It was 2016...

...and I needed a creative challenge. Cue: the 100 Day Project, shared on Instagram.

It took me a few days to think up a subject. I had a number of options. Then it came to me in a flash one day: portraits.

I started with friends who I thought would be willing to have their mug plastered on IG. I branched out in to acquaintances, who sometimes turned into friends.

There was an intimacy in these shoots. It was raw, moving, a gift for both of us.

Eventually, life happened and going to visit people for solo shoots every day became unmanageable. Over the course of 100 days, the prompt to get up close and personal with a single human every day expanded. I began to incorporate colleagues on acting jobs. I entered rehearsal rooms. I went to gigs.

Halfway through I upgraded my camera thanks to Lacklands/Nikon NZ.

I taught myself Lightroom.

I made lots of mistakes.

What began as an exercise in connection and presence became a web of experience, threaded together with that most human thing of all: LOVE.

The pics below are a peppering of the entire project, in chronological order.

I decided to keep going...

...and reached out to friends and colleagues, eager to keep capturing life and to continue to learn.

People started to employ me.

It became a side hustle and then a main hustle and here we are.

It's job but it's not a j.o.b.

This has become an extension of my artistic practice and it "talks" to my drawing and painting.

Taking great photos makes me feel so good because it's a vocation.

It's a collaboration and the results are a gift to all.