I bumped into a client from a few years ago and she said she thought I might have died. Well, oops, I didn’t die, but true, I haven't posted anything publicly since Oct 2024. I’ve been quiet. I disappeared online for a minute, and slowed down IRL with how much work I was taking on.
And yes, I say I’ve been quiet, but not much is “quiet” in my home with a 6, 4 and 2 year old. Most of my creative energy flowed into mothering and home making, of which we got a new one this past year 🏡 Sharing the film work I was doing totally fell off the pile.
With the slowing of pace, the school year returning and the littlest settling into her new routine I have been clawing back space in my brain and in my days for creating again. For you. For me. Nurturing my first baby, this film studio that has helped sustain my fam through so many stages of our life.
Once again, returning to self. A new self, of course, as each time we become a new mother or experience a great loss we morph 🦋 . It feels like I'm welcoming myself home, back to my camera and computer and mind. I even refreshed my website. ✨
Also, this film was made in another lifetime for @winterwares , but I haven’t been on instagram for so long I had to google how to do a post because I couldn’t figure it out 🤣 am I getting old!?
The sweetest ever BTS on my #Super8 which is bringing me so much joy right now 🫶🏼
Work days are rare at the moment as I am focusing on mothering while Shane's got Mon-Fri work, so I'm quite fussy with who I am willing to shoot with and for. More than ever my shoots are taking me away from family time, so more than ever they need to give me life (and ideally be lovely breaths of fresh air away from my babies and man). Needless to say, shooting @printebebe 's latest collection with @deekawai from @kawaheartstudio with @munro_does_photos is basically my idea of heaven. Does it even count as work if you enjoy it this much? ✨
Check out the @printebebe website for the new collection film 💕
My heart is deep in motherhood land right now, but my head often spends the fourth trimester dreaming up and calling in the work I hope to do when I re-emerge. I have always found this time spacious for processing the past couple years of work and pondering where to next. Sometimes it's disheartening to sit, bound to the breastfeeding chair with babe in arms wondering if I'll ever pick up my camera again. And then I remember, I always do. When I'm ready, when my baby is ready, and when clients are ready for me. All in good time ✨ Right now I'm feeling more than ever drawn to the creators, the artists, and the makers. To be back with beautiful creative people like @florawaycott 🌱🌼
I've also been dreaming of putting together some notes with tips and resources that I've found helpful to navigating the creative life and matrescense, from cycle tracking and the conscious conception of life to the back to work juggle as a newborn mother. I wonder if it would be of interest to anyone? They are simply notes on my phone...I wonder if they'll ever take flight? 🍃
I'm 35 today. It feels big, like maybe I should get a notebook and write some life goals or intentions kinda big. And yet today was the simplest kind of lovely, most ordinary day. There was nothing monumental about it at all. Which is actually completely in line with the kind of goals and intentions I imagine I'd write if I was to write some. Do less. Enjoy more. Etc.
Today was just that; less and more. Spent the morning down by the river. Watched children and dolphins play. Leftovers for lunch. Potter. Play. Nap. Slow cooked dinner, eaten outside picnic style. Roasted marshmallows over the fire. Tickled tummies of sleepy stargazing children. Heart swollen from thankfulness of three beautiful boys singing me a birthday song, little sleeping sister in my arms.
Perhaps soon we'll come up with some fancy words, write down our family values and set some intentions. Perhaps. But in the mean time, we'll simply try to keep finding ourselves in the wonderfully ordinary days that afford us time together, the most precious gift this new mama of three could wish for.
📷 @tanyagrayphotography
I had hoped today would be my last work day and Christmas would coincide with my mat leave. Once again, for the third time, I was overly optimistic. It's more like a month left of edits on my desk, but I've got two (I hope!) before our sweet girl is supposed to land earthside.
I'm ending the year a little tired and slow, like low-iron-pregnancy-tired-cosleeping-with-my-two-year-old-tired-there’s-a-genocide-happening tired. You know? But I am really looking forward to finding out what our new rhythm next year will feel like, with more school for my big guy, and my first babe to arrive with a fifo dad, and of course those newborn hazey daze at the end of summer instead of winter like I’m used to. I’m curious whether we can slow to a manageable and even enjoyable point amidst the “chaos” of three little children. I do hope so.
This year more than others it feels important to cling to hope at Christmas time. Hope of a ceasefire, hope of peace and light coming into the world. It feels important to find joy in the immeasurable blessings we have right in front of us, the children we hold in our arms and the friends and family we will embrace and share a meal with over the festive season.
I hope the year wraps up beautifully for you, surrounded by the people you love. Thanks for being here on this fairly uneventful instagram page of mine, but more importantly for supporting my work and my family through another year. Love a peace to you all x
Third babies seem to be such wildcards. Their arrival that is, seemingly swift in the last moment and yet often prolonged in preparation. Mama's body knowing the drill by now but still needing to coordinate in an intricate dance routine with a brand new babe who hasn't yet done the tango. So while we're on the topic of third babies (thanks for all the love on my last post 🥰) I have something so special to share with you all.
One of my life's greatest joys has been creating our family alongside our dear friends @kaitlyn.kuld and Mati @kuld_creamery . Somehow we've managed to conceive opposite genders within a few months of each other every time. Sharing six pregnancies and 5 births so far between us has been absolutely magical. We get to share in the extreme highs and lows of parenting from trying to conceive right through to our relationships with our relentless-question-asking four year olds.
Kaitlyn's one of those eternally optimistic bright side of life kinda girls, meaning that in birth she's usually sure it's not hard enough or the surges not strong enough yet and "surely there's hours left" literal minutes before her babies head is crowning. It's why I missed her first birth - before she knew it Heiki was earthside without a birth support person in sight. Thankfully Mati is the yin to her yang and I could rely on him to call me and the midwife in time for the next two. I joined them for the last hour of labour and birth of this precious little soul.
Continued in comments x
I feel so lucky to have such beautiful news to share. I've been totally giddy with excitement some days, it all feels too good to be true. As our family forms and these sweet souls come to join us I'm blown away by who they are and what they're teaching us. Somehow it feels like she has always been a part of our story, we longed for her so. I absolutely adore feeling her squirm and kick around inside me and the boys have loved on her endlessly since she was only a small clump of cells.
So for the third time now I'll hit the pause button my business to prepare for her arrival, and as usual I'll be wrapping up with a bang 😅 it's been a super busy end to the year which is never a real surprise as the silly season approaches, so I'm hoping that the new year brings a bit of rest before our babe arrives later in Feb.
My plan is to take off the first half of next year, and this year is already fully booked so all new enquiries will be looking at July 2024 dates onwards. I do wish I could duplicate myself in these circumstances but there are so many wonderful folk out there filming and photographing brands while I'm away and in a flash I'll be back behind the camera.
Also, big love to my faithful clients who are now preparing with me for babe number 3, having stuck with me through my mat leaves and been so easygoing when I return to them sometimes with a nursing babe in tow. My little growing family are forever grateful to you for your ongoing support! 🥰
Before Shane started working fifo we alternated workdays to get three days each of work per week. It felt like we were living the dream, and we really were, other than consistently making enough money to make ends meet...
He's just completed one year of fifo this week, and he's been working a two week on/two week off roster. It's been super hard for both of us - him missing us so badly and me coping with two kids solo and all the things like parenting solo with gastro, Mr. 4 starting kindy, and many many long sleepless nights. Two weeks is a long time.
The boys are always growing and changing so I wouldn't necessarily say they've "adjusted". Each swing they comprehend and handle differently. Each goodbye is hard and takes us some time to settle into.
He's about to move to a week on/week off roster. While I've actually really enjoyed having two weeks straight dedicated to my work when he's home (and of course two blissful weeks of him being home!) we're excited to try something new. Perhaps it'll be good?
I don't know if this phase of our life has an ideal or even enjoyable roster, we'd really just rather not have a roster at all! And even though there's things we like and look forward to him being away has always felt like a big sacrifice for our family.
After living this way though, working in chunks and full time mothering in chunks I have to say I'm a fan of it. Perhaps post-fifo life I might even try somehow to work in this way. I am a better mum when I'm not swapping in and out of work days. I'm a better creative when I'm getting solid chunks of time on my craft.
I wonder how many other artists work in this way? Batch their time between being the home-maker and the artist, able to give of themselves fully in each cycle.
Photo by @tanyagrayphotography on my last day of breastfeeding Mr. 2.
I'm in the middle of a bunch of filming for @roogenic . There's something really special about working for a brand you like and it becoming a brand you love.
Every time I get an insight into how a business operates everyday I get such a deep appreciation for the work they do, and I always hope to help them share that. My films usually dig into the ‘why’ of a brand and I ask a million questions to understand where they came from and where they want to be. There’s always more to the story and I’m so keen to hear it.
Ultimately though what I love is that so much good can be spread in the world through something as simple as tea. It’s so much more than just what product is being sold but how that brand moves through the world, caring for people and planet.
I recently added an option to my packages called "mini vignettes" based on these little films I make for @koalaeco with @deekawai of @kawaheartstudio . I deliver them like a moving photo gallery - we don't go back and forth revising each one but you get enough to choose from that you can create reels, beautiful sponsored ads, use them on product pages in your website (and so many more uses!) just by picking and choosing the ones you love most.
I don't usually put logos, music or text but instead you have the freedom to add your branding or words over the top. Most people now know how to create reels and videos like this, but here you get the best of both worlds with gorgeous film footage AND the freedom to use it in however many different ways you want.
I've found this offering to be magic for my clients. I mean look at this gorgeous ad that @koalaeco have - they compiled a few of my mini vignettes together, added the logos and text and created an ad showing how wonderful and lovely their products are. So good, don't you think?
Of course I’ll share @raquelarand.a full film with you because it was absolutely one of the highlights of my year creating it with and for her, but first, take a look at her brand new launched website 😍😍. A photographer’s website that actually shows the photographer behind the lens alongside her beautiful work! It’s SO special, and I’m so honoured to have my work featured on her pages.
Crafting a film with Raquel meant that we could truly show her dream clients what working with her looks and feels like. And wowee, we did some feeling. I’m fairly sure we both had tears during my interview with her; just listen to how passionate she is about her love for her job. You can’t not.
It’s truly next level, to be able to be a fly-on-the-wall observer of someone in their element, working tirelessly to create incredible, thoughtful imagery for their client, and then afterwards being able to spend that time together talking about their how’s, why’s, their hopes and dreams. It’s everything.
I was blown away by Raquel’s willingness to be vulnerable and honest, trusting me to pull together her story and allowing her emotion to come through. She could easily have asked me to cut portions out or to re-record the audio entirely, but she trusted the process and I think if you head over to her website and watch her film you’ll see the magic that can happen when two artists work together to seek beauty and share stories that mean something. 🧡
I can’t quite believe I’m typing this, and even though I’ve been meaning to share it for a while the reality of it just hadn’t quite sunk in yet. But I’m fully booked for 2023.
Holy smokes. 🫣
Some really wonderful (and big!) projects have come through and filled up every last moment in my calendar which was already too squishy for my liking and so…that’s it. Eek!
2024 will look a little different, so more on that later, and I’m sorry if my news disappoints but I really can’t wait to share with you what I’m up to. Films films and more films 🙌
📷 An oldie but a goodie from @jessicajosiephotographer because we’re about to head south for a week and I’m feeling ready for a little winter holiday.
