Last year, after a discussion over Facebook messenger, myself and 3 other photographers decided we wanted to do something a bit different. So we organised a personal/group project we titled the North East Travelling Dress project (we each photographed the same dress, passed from one to the next, over the course of 6 months), and all up, we ended up with 12 local photographers, some of us knew each other, some of us had never met, some of us had met over social media (various Facebook groups and Instagram). It culminated with an exhibition in Echuca in February this year. During the gallery opening, over a few glasses of vino we decided that we’d had so much fun the first time, why not do it again.

So this time, instead of a dress, we decided a theme was another option… and we came up with the theme “feathers”. We had 3 months over winter to decide how we each wanted to interpret it, plan it, shoot it and edit it. Then at the end of winter, on a chosen date and time we all posted our photos to Instagram. None of us had seen each others photos, or knew what the others were doing.

I knew I wanted to do something that challenged me. For the travelling dress project, I photographed a ballerina in the dress on top of a car park… so one day while watching my daughter at her dance class I decided that I’d keep with the same theme. Over the 45 minute class, I’d come up with my plan, scrolled Pinterest to see if my idea was going to be feasible, organised the feathers and decided who I was going to ask to be my brave ballerina.

My plan - to photograph a dancer in the snow!

I contacted Kate at https://onedayinmarch.com/ to see if she would be keen to make up a headpiece with feathers for me. I didn’t really have too much of an idea on what style I wanted (I know, I’m a nightmare to collaborate with!) so I let Kate know what I had in mind for the shoot and trust her to make up something beautiful (her work is gorgeous, so I had no qualms in heading over creative control to her!).

I then contacted Meegan Strauss to see if she would happen to be keen to be involved and told her my plan about the snow. And as it happened, she was planning on travelling to the snow a month or so later and was more than keen to be involved!

Que my uncertainty… I had no idea how this was going to work or what it was actually going to look like.

Then I had another idea. I thought if I could find an old, empty building with big windows, I could do a shoot inside. Then decided why not do both? And as luck would have it, Murray Youth Performing Arts have temporary access to an old building they’re currently using as an extra dance studio. So Meegan and I decided the week before we were due to head up to the snow that we’d do the photos in the old building first. Just to make sure that, you know, it was going to work!

It was a freezing, foggy morning in the old building, but I ended up LOVING the photos. Then the following week we headed up to Falls Creek, Meegan headed out in just her leotard and BARE FEET and we did some very, very quick photos. Though honestly, probably not as quick as Meegan would have liked. For the record, she’s one tough lady! She had her leotard, I took up my Mum’s crocheted wedding dress from the 70’s and an old faux fur coat that used to be my Grandma’s. We tried a few different shots. Honestly, I loved the epicness of the idea of the snow photos, but my faves by far are the ones we took as the trial first in the old building.

And at the bottom of this post, I’ve added all the photos and links to all the other awesome ladies involved.