Millicent, the small town in South Australia where I grew up, was quiet and quaint. There was not much to do, so my father and I would often take walks around the lake while I carried a camera looking for things to photograph. One day on the drive home, I made him pull over so I could capture a windmill standing among a field of flowers. The sky was incredible, and I managed to catch a bird passing through the frame at just the right moment. Looking back, it was one of my earliest experiences of seeing beauty and wanting to preserve it. When my older sister came to visit, I followed her everywhere. She was my idol, and whatever she was doing, I wanted to do too. At the time, she was modelling, so one day I convinced her to climb a tree while I photographed her. I did not realise it then, but those moments were shaping something that would stay with me for years.

Growing up, my Nonno, Italian for Grandpa, was one of my biggest role models. He was an artist in every sense of the word. He carved harps from wood, built cabinets featuring his own paintings, and seemed to have a natural eye for creativity in everything he touched. I admired him deeply, both for his talent and the way he saw the world. From a young age, I knew creativity ran through my family, yet I never saw it as a realistic career path. Millicent was a wonderful place to grow up, but life was simple and most careers followed a familiar route. Our school removed creative subjects in favour of more traditional studies. My talented Nonno worked at a mill, and my father stayed in his first job for fifty years. With that environment around me, it is no surprise that I never seriously considered art as a career. Even so, I always felt there was something more out there, so I left my hometown to explore new possibilities. That small town planted some big questions in my life, questions that continue to shape who I am today.

Now I live on the Gold Coast, where I have been fortunate enough to meet incredible people in the creative industry. Mentors, photographers and artists have generously shared their knowledge and experience, helping me grow both professionally and personally. Being self taught, I have found real world experience far more valuable than formal study. Learning through practice, making mistakes, solving problems and working alongside people who do this every day has shaped my approach in ways a classroom never could. Photography has brought an enormous amount of joy and purpose into my life. It has given me a place to use creative gifts that I once thought had no practical value. My mind has always been overflowing with ideas, imagination and possibilities, and photography gives those ideas somewhere to go. There is nothing I enjoy more than bringing ideas to life, imagining a scene, creating it, capturing it and sharing it with family, friends and clients. In many ways, I am living the dream that began with a camera in a small country town all those years ago.