On days like this one I captured I feel so grateful for the beautiful paradise where I live. I live on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. We are 1 hour from the capital city of Brisbane, and 1 hour from the beautiful Byron Bay. There are so many beautiful little places to visit within the span of the SEQ coast and one of my favourites is Farm & Co at Byron Bay. Farm & Co is a farm that sells fruit & vegetables, but the main attraction is the beautiful sunflower fields and Macadamia trees that line them. During sunflower season you can barely scroll through anyone’s instagram and not see a photo taken among the sunflowers.

I love that sunflowers represent the sun, and face towards the sun. They are light seekers, they were planted in the dirt and bloom and rise to follow and seek the sun. That is how I feel about God.

We go through tough times in our lives but all the while if we seek Him we will be living in the light and the darkness will be beneath us.

I love getting to explore these places with Chynna, she really is my soul sister ♡

I do like the E100 film – slide film is such a cool thing I want to try more often, however I found the colour tone of this particular roll to be quite brown which is not to my taste as I like bright colours. However, I think this is a scanning issue as the slide film looks really nice and doesn’t have a brown tone at all. I have a couple more rolls of it I’m shooting so we will see how it goes next time.

All photos taken with Canon AE-1 Program and Kodak E100 slide film.

On New Year’s Day I ventured up to Brisbane to spend the day with my friend Chynna! We went to the Botanical Gardens and lookout at Mt Coot-tha and got a lot of Vitamin D. Going to the Botanical Gardens and in particular the Tropical Dome was a great start to the year as I’ve wanted to go for awhile now.

Late last year I picked up some Kodak Portra 160 35mm film and couldn’t wait to use it! Although I’d had a great experience with Portra 400, I found that some of my photos were overexposed and maybe I should step down to a less light sensitive film. Fortunately, that was a brilliant decision! The lower ISO works perfectly for Australian weather, and I couldn’t be happier with how the photos came out. The roll started on my last day in Melbourne and ended with Mt Coot-tha and I love every single frame of the roll.

The photos came out so clear, and amazing quality. I did some minor brightness adjustments to make sure the blacks weren’t too black and the whites weren’t too white but these photos were pretty perfect straight out of the camera.

I found that Portra 160 has more natural and neutral colour tones, and has less yellow than Portra 400. Portra 160 think it is the most accurate colour film I’ve ever used and I’ve tried quite a few!

I have a stack of 35mm film I want to get through before buying any more, however Portra 160 is the next film I will be buying and I think will be my new go-to.

All photos taken with Canon AE-1 Program and Kodak Portra 160 film (new fave).

I was fortunate enough to be gifted a Canon AE-1 by a lovely older man a couple of years ago and although I’ve only put 3 rolls through it so far, I always love the results.

Over the last few months I’ve been to Melbourne, Byron Bay, Crystal Castle, and the park with my friend & her babies and brought the AE-1 along for the ride.

The camera is so easy to use and always gives beautiful results, especially when using Kodak Portra 400. Hope you enjoy x

Can’t wait to shoot the next roll!

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.