Anyway, my family and coffee were my sources of inspiration for many weeks – occasionally Earnest (our great dane) would make an appearance, but one day as we were waiting for our coffees to arrive at an outdoor cafe in the city I noticed an interesting pattern the morning sun made on a nearby office block. I snapped a picture and posted it. Another day we were location scouting at a historic school and I noticed that the columns made beautiful shadows on the old building. I continued with the normal ‘hey look at that cute bird’ and ‘look how tasty my breakfast looks’ shots for awhile, but I was noticing more and more beautiful details, textures and colours around me that I hadn’t seen before. I was taking shots of garage doors, concrete walls, cables on suspension bridges, petals on steel grates, and shadows from window ledges. I found a whole community of people on Instagram who took pictures of similar stuff. I followed them, they followed back. I was inspired. Every trip out of the house became not just an opportunity to find that elusive perfect coffee, but a chance to get excited by a tiny or enormous detail.

The point of all this is to say, hey, I’m grateful to have a little app on my iPhone that encourages me to seek beauty every day and record it to share with others. I’ve made so many Instafriends along the way too, from all over the world. It’s a great, supportive, loyal and friendly community to be part of.

Here’s a sample of what you’ll see if you follow me @surfistatomate ! (My screen name is another story…)

Grateful very grateful.

Do you want to share what your grateful for? Hop over here and enter quick to win a Fuji Instax camera!

check it out here! 365grateful.com

You can see more of this gorgeous family here and also follow their travel blog. I LOVE IT! Making me very hungry to go back to India!!

These shoots just make me so excited. So much colour and fun! If you are interested in doing a ‘Mama & Me’ shoot with your little pumpkin, shoot us an email to say HOLA! These portrait sessions are all about the connection between Mama’s and the little lovelies in their lives. They are about fun, play and cute moments together. Hope you enjoy this very colourful one!

We should all be wearing more red I think!

Firstly Sharn and Rachael…

and the lovely Janet and Darryl who were also here once too!!

Nothing sweeter than seeing a Mama and her little boy playing together. Hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed taking them!

You can check out Lisa’s site here too if you like!

This shoot will appear in two stages as I was unable to cull down the images to a reasonable number!
I am in love with fun family sessions that include dress ups! I have a couple more coming on the blog very soon!!

In the meantime enjoy Lisa who happens to have a fantastic blog of her own over here! Lisa is so talented. She makes the most delicious  food that is healthy and then she also photographs the food herself! She specializes in gestational diabetes recipes.

Also we have some travel dates below if you are interested in having your own portrait session.

Melbourne 20-25th April

Newcastle 28th  April – 4th May

New York  9th – 15th June

L.A 19th – 24th June

Sydney Mid to late July.

Fuji Film has donated a fabulous Instax 210 camera and a stack of film to give away to a lucky person exclusively on our 365 Grateful Facebook page and 365 Grateful website.

This is a great instant photo camera that produces an amazing wide photograph in seconds. Take it with you everywhere so you never miss a special moment!

To be in the running for this fun prize, all we want you to do is email us what you are grateful for!

We are looking for heartfelt grateful moments… these might be everyday simple things like clean sheets or maybe deep thoughts and experiences that have formed you… or maybe something about yourself you have just realised. Whatever you’re grateful for we want to hear!

Your entry must be email-able, but can be scanned art, a painting, photograph, collage, or a story. Please include your name and contact details with your entry and be sure to read the terms and conditions below.

Please email your entry to stories@365grateful.com by April 29th, 2012!

Good luck!

Terms and conditions

Entries close 29th April 2012, 12pm AEST
All entries must be original work and include entrant’s full name, address and description
The prize is 1 Fuji Instax 210 Wide camera and 38 packets of Fuji instant film. Also one leather-bound album to be posted to the winner after June 20th, 2012.
By entering the competition, each entrant must grant ’365 Grateful’ and ‘Fuji Film’ the right to use the entry in promotions including online and print.
Where a photograph entered in the competition includes a person other than the photographer, the photographer must guarantee that he or she has obtained all necessary permissions from that other person (or in the case of a child, that child’s parents or lawful guardian) for the image to be used in accordance with these terms and conditions. An entrant indemnifies ’365 Grateful’ against all damages, losses, costs and expenses incurred by ’365 Grateful’ arising directly or indirectly out of any failure by you to obtain the permissions mentioned above.
The judges will short-list favourite Gratefuls and then draw the final winner from a hat. The judges’ decision is final and binding. As such, no correspondence will be entered into.

Katie is an amazing photographer and it is the best kind of honor to be asked to capture her family! You can see Katie’s work here. This little family are such a sweet combination. Toby is about as cute as it gets. He had me in love  with him in 2 seconds! I walked through the door and he bounced over and hugged me! I have never had this response before I started the session! Toby is a reflection of his awesome parents. Alive, feeling, talented and generous.

Hope you enjoy this gorgeous family as much as I did!

She is SO SO inspiring and an amazing woman. I loved making this film with her!

Not only is Sue an amazing business woman but she is also wonderful fun with kids…

I feel extremely lucky to work with so many amazing photographers. How did I get so lucky!

To find out about Sue head to her blog. Hope you enjoy the video below!

We have been busy working on a little ‘gift’ to include with our client orders.

A few years ago I was interviewing an amazing couple about marriage and love. I asked them “How do you make love last?”

This amazing man said… “The grass is greener… where you water it.”

It is a wonderful quote and has been stuck in my head for many years!! Since then I have always wanted to do something with this….

Long story short we asked a dear friend and very talented designer Natala to help us out on this project and we have now made some gorgeous posters and postcards that we can send out with orders as little ‘gifts’.

If you are a friend of You can’t be Serious! or a previous client or someone who pops into the blog or even someone who just loves this quote as much as me…  we would love to send YOU a postcard!

We are so grateful to have the support of so many people and the fun of doing what we love for a job! Feel free to leave a comment below and we will be in touch to get your postal address and then post one of these out to YOU!

HOpe you like this quote as much as I do!