18/04/2026
Smiths Beach, Margaret River — finding my way back… and forward 🌊
This trip to Margaret River felt a little bit different. We were celebrating our two-year wedding anniversary and a few big life milestones… and for the first time ever, we left Poppy at home.
(Don’t worry — she was very well looked after by my parents visiting from the UK… and thoroughly enjoyed being in charge 😂🐾)
We stayed in a quiet little log cabin, spent our days exploring national parks, and I packed all my gear with one goal in mind — to get back in the ocean.
When I first met my husband, I was that girl… always in a wetsuit, camera in hand, chasing the coastline. It’s actually one of those photos that made him swipe right in the first place.
But over the last few years, life shifted. I run a business that has nothing to do with photography, and I’ve been working hard to grow it — and somewhere along the way, I started struggling to find the balance between building that life and holding onto the parts of me that I love.
Add in a back injury, then a broken arm that turned into a much longer recovery than expected… and slowly, that version of me felt further and further away.
So getting back into the water at Smiths Beach last week — even with a heavy camera setup and a slightly sore arm — felt like more than just a shoot.
When I came out of the ocean, my husband said,
“I haven’t seen you smile like that before.”
And he was right.
Because for the first time in a long time… I felt like myself again.
This photo isn’t just a sunset to me. It’s a little marker of that moment.
Have you ever felt like you lost a part of yourself for a while… and then slowly found your way back? 👇💙
