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I was brought up on a farm, with five kids and a Mum that loved us and never went to work. I attended a country school of thirty, where one day I hid from my mum and she left me behind- I'm still working through the wound. Was dragged into Asia for missions trips when my youngest sister wasn't even nine. Studied film in Hawaii, where my roommate from Canada taught me how to take photos. Graduated, spent the next three years dedicated to ending human trafficking in America, went to every state, did busts with the FBI, followed a private detective into Mexico, burnt out and retreated to British Columbia to drink tea, eat blueberries, run naked in the forest during thunderstorms and learn from a lady that became my second mother. Spent three years in a studio with my brother where I learnt I could write, spent a year in the wilderness finding out who I was, met an old soul who became the dearest of friends of whose life is the subject of my films. Lived through the Christchurch earthquake- losing everything, escaped to the mines in Western Australia, had an encounter in the desert, spent everynight in the sand, soaking the earth, grieving. Eventually reappearing at the Venice biennale and realized I am ok and I'm going to fine, climbed a moutntain in Italy, rushed home to witness the aftermath of my Grandfathers death, fell in love in Sydney for the first time, shut it down, learnt a lot, and here I am, photographing a wedding of another, of two others who have two lives, two histories, two pasts, forty wounds, thirty loves and a future that no one knows. I never think I'm going to get everything right on your day. But I put my living heart and soul in it and in this I rejoice and make my peace that this is an art form and together we will make something beautiful that will last forever. I think sometimes we forget we are human, I'm a wedding photographer and I'm human, you are a bride and you too are human. Life is to be lived and your day is for you. Don't change a thing for anyone. You can do as you wish on your day and I will stay unoffended and always smile. Whether you laugh or cry, or scream or shout, whether you do walk down the isle, or don't walk down the isle, get scared, get excited, lose your shoe, forget your vows, knock over a light, eat too much, eat too little, eat the right amount, whatever it is that your hands find to do, do it. And I will stand with you and watch as your day becomes your own. Don't change a thing for me, or for anyone. Not even your mum or grandma- tell her you love her with all your heart but this is your wedding and its been a story that started being built the day you gasped for air.
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"It's like in the great stories, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those are the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too young to understand why. But I think I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because there were holding on to something - That there's some good in the world, and it's worth fighting for"
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the end. |