on monday evening, straight from the airport after an 11 hour flight and a few more hours before and after that in transit, i spent a wonderful 4 hours with Lisa…
chatting about love, life, and everything in between… a fabulous meal, exploring The Rocks in Sydney, a beautiful view and some photos… i couldn’t have asked for a better night, or a new friend who was more fun, funny, and fabulous! what a way to forget my jetlag!
i got home the next day to this email from Lisa. it is long, but well worth the read! i love that i can allow a space for such amazing people to see their own beauty. to document their lives… Lisa says how she felt much better than i can, so take a read, and check out the images at the end…
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Hello hello hello! You are fast becoming my very own personal photographer and I am loving it! Mostly because it is not just about the camera, not just about the photo, not just about whether my crazy hair is sitting in just the right place.
As I am sure most women feel at times, placing ourselves firmly behind the camera becomes a safe place from which to capture the world around us. Life experience, a little wisdom and a lot of self love has allowed me to venture out from behind the camera lately. I knew that I would only want to venture out in front of the big scary lens with the right person, with the photographer whose style and depth of talent I felt a sense of connection.
Renee your style has always ‘spoken to me’ and the world of social media, blogging and connecting online (where I spend most of my nights whilst my toddler is tucked in bed and dreaming) is where I first came across your work. As a bit of a fuss pot with most things in life, including champagne, music and photography – there are only a handful of photographers who I took the steps to make contact with when I first decided to be brave and get in front of the camera with my little man.
After taking that first leap into our beautiful Mother/Son Beloved shoot late last year and spending the weeks following in awe of our images I was SO excited to explore a little further and have a solo shoot. (Excited plus slightly scared, thoughts running through my mind included ‘how on earth was I going to cope on my own in front of the camera with nobody to distract me from my nerves!) But then there was the thought of having my 38 year old self frozen in time, in a way that I knew would truly show ME, and that was quite serendipitous, and a little bit spooky as well.
Losing my Mother when she was only 48, and in fact actually only 38 when she had the car accident that changed my life forever, has been on my mind a lot lately.
On my mind because I am that exact age that she was when the accident took her from us for the first time through her brain injury.
On my mind because the accident happened in the month of December.
On my mind because her 60th birthday would have been this Boxing Day.
On my mind because she died in the month of January.
Spending the hours that we did together in our beautiful city last night was a little bit surreal.
When you asked me to describe myself with words that started with each letter of the alphabet I instantly knew that this shoot was meant to happen at this exact moment in time, in my life.
One of the ways that I have always dealt with anxiety and in particular at night, is to do just that, think of a word to describe myself using each letter of the alphabet. It was as though I had been practicing for your question all this time…
A is for authentic, B is for brave, C is for compassionate, D is for driven…
There were moments as your questions lifted the edges off my firmly guarded thoughts when I instinctively prepared a response in my usual orderly style. I loved the chance to sit, stare and speak when prompted… The story of my life is usually written in my own words, carefully crafted with accompanying images mostly of others. Thanks to you I now feel much more at peace with including pictures of myself in the story!
Lisa xxx
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if you want to chat about a session for yourself, please contact me here. i am based in Newcastle Australia, but have quite an extensive travel schedule for 2012, so i might be in your area sometime soon!
if you want to watch Lisa’s slideshow – you can see it here
follow me on facebook here
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B/W is really beautiful.
What an amazing job you have done for Anna. I’m a friend of Anna’s and you have captured her so well. What a wonderful gift for Anna and her family.