Each year I like to visit the Swell Sculpture Festival at Currumbin Beach. This year my friend Simone, her two babies & I went to have a look. Going anywhere with a two-year-old can be difficult and we experienced a couple of tantrums but overall it was a nice day.

2015 was the best Swell Festival I’ve seen and this year’s was an improvement on last year’s so it fell in somewhere in the middle. The highlight was the bird, and the lowlight was the traffic cone square.

Afterwards we headed to a local park to let the kids run wild. Mason is now able to walk with a little bit of assistance which is soooo cute.

Photos taken with Pentax Spotmatic using Kodak Profoto XL 100 35mm film.

This time last year my friend Simone, her babies & I went to the Burleigh Markets & the park. The kids were dressed in matching I’m so cute it’s scary outfits which were adorable, and it was also my first time shooting Kodak Portra 400 after hearing everyone talk about it for a few years.

This is the first roll of film where i was happy with 95% of the photos and I do think it’s thanks to Portra 400. Portra has a pretty fine grain so you aren’t bombarded with it like some other films (*cough cough* Lomography) so it doesn’t distract. You get a high quality photo with beautiful colours, some film grain but no one element of the photo distracts from the subject which is something I love about it.

On this particular roll I was really happy that the close up photo of Lilly on the swing turned out to be perfectly in focus as I waited quite a while to press the shutter, and the photos of Mason on the blanket turned out exactly how I wanted them to, if not even better. I need to start taking more photos of them together as a family but in the moment it proves harder than you would think!

I recently purchased some Kodak Portra 160 and can’t wait to see what the results are like.

Photos taken on Canon AE-1 Program with 50mm lens and Kodak Portra 400 35mm film.

The other weekend I went up to Rocks at Seventeen Mile Rocks to celebrate a one year old’s birthday and I decided to take out my new Petzval lens for the first time. I’ve only played with it at home so far so it was a bit of a challenge to work with, but I think I got some beautiful shots.

As you can see, focusing can be difficult with this lens. It requires patience and a lot of trial & error to get it right. I can’t wait to play with this lens more as you really can get some beautiful results. I’d love to take it to the beach next time I go with my friends.

* All photos were taken with Lomography’s Petzval 58 Bokeh Control Art Lens.

My beautiful friend Chynna turned 25 this month. We ventured up into the Scenic Rim with our friend Brittany to have a gorgeous tea party at Tea & Niceties, and explore the local area.

The three of us have known each other for over 12 years but had lost touch since graduating high school in 2009. This year I reconnected with them and I’m so grateful to have them in my life again.

Brittany is full of life and laughter, and is the person I go to if I want to connect with nature and be brought back down to earth. She is very adventurous but also loves spending time relaxing at home which works well for me.

Chynna is one of my more spiritual friends and is the most heartfelt, beautiful, and emotionally connected person I know. She is a kind and generous soul. We spent a lot of time together during our teenage years but didn’t connect on a deeper level and speak about what we felt and were going through until this year.

Photos taken with Canon AE-1 Program with 50mm lens on Kodak Portra 400 35mm film.

Here is part two of my first shots with the Lomo’Instant. I’ve definitely had a lot of dud shots with this camera but for the most part it is an enjoyable camera to work with. I rarely change up the lens or use the coloured gel filters, but maybe in future I will need to break those out.

I’ve always loved Instax photos and can not believe how many doors the Lomo’Instant has opened. My favourite feature is definitely the self timer/remote shutter and I am still having issues with the focus settings. Hopefully I’ll sort that out in time…

For those of you who were following me early this year you might remember that I did the 90 Day Instax Challenge which I absolutely loved but I think for a few months after that I just stopped using Instax cameras. It made me realise that there weren’t a lot of things in my life worth taking photos of and that I had to change that before I did another challenge like it. I’ve been trying to live more which has meant trying to be more present and less distracted, especially when hanging out with friends or family. 

I hope you enjoy these pictures taken with the Lomo’Instant Wide and the Fujifilm Instax Wide throughout the year. 

Back in 2014 I purchased my first medium format camera – a Lubitel Universal. It was about $60 on eBay and for some reason I was really nervous to use it because I was not confident in my ability to focus or to set the correct settings for each shot. Surprisingly, the results were so much better than I had anticipated! I love when that happens because sometimes you are completely disappointed by a roll – even though the shots I took weren’t very interesting, I am now confident enough to take the camera out and to use it in various other settings and hopefully capture some fun shots.

Let me know your favourite 120 film in the comments below. I used Lomography Earl Grey 100 for these shots.

Over the last few months I’ve been bringing my Kodak underwater camera into the pool with me. I found it while cleaning out a couple of cupboards in the house and knew I had to start playing around with it.

I’m loving shooting film at the moment. It’s really frustrating for me waiting to get the shots back, but it’s so worth the wait when you do. I’ve said this before, but film is warm. Digital photos can feel so cold and emotionless sometimes but film is nostalgic and the colours are always beautiful, even if they don’t turn out the way you expected.

View more from the Disposable Diary series here.

Not too long ago I discovered The Indisposable Concept and immediately knew I wanted to do something similar. I decided to bulk buy some disposable cameras on eBay and start shooting!

I really enjoy the look of disposable camera photos, and the ease of taking the shots. You literally point and shoot. I’ve found that it’s a hit with all my friends too – I actually gave one of the cameras to my friend as part of her birthday present and it was immediately a talking point and everyone reminisced about what it was like before we all had iPhones.

As with most disposable cameras, not every shot got developed. I got back 20/27 shots. Hopefully next time more will turn out ok! Not every shot was worth posting either, so these are my favourites.

View more from the Disposable Diary series here.

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.