About Michelle
I'm Michelle, an Australian photographer with a love for capturing the beauty of our natural world.
From the ancient landscapes of Western Australia to the birds and wild places I encounter along the way, photography has become my way of slowing down, exploring and noticing the extraordinary details of the natural world.
I'm happiest with a camera in my hands — whether I'm wandering through the bush in search of birdlife, standing beneath a huge Pilbara sky or photographing the landscape from the air.
For me, photography is as much about the experience of being there as it is about the final image.
Where It All Began
My love of photography began long before I ever thought of calling myself a photographer. As a child, I loved taking photos and still remember the excitement of waiting for a roll of film to be developed, never quite knowing what would come back.
Years later, when our boys were teenagers, I decided it was time to do something just for myself. I bought my first DSLR, a Canon 500D, determined to finally learn how to use a camera properly.
Not long afterwards, we travelled to New Zealand and visited Milford Sound. I was completely captivated by the towering mountains, waterfalls, reflections and beautiful misty skies. I photographed everything.
That evening, back at our hotel in Queenstown, I excitedly uploaded my photographs.
Most of them were blurry.
I was devastated.
But that disappointment turned out to be one of the most important moments in my photographic journey.
The following day, while wandering through Queenstown looking for somewhere I could learn more about photography, I spotted a flyer in a camera shop advertising one-day photography tours with photographers Jackie Ranken and Mike Langford.
As luck would have it, someone had cancelled and there was one place available with Mike the very next day.
I jumped at it.
Mike took us into the beautiful forests and landscapes around Queenstown and showed me how to really use my camera. I learnt to slow waterfalls and streams into silky water, photograph tiny robins amongst the trees, and begin to understand how light, shutter speed and composition could transform an image.
I came home from New Zealand completely hooked.
That experience gave me the push to enrol with The Photography Institute and begin learning photography properly — never imagining where that decision would eventually take me.
From Hobby to Photographer
What began as something creative I was doing for myself soon became something I wanted to understand properly.
After returning home from New Zealand, I enrolled with The Photography Institute and completed my Diploma in Photography. From there I kept learning, taking advanced courses in wedding photography, travel and landscapes, portraiture and food photography.
Landscapes were always where my heart was, but along the way I began being offered photography work. I said yes to many of those opportunities — partly for the experience and partly to help support what was becoming a rather expensive hobby!
As my photography developed, I wanted to challenge myself further. Like many photographers, I sometimes wondered whether I had really earned the right to call myself a photographer, so I joined the Australian Institute of Professional Photography and began working towards professional accreditation.
My portfolio was accepted and I became an Accredited Professional Photographer with the AIPP. I went on to enter the Western Australian and Australian professional photography awards, where a number of my images received awards. I was a state finalist two years running and received Gold at the Western Australian Professional Photography Awards for Pink Lake – tree in the storm, followed by a Gold at the Australian Professional Photography Awards for a travel image photographed at Jantar Mantar in India.
Being recognised amongst photographers whose work I admired meant an enormous amount to me.
But over time, something changed. I realised that photography didn't need to be about awards or recognition. The thing I had loved from the beginning was still the thing that mattered most — the experience of being somewhere extraordinary, camera in hand, and creating something from what I saw.
Western Australian Professional Photography Awards - Gold
“Pink Lake - tree in the storm”
Wedding photography became an unexpected and much-loved chapter of my photography story.
A New Chapter
Eventually, photography led me into weddings, and somewhat unexpectedly, I loved it.
Wedding photography brought together so many of the skills I had learnt over the years — landscapes, portraits, details, people, light and storytelling — all within one extraordinary day. I built a wedding photography business that I was incredibly proud of and loved being part of such an important time in people's lives.
Then life changed direction.
A few years ago, my husband's work took us to Onslow, a small and remote coastal town in the Pilbara of Western Australia.
For the first year and a half, I continued my wedding business, travelling the long distances back and forth for weddings. Eventually, though, the travel became exhausting and I made the difficult decision to let the business go.
It was a much bigger loss than I expected.
Photography had been such a large part of my life for so long, and suddenly I wasn't photographing weddings and I wasn't getting out to photograph landscapes in the way I once had. Living remotely, many of the places I would normally have travelled to photograph felt a very long way away.
There were exceptions. Photographing the Pilbara from the air opened up an entirely different view of this ancient landscape, and it remains one of my favourite ways to photograph the region.
But on the ground, I remember thinking more than once:
“There is NOTHING around here I can photograph.”
As it turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.
Tasmania — where I began seeing birds differently.
Finding Something I Wasn't Looking For
Not long after, a trip to Tasmania changed the way I looked at birds.
Surrounded by beautiful birdlife — tiny wrens, Pink Robins and species I had never really stopped to notice before — I began seeing them with a completely different appreciation.
Back in Onslow, I was walking through the bush one morning when I heard what sounded like the song of a wren.
My first thought was, “There aren't wrens here. I must be imagining it.”
But I kept hearing it on my morning walks. Eventually, curiosity got the better of me and I followed the sound.
And there it was.
A beautiful White-winged Fairy-wren.
A bird I hadn't even known existed, living in the very landscape I had convinced myself held nothing for me to photograph.
Of course, I went back with my camera.
Unfortunately, the longest lens I owned wasn't really made for photographing something quite so tiny. The bird was a speck in the frame and every heavy crop robbed the image of the detail I wanted.
But I was hooked.
I began going out again and again, learning how to photograph birds with the equipment I had and discovering just how much birdlife was around me. The more I looked, the more I found.
I'd been walking through this landscape thinking there was nothing here for me to photograph, while an entire world of extraordinary birdlife had been around me all along. I simply hadn't learned to see it yet.
And somewhere along the way, bird photography became far more than something new to photograph. It gave me a reason to get outside, explore, learn and reconnect with the natural world around me.
A tiny spot of blue in the Pilbara brown.
One of my first photographs of a White-winged Fairy-wren around Onslow — and the beginning of a completely new way of seeing the landscape.
Seeing the World Differently
Bird photography quickly became something of an obsession.
I spent months learning, practising and trying to photograph these tiny, fast-moving subjects with equipment that had originally been bought for weddings and landscapes. I became fascinated not only by photographing birds, but by learning about them — their calls, behaviour, habitats and the remarkable lives being lived all around me.
Eventually I upgraded my camera and invested in a lens made for bird photography, determined to capture the incredible birdlife I was discovering around Onslow and the Ashburton River with the detail and beauty I could see for myself.
But somewhere along the way, something even more meaningful happened.
I began sharing my bird photographs online, simply because I wanted other people to see what I was seeing. Before long, people started stopping me to say they were noticing birds they had never really noticed before. Some would tell me they'd seen a particular bird and recognised it because of one of my photographs.
I think that may be one of the greatest gifts photography has given me.
These days you'll often find me in steel-capped boots, wandering through spinifex with a camera and very large lens, following a bird call or exploring somewhere I've never walked before.
Sometimes I come home with a photograph I love. Sometimes I don't. But every time I'm outside, I'm learning something, experiencing something and appreciating this extraordinary part of Australia a little more.
I feel incredibly fortunate whenever a wild bird allows me into its world, even if only for a few moments. Being able to capture those encounters and share them with others has given my photography a completely new purpose.
What began all those years ago with the excitement of waiting for a roll of film to be developed has become my way of exploring, connecting with nature and sharing the beauty I find along the way.
Perhaps that's what photography has always been about for me — slowing down, looking a little closer and seeing something I might otherwise have walked straight past.
Still exploring. Still learning. Still looking a little closer.