I have to say that when I first laid eyes on her, she did bring a tear to my eye and there were shrieks of excitement. So much so, that the lovely workers at Australia Post looked on an giggled as I did my little happy dance.

I of course had to take some photos of it, so I set up an impromptu studio in my living room and shot a couple photos of the Hassie and here they are.

And one shot taken with her. My first shot and light metered through the fine art of guesstimation, so please excuse it’s badness.

It’s the view from our balcony onto the alley behind the apartment, I was literally too excited to even go out to a location to shoot.

There will be lots more photos up soon as I’m fairly certain the hassie won’t be leaving my side for many weeks to come.

This is my first year as an Emerging Member of the AIPP (Australia Institute of Professional Photography) and meeting so many wonderful people and seeing the fantastic quality of work produced from all around Australia was just incredible. There really are an awful lot of talented people here.

I missed the scoring of my print and was just running into the judging area as it was turning around. I had to ask 4 people before one of them told me it got a Silver Award and here it is.

To say I’m excited is probably a bit of an understatement and I can’t wait to see what next year brings.

Tomorrow I turn 27 and I start another chapter of my life. It’s a chapter that’s starting rather appropriately with a journey to Melbourne and seeing the Australian Professional Photography Awards and meeting a great bunch of photographers that I’ve been talking to, but never met.

I really can’t wait for my birthday to see what the next year brings, I’m sure it’ll be quite the adventure.

I leave you with a pic from around the time of my first birthday and rather appropriately my first passport photo, oh how things have changed.

It was fun to go back to our sort of first date place and hang out, though I have to say that those characters on the course look a lot less creepy at night when you can’t see their freakish smiles and poses properly.

And really, what better way to spend Valentine’s Day than eating and playing?

Hope you all had an awesome Valentine’s Day too and I leave you with this photo of Nick and I playing with sparklers. My attempt should be labeled more of a failure really, the heart looks more like a jellybean than anything else.

What I realised was that the only way could answer the question of what inspires me without answering “everything!” is to tell you all that I love stories. Stories have a way of weaving themselves into your being. Everyone has a story; whether it is good, bad, funny, indifferent, filled with silliness; everyone has a story. My job as a photographer is to capture that story, and I am grateful for it every day. Sometimes I get to create my own story and other times I get to be a part of other people’s; to document intimate moments that are only really shared with closest family and friends. To be let into other people’s lives and their stories and see them unfold, really, how could you not be inspired?

I’m thankful for being able to share in people’s stories and to document them. It really is an awesome job.

The model was the lovely Amy Lyn Cage who I worked with on what was my first solo fashion shoot and it was lovely collaborating with her again. The stylist was Jess Bellef, who from the very first time I spoke to her was so enthusiastic and created these amazing looks, including making a headpiece for Amy and the hair stylist was Milli Jaksic, who created a look for Amy that was absolutely perfect ‘do and looked flawless the entire day.

I took my instax so I could get a photo of everyone involved and add them to the ever increasing wall of photos we have at home.

I’m still going through all of the photos from yesterday, but I just had to share my favourite from the day.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

The dusk also brings with it the beginning of the night and a majority of my work day. I’m a definite night-owl, I swear it’s genetic. I’m much more productive when I don’t have emails and phone calls and the beautiful day that I want to be out enjoying distracting me.

However, there is one problem with taking photos after dusk is that you need to take a tripod with you, or in my case that little connector bit that you use to attach said tripod to your camera. I remembered both the camera and the tripod, but not that little connector bit.

With a little bit of leaning, and a little bit of slow breathing, I think I still did pretty alright.

Anyone else have a favourite time of day?