pike River disaster in 2010 and the uplifting Rugby World Cup Victory last year. However his upcoming appointment is one he is immeasurably proud of.

“I will be presenting Mastermind, which is back on TV One this year for the first time since 1990.” The show was immensely popular in New Zealand during the 1970s and 1980s but was dropped when TV became a big commercial animal with profit its major motive in the 1990s. High brow quiz shows didn’t meet the philosophy of the time, despite its apparent commercial potential.

“Excitingly, it’s been brought back based on its enduring popularity on the BBC and I’m privileged to get the big job up front. It’ll be broadcast on Sunday nights, starting in May, and we’ll start recording the heats at Easter. I’m really looking forward to it as it’s a considerable departure from my regular job, but still a high-quality show designed to be hugely entertaining and informative at the same time.

“There’s no big cash prize. The series winner gets…the Mastermind Chair! I’m following in the footsteps of one of New Zealand’s greatest broadcasting legends, Peter Sinclair; pretty big boots to fill.” There’s little question he’s up to it.

It is clear, talking to Peter Williams, just how much his vast experience has shaped him. There’s no hiding place in a lifetime in the public eye, and ear; self-critical honesty coupled with a wry humour has served him well. It is equally clear his shrewd eye for spotting what will catch his listeners’ interest has given him an informed and colourful view on the world. Peter is an icon of our country.

“New Zealand were playing South Korea in a Davis Cup tie and I was tasked with interviewing a member of the South Korean media who was covering the tie to find out a little about tennis over there. I went up to the press box, saw a foreign-looking gentleman, and very politely, and very slowly, introduced myself.

‘Hello,…Peter…Williams,…Radio…New…Zealand…Sport….Pleased…to…meet…you.”

The guy smiled and said, in a strong Kiwi accent, ‘Oh hi Peter. I’m Eddie Kwok from the New Zealand Herald’.”

“At the end of a day’s play in a cricket test, we were filling in a few minutes until it was time to go off-air. I was interviewing an Australian batsman called Graeme Wood who, that day, had made a really good test century but had been dismissed just before stumps, playing a pretty bad shot, leaving his team in a very precarious position. So I asked him a deliberately insulting question,

‘Did you feel irresponsible for getting out?’

“He muttered and stumbled his way through an answer to my appalling question and no doubt went away frustrated. Later that night I was having dinner at an up-market Auckland restaurant with a young lady who was not my wife and I was handed a note.

Dear Mr Williams, it read, I hope you are not going to be irresponsible tonight. Signed Graeme Wood.”

Analogue Baby

3ZB Christchurch

One day I hosted the breakfast show on 3ZB while running from Cathedral Square in Christchurch to New Brighton, the route of the annual City-to-Surf run. It was 14km and my show was on from 6 am until 9 am so it was a pretty slow run! I talked along the whole route, between music and news bulletins. That was the day before the actual run, to drum up some publicity. The next day I ran it for real in 75 minutes.

2ZD Masterton Breakfast OB

I was working as an announcer on the local radio station – call sign 2ZD. There was none of this fancy branding like Coast or The Hits or Newstalk in those days.  An ice-show called something like Ice Follies toured the country in 1974, stopping in almost every provincial town. No doubt they came to Tauranga too. It was quite a big deal to have a sophisticated ice-show come to town. They put down a rink on the stage of the Regent Theatre in Masterton and performed for a couple of nights.

We broadcast the entire breakfast show from the theatre. It seems extraordinary now but it looks like we took turntables with us to play records from the venue! We interviewed some of the performers and invited members of the public to come down to watch the glamour of recording a real live radio show and to see rehearsals. I note the date was March 6th 1974. That was the day of my 20th birthday. They let us loose on the airwaves young in those days. It was also the day I would have become legally allowed to drink alcohol.

4ZA Invercargill

The group the Hues Corporation was an American soul group from the 1970s. They had huge hits with Rock the Boat and Freedom for the Stallion.

Invercargill was a long way from home to be promoting your hit record.

Teenage Entrepreneurs of Tauranga: an artist, a Youtuber, a knife sharpener, and a photographer

Each of the teenagers featured in this article is self-employed, earns money using their own skills, manages their own income, and in some cases, earn more than many adults.

WORDS JENNY RUDD PHOTOS QUINN O’CONNELL

If Hope, Jared, Tom and Rose are anything to go by, the future of our country looks as rosy as their youthful cheeks. Gone are the days when teenagers wanted to get qualified and get out, looking to the big smoke and high-flying executive jobs. This new generation of entrepreneurs have clearly learned plenty from their parents, many of whom moved here when their children were young, and helped the Bay of Plenty achieve its current status as the highest-performing area in the Regional Economic Scoreboard.

HOPE MCCONNELL, ARTIST, 19

“My earliest memory is my bedroom in Hamilton; my mum had painted the galaxy all over the walls and ceiling. She used to be a professional artist, and has always encouraged me. I have a very close relationship with my mum.

“Much of my work is painting commissioned portraits. People often buy them as gifts and I get lots of work through my Facebook Page. I am working with watercolours at the moment, but use lots of different mediums to get the look a client wants.”

Most of Hope’s portraits are on A4-sized paper. Her work rate is exemplary. Every time I visited her she had fresh work up in her work space. There is an ordered uniformity to the presentation of her work and her range of skill is incredible, I thought some of the work she showed me belonged to other artists, they were so varied.

“As well as the portraits I have two other ventures on the go; a website which should go live in April – it’s called TwoBrokeDesigners – and will feature young designers on the blog and insights into student-design life. We’ll sell prints and artwork on there by little-known artists and designers.

“The other project is designing a range of t-shirts. My parents have fostered in us a desire to strive for excellence and help others. We have a family rule to set goals to raise money for different charities that we all choose together. The proceeds from the t-shirts will go to young girls trapped in sex slavery.”

At the age of ten, Hope moved to Tauranga with her brother, sister and parents. “I was close to my textiles teacher who encouraged me to enter the Young Designer Awards. I made a rainbow dress and was placed second, so was invited to fly to Christchurch with my mum. We stayed in a hotel together, went on tours and rode trams. It was incredibly glamorous and adventurous for a ten-year-old from the Waikato.”

Hope’s work ethic is enough to make me slightly embarrassed about my own. At 13, she entered a fashion-stylist competition in Girlfriend magazine. “We had to send in a mood board of our fashion ideas as the entry. I was selected as one of four finalists round the country and was given Bayfair vouchers to spend each month and compile different looks. Because I was so young, my mum took me to Bayfair and helped me photograph the looks for the magazine.

“I was selected as the competition winner by Girlfriend readers. It was one of the most exciting achievements in my childhood and the team at Girlfriend were really supportive, offering me opportunities in styling. I wasn’t old enough then to decide on what I wanted to do, but I know now how to forge a creative career for myself, and I’m loving every bit of it.”

facebook.com/HopeMcConnellArtandDesign

JARED SHAW, YOUTUBE BROADCASTER, 17

Jared has two YouTube channels: The Big 10 and The Gamer’s Joint. From his home in Papamoa he shares with his mum and step-father, these two channels have been watched 46 million times. Yes, 46 million. I bet you’ve stopped reading and reached for your phone to check him out.

The Big 10 features list videos, the most popular being ten extremely strange body modifications which has attracted seven million views (only watch that one if you have a fairly solid constitution). His real passion, and the channel he has spent most time developing is The Gamer’s Joint, which is devoted almost entirely to the study of one video game: Kingdom Hearts.

“When I started my channel in 2010, there were a few others around reviewing Kingdom Hearts, but none were particularly big. For the first few years, uploading videos on my channel was just a hobby but by 2014, it really started to kick off and my subscriber base was growing steadily.

The Gamer’s Joint’s popularity is down to two things: consistency (Jared works 10am to 8pm every weekday and uploads two videos per day to The Gamers Joint), and personality.

“There’s lots of planning involved with each video, and I usually do it a day or two in advance: I mix things up with a couple of comedy skits, live streaming, analysis, reviews and revealing hidden info inside the game. I’m known for losing my shit and raging at the game. Each video needs to be planned, researched, the script written and recorded, then edited and uploaded.

“Just before I started to do this full time, I went to a gamer’s convention in Boston where I chatted to different networks and channel owners. It is possible to self-monetise your channel, but there are bigger benefits in signing up with a network; you earn money each time a video is watched, and networks have lots of information and help on how to increase your number of views and can help with copyright issues.

“I already had a contract with TGN before the convention, but they offered me a better deal and I became one of their VIP channels. My income increased immediately and on my return, I decided I wanted to leave school to concentrate solely on my YouTube channels.

“I had to pitch it to my mum – it’s not easy trying to convince your mum that leaving school to play video games professionally is a good idea, but I have my NCLA Level 2 already, so if it didn’t work out, I could still go to university. I think she was surprised when I showed her how much I was earning from YouTube. I treat it as a business – I have an accountant, as I’m paid in US dollars, and I want to make sure all my tax is in order and that I’m saving.”

The success of Jared’s gaming channel has far exceeded any of his peers who also review Kingdom Hearts. He has about 125,000 subscribers, which puts him in the top rankings of gaming channels in New Zealand.

“It’s hard to know what you want to do at our age, we are often asked what we’ll do in the future, but how can you make a decision with no insight? I’m extremely lucky to love my job so much at my age. It doesn’t feel like a job at all, it just feels like fun.”

youtube.com/user/thegamersjoint

TOM HOFFART, KNIFE-SHARPENER AND TOOL REFURBISHER, 13

Learning a trade seems old school in a digital world, and Tom’s trade dates back to, well, about two and a half million years. “I have always loved knives. I got my first when I was three from a family friend. That same friend gave me a machete when I turned nine. Each time I got a knife, I got a box of plasters.”

Tom offers a knife-sharpening service with delivery. “If a client lives close by, I’ll cycle to their house to pick up and deliver their knives or tools. If it’s any further, we arrange a central point in town to meet.”

“I started my business because I’ve always loved making and refurbishing old tools and knives, and I have an excellent workshop at home with equipment I have bought and been kindly given by my uncle in Matamata. He and my grandfather taught me some good knife sharpening skills too.

“At the moment I am reinvesting most of the money back into the business to buy better equipment. My Facebook page and newly purchased cell phone have significantly increased my customer base and workload.

“I keep a ledger to record my income and expenses, and have spoken to the tax office – there are some generous tax brackets for school pupils. I love my work – I have never seen myself working in an office when I’m older.”

“A few months ago I went to buy a knife I’ve had my eye on for a while. My mum said ‘Why do you need another knife? You already have so many.’ I replied, ‘I could ask you the same question about shoes’.”

facebook.com/NeighbourhoodKnifeGuy

ROSE MCMAHON, 15, PHOTOGRAPHER

There is no doubt that Rose’s homeschooling has been a huge contributor to her incredible success as a professional photographer.

“I got into photography about three years ago. A family friend lent me her camera for the winter, while the wedding season was quiet. When the time came to return it, I asked her how much it cost so I could get one myself. $5,000. I thought my world would end. I cried myself to sleep.

“I thought, ‘I’m not having this,’ and looked around online until I found something similar second hand. It was still way out of a 12 year old’s reach, so I rang the seller. He was a professional photographer who’d started at eight years old. He gave me a discount, so I gathered all my Christmas and birthday money, both past and future, and bought it.

“At the beginning, I offered to take photos for free. I did the Zespri Head Office Christmas party, which led to paid work; I have photographed weddings and portraits for people at the party. I have now shot in every major wedding venue in the Bay of Plenty.”

As well as using her own initiative and hard work to learn her craft, including building a website, marketing her work and managing her administration, she has sought out guidance from other well established photographers.

“A couple of years ago, I found it very difficult taking pictures of people as I didn’t have enough confidence telling groups of adults what to do. Maree Wilkinson, one of the Bay’s top wedding photographers, took me with her on photo shoots and showed me how to get over that stumbling block.

“It’s useful being young when running your own business. You have much less fear than adults. I don’t worry so much about things going wrong, I just work out how to fix them myself. And because I’m homeschooled I can spend lots of time practising and improving.

Rose is in hot demand and is well-respected by her peers; our photographer for this shoot, Quinn O’Connell, borrowed one of her lenses and talked shop with her throughout. The girl can certainly hold her own. And she is ambitious.

“The biggest job I’ve had so far is a stills photographer on a movie, recording what’s going on behind the scenes. In fact, I’ve just been approached to do the same job on another movie. I’d like to get into directing movies so it’s been a great opportunity.

“Although there are lots of perks to being a teenager in an adult industry – people are extremely generous-spirited towards me – there are downsides too. I have to pay someone to drive me to my jobs until I’m old enough to legally drive.”

rosemcmahon.com