Here’s what I’ve been up to with my camera. Enjoy!
We love a road trip. This year we headed down to the Blue Mountains for a couple of weeks of rest and relaxation. First stop was Yamba, then the Hunter Valley, followed by Mt Tomah, Hampton and finally Wentworth Falls. There were lots of opportunities for landscape photography, here’s a selection from my collection.
It was my second year of attending the CameraPro Festival - they put on such a great day. I went to talks on food, travel and wedding photography, and finished up my day with a wildlife shoot. Top marks to CameraPro for the talks, entertainment and food.
I love netball. I love playing it. I love watching it. We had a real treat on the weekend with Suncorp Super Netball’s preseason tournament being held in Brisbane at the shiny new Queensland State Netball Centre. The competition’s eight teams came together for the first time to vie for the #teamgirlscup.
With quite a few player changes since last season it was the first time we had the chance to see players in new colours and how new combinations would come together. My beloved Firebirds took the opportunity to trial a bunch of combinations - I’m excited about who will be in the starting seven come April.
Magpies Netball claimed the cup, but netball was the real winner.
Congrats to my mate Lucy Benjamin who commentated four games over the weekend, rubbing shoulders with netball royalty - she was awesome!
2Ballerinas is a dance school for adults filled with experienced dancers, people who are getting back into dance after and extended break and beginners (just like me!). I started tap dancing in mid 2018 - I’ve never tapped before, it was always just something I’d wanted to do. I’m not the most graceful of dancers, to be honest I like stamping and stomping the best, but I’ve been welcomed into this dance community with open arms.
I had a great time taking photos for the school’s new website. I went along to Tango, Stretch, Fit Barre, Jazz, Repertoire and Tap to capture what goes on in each of these classes.
If you’ve always wanted to dance, or start dancing again, it’s not too late!
We walked down to Hickey Park on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon to watch the Brisbane Lions played the Melbourne Demons in the AFLW. I was blown away by the athleticism and how tough these women are. I’m not sure I could get up from the hits they were taking. While the Lions didn’t come out on top, it was a great afternoon for everyone who came out to cheer them on.
Urban Bliss is known around Brisbane for running yoga classes in pretty amazing places. I’ve done yoga at Boggo Road Jail and for the second time I did a yoga class on Shorncliffe Pier. The yoga was amazing, but all I really wanted to do was photograph the event.
Zac had a fabulous Harry Potter themed birthday party to celebrate turning seven. There were potions, wands, a Quidditch pitch, pin the noise on Voldermort, a Dementor pinata and even sorting cupcakes with different coloured centres for each house. It was fun for all. I hope he said a massive thank you to his mum and dad for all their effort.
Two birthdays for the price of one. The main event was Maria’s 60th birthday, which she celebrated surrounded by her family and friends. Multiply the love you see in these photos by about 1,000 and you’ll have an idea of just how much everyone loves Maria. Little Issy’s 4th birthday also happened to fall on the day of the party so we celebrated that too!
I started tap dancing in 2018 for the first time in my life. It’s amazing - I am not (yet). But I’m loving the community that I’ve joined at 2Ballerinas and the passion that this community shows for dance. My class unfortunately didn’t do a dance in the Christmas concert this year, but that gave me the opportunity instead to photograph all the dancers. It was an afternoon of pure joy seeing people who would otherwise have given up dancing long ago dance their hearts out.
I got together with some Canon Collective buddies to shoot some content for our Getty Images portfolios. Check mine out here.
Excellent shoot with great models. Thanks to Greg from Canon and Petra from Getty for making it happen.
I’m not normally one to hang out in power lifting gyms, but when a friend asks me to support her community as they raised money for Livin’, I’ll hang out wherever I’m needed. It was an inspiring afternoon watching dead-lift offs between equally matched pairs. The more weight that was lifted, the more money was raised. The lifters also make it clear that it #ain’t weak to speak and we should all have the strength and courage to speak about mental illness. Kinda makes me want to pick up something heavy….
I had a great time photographing Sinead’s 21st birthday party. I’ve known Sinead and her family for a number of years, which made documenting this event even more special. Sinead is a capable, confident woman - watch out world!
Every year we go to Netfest and play beach netball. It is such a fun weekend with my netty friends. After some social media campaigning, we got to play the ‘celebrity match’ against Firebirds, Lighting and our Aussie Diamon idols. While the celebrity team pipped us at the post, we came out on top in the Div 1 ladies comp.
I took photographs for Mums Who Wine at their Brisbane pop-up event. While well established in Victoria, founder Lauren was testing the waters to see if Brisbane mums were ready to ‘fill their cup’ and take time for themselves. The answer was a resounding yes with more than 160 mothers coming together at XCargo in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley for a night of self care while raising money for PANDA (Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia).
#selfcaresaves
I volunteered for Brisbane Festival this year. I had a range of ‘job’s during the festival, but by far the best one was taking photos of a car on a bridge during the fireworks. The Goodwill Bridge is off limits to most on RiverFire night, but I was lucky enough to score prime position for the fireworks and the EA-18G Growler fly over. Once the evening’s storm had blown over, I set up on the bridge to watch the sun go down. I managed to take 1,150 photos of the car in the few hours I was on the bridge. I also nearly dropped my camera when the Growler flew over - it was so, so loud! Massive thanks to Zac from the Brisbane Festival team for giving me such a cool gig.
What a bloomin’ fantastic event the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers is. The effort that goes into the gardens is mind blowing. It was my first time up the range to the Carnival, but it won’t be my last.
I went along to the Earth Frequency Festival as part of a Canon Collective event one stormy afternoon. I had a great time capturing all the characters of the festival as the sun went down.
