I feel the same way about photos. They’re great to look at on a screen but at the end of the day, there’s absolutely nothing like a beautiful bespoke album printed on wonderful high quality paper. And now, I can finally provide that. My previous albums were beautiful too, but I started to get annoyed with the gutter in the middle, so much space would go missing. But these new albums are another story altogether. 310 gsm archival quality gallery cotton art paper, wonderful high quality printing and beautiful artisanal flushmount construction. And the best part, it’s made with minimal environmental impact using paper from sustainable sources, low energy printing processes and even carbon neutral shipping. This is something close to my heart and I’m happy.

And you know what the best thing is? I’m going to be offering these albums at near cost price. I already get paid quite fairly for the job that I do so I don’t feel like I need to make money from something that takes me no extra work. A 10×10 inch 25 spread album will sit in somewhere near the $1000 mark (contact me for full pricing). There’s also 6×6 duplicates for parents/grandparents/anyone else who wants one. And for storage of your main album, there’s the absolute 100% piece-of-art bamboo box (at extra cost). Awesomely constructed and oh so beautiful. The default option for storage is a sturdy cardboard box and soft cotton bag which is also shown.

Another thing Kristen and I believe strongly in is allowing people to create change for themselves to make the world a better place. As such, we’re going to add an optional $50 donation option when you buy an album and these funds will be taken from the amount you have paid and donated in your name to a selected list of charity/non-government/aid organisations. This list will contain organisations which Kristen and I are confident use their funds appropriately and effectively.

Anyway, enough talk, these are the beautiful end product of my labours that you can hopefully hold in your hands one day.

So here’s what we decided with great difficulty (it’s a little different to the original plan of 1 personal, 1 business and 1 community organisation). The email fragments that I am showing below have been shared with the permission of the people who sent them.

1a) A young family with a newly born son who has been in hospital for most of his short life.

I’ll tell you about me, my husband and our new baby boy!
Just like any young couple we were so excited to be pregnant. Our whole world came crashing down when our son was born.
He was born with half a heart (technical name is Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome)
He had his first open heart surgery to save his life at 2 days old. He had his second open heart surgery at 3 months old.
He has spent a total of 3 months of his 6 month life at the Royal Children’s Hospital so far – 7 weeks in intensive care and 5 weeks in the recovery ward. It was a long, stressful, emotional ride that sometimes just can’t be explained. Watching your son fight for his little life, day after day is just plain tough. Knowing that there isn’t anything you can do (as a mum) is tough. Sitting by his tiny bedside and stroking his tiny little forehead was all I could really do.
We have a long and rocky road ahead of us with our little boy, he will need more surgeries and constant care, but we cherish everyday with him. We don’t know how long we will have him for so everyday counts.

1b) A friend of a friend’s dad who has been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease.

2) A project with a local refugee community to raise awareness of their experiences. At this stage, given the political sensitivities, I’m not able to give any more information until we’ve ironed out some of the details and ensured that anyone from the community participating in the project does not have their safety compromised.

3) Two workshops/skills courses that Kristen and I will deliver, firstly one focused on the basics of photography and secondly, one on how to run a successful and ethical photography business. And the best thing is, these will cost absolutely NOTHING. I’ve always believed knowledge and education should be free and what you choose to do with that knowledge is what separates you from the rest, so this is an opportunity for me to share what I know and hopefully help people achieve what they want to. This has been something that quite a few people have been asking for in the past few months so I’m feeling quite excited about being able to do something about it. More info about this in the coming weeks!

While it was tough to not be able to help everyone who emailed, I’m really glad that I can help out the above people. I believe strongly in being the change that you want to see – hopefully this is my little contribution to that change.

And as always to finish, a picture of one of our beautiful cats.

Kim and Mark are no-fuss people. They weren’t really keen with the idea of being the focus of attention, and Kim joked that the only requirement of me that she had before the wedding was that I take simply one good photo of her. I think I kept up my side of the deal, the heart, soul and effort they put into each other and their wedding, along with their friends and family, are visible in each and every frame.

But nothing was going to get these two people down. Along with their family and friends, they might have been nearly passing out in the sun but we got through it together – a little bit sweaty and dehydrated, but very much together.

Family members stood up and told funny stories about Jonny and Rach (including humourously bungled Spanish-English translations by Rach’s brother-in-law). A friend got up and played some beautiful music (I can’t for the life of me remember what it was) while another got up and recited a wonderful piece of poetry she had written called “Courage is Stubbornness Pointed in the Right Direction.” Everyone who was near and dear had an opportunity to speak and say what made Rach and Jonny special to them. And the rest of us, sat there, already knowing how special these two people were, absorbing each beautiful word.

When we met at a Sydney music festival, we were both sweaty, tired and carrying 10kg of camera gear on our backs.

We became friends.

A few years later, she met a nice boy.

A while after, they decided to get married and I was asked to photograph their celebration.

I said yes.

Oh yeah, it rained a lot.