Today is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. Happy, Happy International Women’s Day to all the wonderful, extraordinary women in the world.

I have so many wonderful women mentors in my life. The relationships I have with the women in my family and friends are vital to my wellbeing. I truly believe that if women were able to harness  and nurture the power of these connections we could come so much closer to creating a peaceful world. Big vision I know but I have hope.

A few years ago I started a project called “Extraordinary Women”. It started as a project about ordinary women who do extraordinary things. At the time I was inspired by many of my women friends who were out there doing incredible physical things and had amazing careers however if you saw them walk down the street nobody would know what they did. As the project grew I quickly relised that all women can be extraordinary and that nobody is “ordinary”.  When I started to create these portraits what overwhelmingly came through was their uncompromising passion for living life the best way they can. The purpose of this project transformed into a project about celebrating women who are endeavouring to be the best that they can be and contributing what they can to make the world a better place. I have learned that it is not what you do that makes who you are but the integrity of how you live your life and the relationships you nurture.

These wonderful women were the first images I produced for this project. I created them a few years ago. Sadly life got in the way a bit and I have not done anything with them but I thought today would be a great day to share them and I guess unofficially launch my project again. If you know an extraordinary woman I would love to photograph her I am not sure where this will lead but I guess I am putting it out to the Universe so to speak.

From top to bottom 1. Catherine Townshend. Alina Mcmaster, Rebecca Collins, Anne Henderson, Penny Boyer and Nicole Canham. All of these women I feel are living their lives with integrity and passion. They are truly inpirational. Catherine is an architect, she creaties spaces and buildings that bring joy and health to our community she also mentors students and younger practicioners. When I met her she had just taken up surfing. Alina is a great friend, she is a gifted athlete and runs a business call AROCSport with her Husband Tom. She is passionate about sharing how fun exercise can be and the beauty of the outdoors. Rebecca has the most wonderful voice and brings joy to your heart when she sings. Anne is the salt of the earth, she is a beautiful, practical woman who with her Husband Brian brought back the heath to a section of the Mowamba River and at the time of photographing her they run a Fly fishing school. along the river. Penny is an educator and a photographer she is passionate about the visual arts and visual arts education. And Nicole is a talented mucician and at the time I met her she was bringing music from all around the world to Canberra as the director of the Canberra International Music Festival.

I know that it has taken me a while to come back to this project but I am so grateful to each of these women for sharing with me a small part of their lives. Much love and happy International Women’s Day xoxo