Every now and then you come across a camera that has a brilliant concept. To see the sprocket holes? YES PLEASE. But some can disappoint. That’s how I’ve felt about the Sprocket Rocket by Lomography.

You get some okay shots, and some awful ones.

A big downside to this camera is the cost of processing. It cost me $42 for develop & scanning the photos in this post, as they have to use their medium format equipment in order to scan the sprocket holes. I don’t think I’m completely done shooting rolls of film with sprocket holes, however I think I will try to find another camera to use (maybe a medium format one with 35mm adaptor as the cost/benefit of using the Sprocket Rocket unfortunately fails.

I think the photos turned out exactly as you’d expect from Lomography – they love light leaks and imperfections, but I prefer clean photos from my favourite SLR cameras (eg. Canon AE-1, Pentax Spotmatic) that I can put in an album to pass onto my kids one day, so I’ll be sticking to those cameras for the foreseeable future.

Honestly this roll of film was so old (dates back to 2015) that I don’t really remember where anything was taken, especially the giant apple; I have no recollection of taking those photos at all!

Photos taken with Lomography Sprocket Rocket using Kodak Color 400. 

As you may know in November I went to Tangalooma Island! It’s only a two hour journey from where I live which made it the perfect island getaway for a couple of days. The only cameras I took were a Fujifilm disposable camera and my Instax Wide 300. I used up all the pictures on the disposable camera and was really happy with how they turned out.

Since I posted a couple of pictures on Instagram the other day quite a few people have asked me what filter I used – I used absolutely no filters and didn’t edit the photos at all. They turned out wonderfully because they were taken on film and film does all of the editing for you. Disposable cameras really are the perfect thing to take on holiday with you – I highly recommend it for your next trip.

View more from the Disposable Diary series here.

Having disposable cameras at parties is one of the best things you can do. It’s super fun and everyone looks awful in photos – what isn’t to like? No matter how great or terrible we look, you can’t deny that the photos are natural and that they capture the moment.

All photos were taken on Fujifilm ISO 400 disposable cameras.

View more from the Disposable Diary series here.

On Saturday night I hosted a Christmas party with my high school friends.

It was so good to catch up with everyone in person as it’s been over a year since this group got together. I absolutely love hosting. Getting to create an atmosphere that will make for the most joyous and enjoyable experience for everyone at the event is really satisfying and fun for me.

As most of you know, these days it can be hard to truly connect with people on a human level. I often say that we are turning into robots – constantly relying on our phones, computers and self serve checkouts at the grocery store. It seems like basic human connection is not enough and we need to constantly be connected to the world at the same time, but this night proved me wrong. People still want human connection and friendships. We still want to laugh around the dinner table while taking pictures wearing silly glasses and hats. We want to create genuine memories and have honest conversations about life.  It’s a shame that this group doesn’t come together more often. I’m going to try to change that next year.

All photos were taken with either the Fujifilm Instax Wide 300, or the Lomo’Instant Wide. The Lomo’Instant Wide was perfect for this event thanks to the remote/self timer.

This year I discovered one of my favourite places on Earth: Crystal Castle.

I went there for the first time a month ago with my friend Simone and her baby girl Lilly and it was wonderful. Before we got there I was feeling really down and low energy, and even just being five minutes away from there I started to feel so much better. It is located in the Byron hinterland with very little phone service, and I think that keeps it pure. When we actually got in there and had a look around and started to walk among the crystals, I felt even better.

At Crystal Castle you have your choice of different nature walks and psychic readings. Both Simone and I got a psychic reading and loved it – it was actually one of the best experiences I have ever had. The lady that read for me was so positive and saw so much potential for me, which made me feel a lot better and gave me the motivation and the pick me up I needed. She was on point with my personality and my gifts. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and to get some negative information or difficult information to handle but it never came which was such a beautiful feeling. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone see all the things you have going for you, whether you are in that energy or not. We didn’t do any of the different nature walks that day as we had the pram with us and the weather wasn’t too nice, so when the opportunity came to go with some of my other friends, I was excited to explore more of what Crystal Castle had to offer.

Brittany, Janice, Sarah and I made our way down to Crystal Castle last Sunday, despite the weather report telling us there may be rain and lightning. We got incredibly lucky as there was no rain and no lightning! It was a beautiful, sunny, humid day which was beautiful and such a relief. I didn’t get a psychic reading this time, but I did get aura photos and was disappointed to learn that my aura was still red. I think it will remain that way until next year when I make a lot of changes to my life and I start a new journey.

My favourite feature of the grounds is most definitely The Wishing Tree. Thousands of wishes and intentions have been set and hung on the tree over the years. Some have fallen onto the ground. My friend Janice said that maybe all the wishes that have come true are the ones that are now on the ground. I loved that. I certainly hope mine will fall to the ground someday. I checked where I hung my wish and intention last time and it was still there.

I’m so glad I took my DSLR as it was a beautiful day and I didn’t want to have to wait for film to be developed! I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed my day there.

If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend visiting Crystal Castle. There is truly something for everyone, whether you consider yourself a spiritual person or not.

We need to live more.

These words that have been circling my head for the last few months, and honestly, I’ve been trying to do it, hence why I have been pretty inactive on this blog. I’ve done my best to leave fear behind and have been out in the world trying to find the things that fuel me and make me happy, whilst trying to achieve some of the goals I have that have always been a bit more difficult for me to accomplish. In doing that, I have become extremely drained and desperate to travel. Tangalooma Island is only 2 hours from where I live which was perfect as we were only able to go for a couple of days.

The first 2 days of the trip were great – exactly what we needed, but on day three is where things kind of turned for the worst. We went Quad Bike Riding and I accidentally went into a wall that has left a huge, nasty bruise on my thigh. Janice got a bruised foot from doing something that she doesn’t even remember. Then I had my first and only panic attack on Day 3 after I got off the Banana Boat. We managed to end the day with a lovely dinner at Tangalooma’s Fire & Stone restaurant which made up for the kind of crappy day we had.

We found out Donald Trump was elected President on the boat ride home on Day 4, which was the worst possible end to the holiday. I think his Presidency will stir up even more passion and fight in those of us who believe in a globalised world where every type of person is accepted. People have fought for generations to get to where we are and we aren’t going to stop or give up now. Everyone woke up feeling divided today, but I think over the next four years we will unite and come to understand that we can’t keep living the way we have been. We can’t keep on living out of hatred and fear. Love really is the only answer to all of this and I think it’s up to those of us who still believe in love to be the ones to make the change, and do their best to change the world for future generations, as those who came before us did for us.

Last month I was fortunate enough to contribute a guest post to Kasia’s blog, Dipped In Rococo. I had decided to share some of my favourite shots from Swell Sculpture Festival this year but I had a bunch left over that I wanted to share with you.

In case you have never heard of Swell Festival before, it’s an annual festival where artists have their sculptures and creations displayed along Currumbin beach. I went with my friends Janice and Sarah this year and had the most wonderful time.

I used my Pentax ME Super with Lomography Color Negative 100 ISO and Fujicolor Superia 200 ISO film. 

Over the last couple of months I feel like I’ve abandoned this little blog. There’s no excuse but I will give you the reason why. I honestly believe it’s because I’ve stopped seeing value in my day to day life and don’t feel like it’s worth sharing with anyone. I’ve been struggling with the idea of mediocrity and have recently found out that I’m just like everybody else and I’m not special or different like I used to think I was. Most people already know that about themselves, but it’s really shocked me and made me reevaluate everything. You could call it a quarter life crisis. All of that said, I’m going to try to update this blog more and maybe by doing that I’ll see the value in each and every day again.

Today I wanted to share with my little getaway from this past weekend. I went with my two friends Janice & Sarah to Yamba – a little town just for a quick weekend trip. We all felt like we needed to get away – they had both finished Uni for the year and I have been feeling pretty stressed about my job & figuring out when is the best time for me to move next year.

Photos were taken on my Canon 60D with the 50mm f1.8 lens.

Today I hung out with my friends at Hinze Dam. We all hadn’t been there since grade 9 when our whole year level went so we thought we would go and check it out. We were all pretty disappointed but we managed to have a great time anyway. The most hilarious thing that happened was when we were eating. There was a lot of birds around and we could tell they wanted our food and eventually a kookaburra swooped down, scared the shit out of all of us and then we realised it had taken Janice’s meat off her plate! Kinda crazy. It freaked me out a bit so I went and sat on the swing for a while to calm myself down. Australian animals can be crazy!

After we left Hinze Dam we went to play putt putt. Sarah won and I lost but I did get 2 hole-in-ones!