When I Just Loved

I’ve always loved taking photos and making videos. My dad is into photography and I happened to catch his love for it. I had this incessant need to capture every moment, to almost remind myself that I was in fact alive. Like the time we were 14. We went ute surfin’ in our pjs. J drove the Hilux through her farm and we got bogged, knee deep in mud. There’s the shaky footage of when we decided to ride on top of a jeep through the sand covered highways of the Great Thar Desert, India, clocking up to 90kms/h. And when we dressed up as Disco Stu for athletics carnival completely ignoring the theme. Oh, and the time my best friend had her first kiss. We were in year 10, it was new year’s eve. My parents had taken us on a little getaway and we’d managed to slip away. He was a surfer who turned out to be a model. We only discovered the latter when we’d started back at school and found a school book she’d laminated before our trip with his broody, surfy model face. It was a highlight. think I took a photo of her reaction. We both had braces back then.

This collation of precious memories continued until I was about 22, when I started to feel something strange. Something I had honestly never felt before. I was scared, really fucking scared. Terrified that I wasn’t good enough, that I had no idea what I was doing, and I was sure that I would never be able to make a living off of taking photos. So what was the point?! When this fear entered my life it took so many precious memories along with it. For years I hardly shot any photos. For years I felt disconnected from my life.

Last year at the age of 28, having befriended my fears (somewhat), I bought my very own camera. I was ready to revisit my old love. To rediscover it in its absolute purity and to start capturing my beautiful life. Albeit slowly, but surely.

Since then, I feel free, in doing something that I realise never needed any explanation, other than- I just love it.

I haven’t shared a lot, wanting to first reacquaint just on my own. Here are some moments of a recent trip I made down to Victoria to visit my best friend M. Yes, the same best friend aforementioned.

Great Ocean Road

The Twelve Apostles

Cafe Stop @Otway Nourished

The Redwoods