Welcome To My Blog

This is my first entry so I would like to tell you a little bit about myself. I am a mother of two children Jaymon and Sienna. I live on the NSW south coast of Australia. For many years I worked as a full time press photographer in Sydney, a job which I very much loved, until I had my first child that is. Going back to work full time was just not an option for me. I wanted to share quality time with my son and did not want to miss all the special moments. Fortunately my work was able to offer me a part time position. I worked 3 days and while it was a nice balance to be working and being a mum, often I found myself becoming quite stressed. The life of a press photographer is quite full on. You have to meet deadlines and get to urgent jobs quickly which in Sydney traffic is not a pleasant experience. When I would get home from work I just wanted to relax, but instead was faced with an overtired and demanding toddler. The other thing that bothered me was that by being a mum and only working 3 days, I was then being assigned the most uninteresting jobs. While once I was at the top of my field, photographing celebrities and exciting events, now I was left feeling like I was a cadet again, there to pick up the scraps. I think it is no wonder that press photography is dominated by men, but anyhow I trudged on for another 16 months before taking maternity leave again when I was 8 months pregnant with my second child.

Having children and trying to survive on a single income can be very difficult at times, especially living in Sydney which is ranked as one of the most expensive cities to live in the world. I tried to find many ways in which to be able save some money. I tried selling Jaymon's baby clothes on ebay but found that by the time I paid the fees it really was a pointless excercise. All that effort to just make a few dollars which wasn't even enough to then buy clothes for my daughter. It was then that I thought wouldn't it be great to be able to just swap my boys clothes for girls clothes. All my friends had boys also so swapping with them was not an option. I searched high and low to find a place, and could not find anything. It was then that I decided to start my own baby exchange website. After much brainstorming with my mother and my husband, we finally came up with a concept that would allow parents to be able indirectly swap items. This meant that parents did not have to directly swap with each other, but could choose anything from anyone once their items were chosen.

Baby Exchange was an expensive project but I was lucky enough to have my mother lend me the money, which I am still paying back. I could see it becoming a huge success in the years to come and the thought of one day being able to give up working and to be able to enjoy my children just seemed very appealing. On top of that the thought that I could help other parents in a similar situation felt really rewarding. We also decided to donate some of the proceeds to various charities. This year we have chosen Kids with Cancer in Australia, but we are looking to change the charities yearly just to be able to spread the love so to say.

Anyway to cut a long story short, I returned to maternity leave when my daughter was 10months old. I was really struggling with getting two children ready for daycare and to get to work on time, which on some days would be a photo shoot on the other side of the city. I was close to breaking point when my husband and I finally made the decision to move away form the city. Our mortgage repayments there did not give us the freedom for me to concentrate on Baby Exchange and to work freelance as a photographer.

We had been visiting the Jervis Bay area for some years now, and had fallen in love with the place. Houses were much cheaper there also, so we knew that by reducing our mortgage drastically I would then have the option to freelance as a photographer and to concentrate on Baby Exchange and to build it into a valuable resource for all parents. It was difficult for the first 3 months until my husband found full time work and I started to get freelance work. But so far we are loving our sea change, and have found it a very rewarding experience.

Anyway I hope that you enjoy my blog.