Last week I got Ty Dolla $ign all to myself, in his hotel bed for a grand total of about 8 minutes. No, not like that - it was a photoshoot and it was organised by my best new mate Hayley Louisa Brown. Not to brag, but she can list basically every rapper that’s spat a verse since 1980 and has shot everyone from A$AP Rocky to Schoolboy Q. If I didn’t like her so much, I would hate her. And if I’m completely honest, once upon a time, I did. I used to hate her so much that I wanted to claw the pretty little ‘Monroe’ piercing out of her face and then kick her hard.
You see, I first came upon Hayley one evening about a year ago, when I was casually browsing some fit rappers on google. I am no Hip Hop aficionado but I am extremely knowledgeable in what is sexy for a photograph and, at that time, I was heavily into rappers. When I first clicked on her website, it was like falling into my own mind. There, for all the world to see, were all of my creative dreams and desires! This girl had stolen them all from my brain and made them into a reality.
My heart literally fell into my arse and I did a hysterical sob. I had suddenly realised that I was nothing. Less than nothing. She had shot everyone on my to-do list! She’d probably even TOUCHED them all. Life had never been so unfair. As I delved further and further into her website, eyeballing her clients (so many clients!) and editorials (so many editorials!) my career as a one-woman-rapper-shooting machine shrivelled before my eyes like a penis in a bucket of ice water.
Naturally I wasn’t about to lie down and let some pesky biatch steal my life from me, so I quickly gathered myself and did what I do best. I stalked her, HARD, on all social media. Conclusions: 1) A few too many ‘mutual’ friends for my liking, 2) A little bit too gorgeously flawlessly interesting for my liking, 3) Thinner than me. It was war. I vehemently badmouthed her to very powerful industry insiders (all my friends), made a digital attack (followed her on instagram), and took a mental picture (screengrab) in case I ever had the opportunity to trip her at a fashion party.
Skip forward six months and somehow this girl was all up in my life and it seemed like everyone I knew kept saying her names (she has three). She was lecturing students at my old university. She was working with clients that I had wanted to work with. She had been photographing my MUSE. Sacrilege! Did she not understand the sacred code of photographers? Worst of all, he had subsequently told me that I should really meet her because she was nice. NICE!? Pah! And then, when we finally met physically, at my photographic lab…
AND SHE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHO I WAS!!!
Our humiliating first chat went something like - Me: 'Nice to meet you! Oh I know exactly who you are, you’ve worked with lots of my friends and I’ve seen you on instagram and I know all of your pictures.' Her: Staring blankly, but politely at me, looking all immaculate with shiny silver trainers on her tiny feet, whilst I rocked a natty dreadlock, a grubby tracksuit, a no make up selfie and a birkenstock.
The first comment Hayley ever made on my instagram profile was just after that meeting: “i just put 2 and 2 together that it’s you! Haha! Hello! X” which she posted on a particularly ravishing selfie of me. I took this as her first public attack, not only on my notoriety, but also my beauty. My translation: “Haha! Wouldn’t have recognised you without your make-up! In fact, no one would recognise you anyway because NO ONE KNOWS WHO YOU ARE X”.
Please note the lack of “x” in my response. #throwingshade
A few weeks later and I got an email from Hayley. She wanted me to shoot a rapper for a magazine she was making. She came across as nice, but we all know that people can be snakey, so I tentatively agreed to a meeting and puffed out my chest knowing that she wanted me. Damn straight she wants me!
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I don’t know whether it was the barista telling us that we should grab life by the c*nt when we ordered our coffee at that meeting (true story, she thought that women shouldn’t say balls and we agreed. Yay, feminism!) or the fact that there was nothing snakey about Hayley at all, but after a good old chinwag about how we both sometimes feel like we’re making it up as we go along and how we both have no idea why anyone ever hires us, I got the desperate urge to confess to her that I had cried when I first saw her website.
Thankfully for me (because, really, that could have worked out SO badly) her response was to do a massive lol, followed by a shocked face, followed by a stream of 'Oh My God, I did exactly the same thing when I saw your work!... I used to see your prints at Labyrinth (our photographic lab) and slyly ask whose they were even though I always knew they were yours… I went home and told my boyfriend about how much I hated you!!' - which we rounded off with a few 'Your work is better!' - 'No, YOUR work is better!'s.
Hayley, if you’re reading this, I knew I was in love with you right there and then in that cafe, even though we only admitted it (with sparkly heart emojis) a month or so later. Only my kind of person would admit to having hated me too. Turns out, we're almost the same person - except she does running and health food and I do driving and fast food - but that aside, we both feel pretty silly for not having joined forces sooner.
Luckily, we soon realised that together, we are twice as powerful. We have twice the reach, twice the contacts, twice the equipment and most importantly, a fellow woman to bounce ideas off, share the woes of the industry with and to make mistakes in front of without having to feel like a failure.
I suppose I should have known sooner that we were going to get on, she’s a sassy successful business woman who is about to publish the first issue of her brand new bi-annual Hip Hop magazine ‘BRICK’. Sassy Dancing Girl Emoji But best of all, she’s grabbing life by the c*nt, and I respect that. Sometimes the green eyed monster rears it’s ugly head and interferes with the sisterhood. It’s times like that when we need a gentle reminder not to pitch ourselves against each other because with a little trust, a little humility and a lot of sexy, me and Hayley have plans to rule the world.
Watch this space.
**Like this? You might also be interested in: **
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Follow Olivia Rose on instagram: @oliviarosegarden (oliviarosephotography.co.uk)
Follow Hayley Louisa Brown on instagram: @hayleylouisabrown (hayleylouisabrown.co.uk)
Picture: Lukasz Wierzbowski
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.