Desire She Chased

She remembered growing up and having the subject ‘sense of belonging’, taught to her in primary school. She then travelled her way through high school with the same word ‘belonging’ making it’s rounds through each English class, every year. She jumped from high school to working in childcare and began projecting the same term ‘belonging’ onto the children who looked up to her, as it was her everyday duty as an educator.

Although the word had been circling around for many years, she never truly knew what it meant to belong and in hindsight, everyone had a different concept about it, a different emotion towards it or a general understanding from what they had been taught. But it wasn’t until her mid-twenties that she knew she had finally found her sense of belonging and the meaning behind this simple word, that was so easily thrown around. Yes, she belonged to a family, she had friends that she chose, and they chose her, she had travelled to a lot of places and met a lot of people, who accepted her for who she was. The difference now was - she accepted herself, she chose herself and she was herself.

It was late in the year 2018, when her mum had given her an old 100-300mm telephoto lens, as her mum was no longer travelling, and it was collecting dust. Ecstatic about this hand me down, she caught her first sunrise with the new lens the very next day. She sat on the shore at Alexandra Headlands and waited patiently for the sun to creep up over the horizon. There were sets of 1-2ft waves crawling in, with maybe 10-15 people sitting on their surf boards, also waiting for that first peak of light. She wasn’t sure what she was going to capture with this new lens, but the serenity was powerful. The sun finally rose, and she began to shoot, taking at least 100 photos. She checked the result of her last photo and there it was – the simplest, cleanest, and most vibrant photo. She zoomed in to double check her focus – ohhh it was spot on. She called it, she was done for the morning, she was eager to charge home and upload this beauty to her computer, to share it with the rest of the world and most importantly, her mum.

The warm coloured sky, the elegance of the woman surfer, the way the silhouette contrasted with the background and the added detail of the wave’s splash, made her heart sing with joy – it’s the photo that created SheridanD.Photography and the photo that made her reflect and realise she was a photographer, and this is what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.  From there, she continued to fall into the mould that she shaped for herself as a kid, as a teenager and as an adult. The mould of which she dreamt of, manifested, created…but realistically, the mould of which was her true, authentic self.

She has chased the things she most desires in life and follows her path to what brings her the most happiness. By doing so, she continues to unlock new chapters and new doors, welcoming more opportunities that challenge and inspire, who she is as a person. This photo is an important photo – this photo, represents her sense of belonging.