About three weeks ago, a scrumptious English tea party was thrown in honour of a wonderful friend, essentially big sister, of mine. A perfect fit for a regal, powerful woman. As you can imagine, there were scones galore, clotted cream flown in from England, and an endless flow of tea served in perfectly mismatched tea sets. I don't think too many photos from the party will end up here but oh, it was lovely.
Event
LOVE THIS CITY | EVENT
in Event
On Saturday evening, close to 400 people from all over Auckland gathered at the Baptist Tabernacle for Love This City, an event which sent us out into various parts of the central city to do random acts of kindness, have meals and spend time with the homeless, thank security guards and bus drivers for doing what they do, and just love on our city with zero agenda. It was one of the best nights ever!
Two moments totally blew me away. First, I was almost reduced to tears when I was on the upper level of the Baptist Tabernacle photographing the crowd below. It blew my mind to see so many people come from so many different places without 'church agendas', without any labels, but simply just to do this one thing together. Secondly, it is pretty hard to beat the squeals of total strangers who three minutes prior were just going about their night and were now showered with gifts completely out of nowhere.
I am so grateful for people like Tim and Jenna who are prime examples of what it looks like to dream for a city and to lead well.
SCHOOL OF CREATIVITY | EVENT
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Playing major catch up here with some photos I took at this year's annual School of Creativity at Bethel. I and a few other photographers volunteered to capture the event and so many times I found myself looking at the back of my camera, totally messed up that I was living my dream and taking photos of some of my greatest heroes. If you'll remember, this is where I got to shoot that dreamy enchanted forest set-up with Heather.
There was such a buzz being around hundreds of creative from all around the world - learning, chatting and creating together. There was something energising about the whole atmosphere. One of my favourite moments was listening to Darren Wilson, director of Finger of God, Furious Love and Father of Lights share his thought process behind the films and the decisions he made to come to the final films.
I love when creatives are championed and released to be who they are. The creative world is saturated now and I love that it's a reflection of the increasing number of people who are realising that they have the ability to create. It does mean that competition and comparison is introduced and there is the tendency to start creating, start comparing and then shutting down. I, myself, find myself in that thought space often and I work to get myself out of there pronto. That moment when someone realises that everything they create is uniquely incredible and valid simply because of who they are, is one of freedom and even more creativity. So. Good.
