NYE 2020

Every year on New Years Eve I take a selfie and write a few notes out to social media world. Figured you could read them too :)

2020

Ever walk out of a movie and not know whether you liked it or not? That’s kinda 2020 for me I wish I had something more profound to say, but it really is kind of vanilla

Hotel towers, security guards, Donald and electric cars, Fires all around the place, A tiny bug stopped the human race

Speak on mute is now a thing Another f$&king zoom meeting Work from home is our new norm Beirut had a hellfire storm

We didn’t start the virus All across the nation Waiting for vaccination

We didn’t start the virus Some dude in Wuhan Ate from the wrong food van

Prince Harry and Meg renounced, Stock market crashed and bounced Kanye wants the biggest crown But he piked out and let us down

The orange fella got impeached Sydney had to close the beach Sent some guys to outer space 2020 what a waste

We didn’t start the virus They call it COVID 19 I feel like a has been

We didn’t start the virus As for twenty twenty Well we’ve had plenty

Here’s to you Jac

The Arcanum

It was in 2011 when I was employed by IBM that I was sent to work in Brisbane, Australia. By all accounts it was a pretty straight forward job helping transform and improve a customer help desk. Possibly not the most exciting job in the world, but it was a nice hotel to live in for a few months and the weather was balmy in October, as it is in Queensland at that time of year.

As luck would have it, I had the opportunity to take my trusty Nikon D5000 and 35mm f1.8 lens (it's been superseded now but was a fantastic camera to learn with). I was very new to photography and gravitated to 'street', or unposed photos and I loved the challenge and raw excitement of adventuring. This was a time before children. I may have even had hair!

My partner in crime in these wandering trips to Brisbane was my good friend and technology savant, Nathan Kelly, who introduced me to Google Plus (Googles now defunct social platform). Now I didn't know much about G+ but signed up for an account and started uploading photos and interacting with photography groups. After a few days I got my first follower and I was hooked!

I continued to upload images from my adventures around Brisbane each evening and made it to about 20 followers. That's the big time right? Hahahaha!

After a fantastic night out eating and drinking and soaking in Brisbane's mide-week night life I went off to sleep on a Tuesday night and woke up to 1000 new followers!

What on Earth was going on?!!

It just so happened that I was fortunate to make it on to a list of up and coming photographers by the sensational (and highly influential) Thomas Hawk leading to a rapid upswell in followers. I ended up with over 11,000 people all connected through G+. It was a fantastic community and I regularly participated in Chrysta Rae's Scavenger Hunts (which looks like it has a new home at https://scavengerhunt.photography/ as Google Plus shut down)

By 2015 I had been on Google Plus for a few years and was really enjoying photography, but was a little frustrated at my lack of progression. Through the G+ platform I was introduce to The Arcanum - A mentorship program for budding photographers with mentors being selected from top tier artists in lens craft. I entered my name into the pool and submitted my portfolio and waited with baited breath to see whether a) I had made the cut and b) who my mentor would be.

And that's when I was introduced to the genius that is Stephan Bollinger

The premise of the Arcanum was quite simple. A small group (cohort) of photographers would be mentored by Stephan through a series of 9 levels. Each level had a certain photography challenge and every few levels there would be a live critique through video chat by Stephan.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Arcanum and Stephan is a brilliant photographer, musician and comedian! He has a huge library of great photography content and I can highly recommend

I won't go into all of the detail, but here are some of my favourite photos from the Arcanum

Buy the amazing new Nikon D6500 with the link below and help me run the website! It's a win win!

NYE 2019

Every year on New Years Eve I take a selfie and write a few notes out to social media world. Figured you could read them too :)

Ten things I learnt in 2019:

1. For some strange reason, my children still love me, even when I let them down 2. The opposite of a smile doesn’t have to be a frown 3. Some people think the Earth is flat, but I think it’s round 4. The greatest music is emotion captured as sound 5. I have been given more than I need, so my need is now to give 6. I miss my Nanna, but what a life to live 7. Work is what I do between weekends but the people make it cool 8. If a fool’s gold is their gold, maybe I should be a fool 9. It’s more important to some to be careful than to be kind 10. Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind 11. I’d write a haiku, but I’d run out of time 12. Oh shit that’s 12 - and I got a new hat....