I have always been moved by films. I loved how I could be moved to feel melancholy or  hopeful by the masterful usage of colour, light and music. The beauty of using sound and images just completely magical. As photographers have started to create documentary type short films of their families lives, I have so connected so deeply with these pieces. They seem to capture the essence of life in a way that I have not found stills too. I connected with the way a child would quickly gaze towards the camera and away, or how hair would blow in the wind. Cuddles and dance parties, some of my favourite things, could be captured so much more powerfully in a video. I wanted to have videos of my kids, doing these things.  However I never thought it was something I could do. For a number of reasons, that I don't need to get into here. Thankfully I had a friend and talented photographer Kristina (check out her inspirational work) who kept encouraging me to have a go at it. She patiently showed me some stuff to get me started. I was loving it, but still felt a bit over my head. I decided to enrol in an online course and am just finishing it up now.  A huge thank you to Emily Mitchell for being such a great teacher. We had to put together a piece from our life and I created this from my families recent trip to Phoenix. I still have lots to learn, but I loved how I was able to create one piece that basically summed up the feeling of that trip. I also loved being able to include so many of the different people that we saw on the trip, my brother and his wife, grandparents and even great-grandparents. I fell in love with having bits of audio, the clips with my childs voices. Lewis has the most adorable voice right now, and I never want to forget him yelling at the moon to have a time out (because what was the moon doing up before dark?). I know this will be something I continue to explore. I have ideas of how I want to incorporate this as a service offered to clients, so stay tuned for that. For now I will keep creating these for myself, and more importantly for my kids. Hopefully I can figure out how to get myself in the next film. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for watching :)