Hope - A blog carousel post

"Hope is the dream of a soul awake" ~ French proverb This month's blog carousel is a special one. This month we honour one of our own, a beautiful photographer who has just found out she has stage 3 ovarian cancer and has begun her battle to fight, and fight hard. Our brief this month was 'hope', and I knew I had the perfect family to highlight.

This gorgeous little girl has been much longed, wished and fought for. She defied the odds to be here and proves that life, although tenuous and fragile, gives us hope for the future. I was privileged to be part of her arrival, even if it's in such a small way, and it made enormous sense that Sofia is the pin up girl for this post.

Introducing Sofia and her beautiful family (including one of the gorgeous, crazy dogs!) Warning...full frontal dog nudity...!

For more inspiring posts in the blog carousel, go to the blog ofAnna Mayer, Milwaukee family photographer.

Simone xo

A passionate career | blog carnival

It's blog carnival time again, and the topic this month is Love and Passion. It seemed obvious..create a post showing how passionately my beautiful families love each other. Easy! However this month's post coincided with something that was about me. A career milestone that I wanted to talk about anyway and one that is the reward of living a life with passion. Last week, with a group of fantastic and talented South Australian photographers, I went to Perth to attend a national conference and the annual awards judging. This year was special, as I was finally able to submit a portfolio to be judged in order to attain my 'Master of Photography' status. It all seemed too daunting though. I had too much on my plate, a newsletter to compose, orders to organise, children to chase around with a camera... but I managed it, pulling together the portfolio of prints required in order to go for my Masters. This process has been a long one, with three years of consistent and nerve wracking print judging, countless prints submitted, a lot of lovely awards along the way and a very healthy understanding of my gifts and failings as a photographer. It wasn't something I could miss to put the final stamp on it all, and of course I'm very glad I did. We had to submit 12 images, and at least 10 of them had to be awarded a silver merit or above. I'm beyond proud to say I did it and can now wear the mantle of Master Photographer with pride :)  Below is a selection of the prints entered, with some of them being amongst my favourites ever.

Making your living out of something you're passionate about can be amazing and enviable (although not without it's challenges!). I get told all the time how blessed I am, and it's very very true. I love nothing more than recording an element of childhood that will forever remind that family of what life with young children was like. It's the most amazing job I can think of, and perfectly tailored to my strengths. My love of interior design, child psychology, art, black and white photography and spending time with lovely people have all converged into this incredible career. I don't take any of this for granted and can't wait to see what the next major goal will bring. My thanks go out to the families that are my inspiration, and without this sounding too much like a cheesy acceptance speech, this is for Maria. One of our last conversations was about how thrilled she was for me about my career, and one of the photos of her and her daughters won an award that contributed to this journey. I know she's cheering me on :)

For the next fantastic photographer in the blog carnival, head to Toronto newborn, baby, maternity and family photographer - Heather Rivlin's blog. I've always loved her pure and beautiful work :)

Simone (Master Photographer! :)  ) xo

Laughter

It's blog carnival time and for this round the theme is 'laughter'. An easy one, you'd think, but there is a phenomena we see as children's photographers where kids are trained to give a hideous grimace for the camera from a VERY young age! I recently had a baby do it! That was disconcerting to say the least... :) I always tell the kids, 'You're not allowed to laugh until it's funny' and then we get on with getting to know each other. Parents know that the children will take a while to warm up, and often leap in to 'help' but I love it when the kids slowly reveal themselves to me and end up smiling and laughing purely because what we're doing is fun. That's when the magic happens. This is Rose and her baby sister Eliza. We took the first photos at the pregnancy shoot and Rose stole the show! I love that we have a record of life before her sister arrived, it's a whole new world afterwards :)

and for her baby sister. Less giggly of course, but completely 'awwww' worthy. Rose is besotted :)

Next on the blog carnival to visit is Los Angeles Baby and Children's Photographer Je Neuhaus, done in her signature classic style :) Keep going from blog to blog to see what some of the best of the world's children's photographers are doing. It's worth the trip.

Simone xo