22 From ’22 | A Snapshot of 2022 {Avon Valley, Wheatbelt & Perth Wedding, Family, Event & Commercial Photographer}

As 2022 draws to a close, it's time to reflect on another successful year as both a photographer and a business owner, with 22 randomly chosen images featuring some of my favourite shoots, places, people and experiences from the last 12 months.

It’s always hard to choose such a small number of images from the wide variety of genres that I shoot, and there are honestly too many highlights to list, but the one that definately rates a mention is being awarded as a Finalist in the Owner/Operator category at the annual Wheatbelt Business Excellence Awards in October - hence why the last shot below made the cut! But there have been so many other special moments too, dotted in amongst the 50+ weddings, family, event and commercial gigs I’ve had the privilege of shooting in 2022. And because I can’t possibly list them all, I’m just going to give it to you in pictures instead!

So here they are, 22 memorable moments from 2022, in no particular order.  An eclectic mix of both client and personal images, which I feel best reflect both my style and the amazing people and subjects I regularly work with.

And a huge thank you to all of you who have made 2022 so rewarding for me.  Because without you, my fabulous clients, friends and family, I wouldn't have been witness to these moments, or had the opportunity to create these beautiful images.

Have a fabulous Christmas and New Year, and I'll see you all again in 2023!

21 From ’21 | A Snapshot of 2021 {Avon Valley, Wheatbelt & Perth Wedding, Family, Event & Commercial Photographer}

As the year draws to a close, I’d like to thank all the amazing couples, families, businesses and government organisations that have supported my business, and helped make 2021 so enjoyable and successful for me.

As we plough through our second year of a worldwide pandemic, it’s interesting to reflect on the changes it has brought to both our everyday lives, and our livelihoods.  As a photographer, I’ve seen wedding bookings slow, with couples remaining cautious about planning a big event which could be cancelled at the last minute.  The same goes for events, although many of the smaller ones have gone ahead, and I did shoot the GWN Dowerin Machinery Field Days in August, which was the biggest event I’ve covered to date, and besides being completely exhausting, a huge success!

But family shoots remain popular, and the wedding gaps have been filled nicely with commercial and tourism based work, most of which tends to fall during the week, leaving many of my weekends free, which has been a nice change!

So I’ve spent a large part of the year working with businesses, and travelling through the regions shooting our amazing Wheatbelt towns and communities, to promote local tourism within WA.  And given my background in agriculture and love of the Wheatbelt and farming communities, it’s pretty much been a dream come true for me, and definitely something I hope to do more of in the future.  

So following are 21 images that I feel best represent both my style, and the people and places I’ve worked with throughout 2021. Just a random mix of weddings, families, events, commercial and tourism work, which I feel incredibly honored to have been part of – and all thanks to you, my fabulous clients! 

Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year, and I’ll see you all again in 2022!

Pathways To Wave Rock | A Regional WA Tourism Project {Avon Valley, Wheatbelt & Perth Commercial & Tourism Photographer}

Earlier this year I was approached by the Roe Tourism Association and invited to work on a project to produce visual content for Pathways to Wave Rock, a self drive tourist trail which loops through the south-eastern Wheatbelt, taking in the towns within the 7 Shires of Quairading, Corrigin, Kondinin, Kulin, Lake Grace, Narembeen and Bruce Rock. 

The aim of the project was to produce a library of tourism based images with a difference, for the purposes of promoting this vast and fascinating region to both local and international visitors alike. 

So in the months that followed, we traversed our way along the Pathways to Wave Rock, documenting the incredible towns, people and communities that we met and visited along the way.  And although it was an amazing experience in its own right, this project held a special place in my heart, because it’s the route my third great grandfather (ie great, great, great grandfather) John Septimus Roe took during his final expedition to open up new farming country in 1848.    

Captain John Septimus Roe was the first Surveyor General of WA, an Explorer, and a member of WA’s Legislative and Executive Council for 40 years, between 1829 and 1871.  He was offered the position of Surveyor General at the fledgling Swan River Colony in Western Australia sometime in 1828, married Matilda Bennett in February 1829, and set sail for WA on the Parmelia the same month.

With only one assistant, and both the Swan River and Fremantle townsites to survey, plus the potential farming land around both, he had his work cut out for him during the early years.  But he still managed to squeeze 13 children and a heap of exploring in, and to date, he’s probably best known as an Explorer, conducting 15 major expeditions across WA during his career. 

The final and largest of them all was his 5 month expedition to the south eastern part of the state, which we now refer to as the Roe Tourism area, between 1848 and 1849. This was the longest and most successful journey of exploration undertaken in Australia before 1850, and after arriving back in Perth, exhausted and sick at the end of it, at age 52, he decided to hang up his boots on the exploration side of things, and just continue surveying until his retirement in 1871. 

I am descended from his ninth child, Frederick Mackie Roe, who was also an Explorer, and who in conjunction with Charles Hunt, was responsible for opening up the road to the Goldfields by establishing a series of wells to enable travel to and from the region.

Frederick Mackie had three children, and one of them, Frederick William Roe (known as Willie) took up land in Grass Valley in the Shire of Northam, where my family has farmed ever since.

A number of JS Roes’ possessions remain in our family to this day, including his Surveyors Chain (a 66ft measuring chain of 100 links, each 7.92in in length), his wooden veterinarian box, which my dad houses his boyhood native bird egg collection in, a horse branding iron, believed to be one of the first registered brands issued in WA, and some studio portraits from the Manning Studio, which was the first photographic studio established in the Swan River Colony.

I find it remarkable that we’ve ended up with any of these things, given how many children he had, and how many they’ve all gone on to have over the ensuing 5 generations, and as a result, they are very special to our family.  

Producing content for the Roe Tourism Association and Pathways to Wave Rock project has been a dream come true for me, not only because of my love for the Wheatbelt and Western Australian farming communities, but because of my connection to both JS Roe and the route he travelled on his final expedition.

To have been able to follow in his footsteps (albeit from the comfort of a car!) and document the towns and people along the Pathways to Wave Rock has been the highlight of 2021 for me, and definitely one of the most memorable projects I’ve worked on during my career as a professional photographer, and I’d like to thank the Roe Tourism Association for providing me with such a wonderful opportunity.

I hope the following images, which are just a handful from well over 1000 delivered, do justice to both this incredible region, and to the man who passed through it on horseback all those years ago.

20 From '20 | A Snapshot of 2020 {Avon Valley, Wheatbelt & Perth Wedding, Family, Event & Commercial Photographer}

It goes without saying that 2020 has been different for most of us, but just how different will depend on where you are based. Those of us in WA were lucky enough to continue working after an initial shutdown back in March, and as a result, I finished the year on par with 2019.

But I had to implement some changes, and do things a little differently to get there. On the day the first image below was shot, I had 40K worth of bookings either postponed indefinately or cancelled outright. Most of these bookings were weddings and large events, which are core business for me, and for the first time in 25 years I was facing a year of neither.

So I spent the time at home restoring our ‘78 caravan and revamping my website with the help of Jo from Joanne Tapodi Creative. And I had a new computer built by Colin at Avon Computech, to give me greater storage capacity and allow me to work faster, and to introduce videography to my services. I also learnt the basics of filmmaking (mostly by shooting little clips of my family as we worked on the caravan!), and I started offering Mini Clips to those I was shooting commercial and event work for. All of these things had been on my ‘to do’ list for the last 5 years or so, but I just hadn’t been able to find the time for them while working fulltime.

Then as WA began to open up again, the bookings started coming in - cautiously. Not for weddings or big events, but for family, commercial and business based shoots. The time at home had inspired a shift in thinking. The importance of family became more apparent, and many businesses had more time on their hands to spend ‘on’ the business, instead of ‘in’ the business. In addition, an online presence had become increasingly important for business owners, which saw many updating websites and social media pages, and in turn, their imagery. At the same time, the Shire of Northam introduced a Small Business Support Grant Scheme to assist those who had suffered a downturn due to Covid-19, and much of it was spent on doing the above.

And so I found myself filling the gaps with families and businesses, rather than couples and events. I worked closely with Anna from Creative IQ to produce images for her website builds, and I partnered with the Northam Race Club to cover their social evenings throughout Spring. At the same time, I was out and about in the Wheatbelt shooting my usual array of agricultural work for growers, plant breeders and researchers. The result was that Spring 2020 was both busier and more profitable than it has ever been for me, and I am truly thankful for that, when I know it hasn’t been the case for so many.

So following are 20 images that I love, and which I feel are reflective of 2020 for me. It’s mostly a mix of family, commercial and agricultural work, with a bit of travel thrown in - mainly because I feel so lucky to have been able to squeeze both trips in while the borders were open and it was considered safe to do so! My shooting and editing style remain similar to last year, with a rich warm vibe, and golden, brown and green tones throughout, which I don’t see changing in 2021 - it is, after all, a big part of what my clients love about my work!

So thanks 2020, you can go now - bring on 2021!