The House with the Red Fence
Hello lovely! If we haven't internet-met before, my name is Caitlin and I'm the photographer behind Ragamuffin Pet Photography in Melbourne, Australia. I started out photographing mostly fashion, but then my life changed completely when I adopted my scruffy gal, Lyra. Before she was even one year old, I had quit fashion, written up my business plan and launched Ragamuffin. That was is 2011 - Ragamuffin is now my full-time career and I couldn't be happier. Pet photographers are a pretty lucky bunch, aren't we?? :) 2014 was a wee bit epic - between moving house, planning our wedding, renovating our new home, raising our foster pup Paddy, dealing with the loss of my Misty, publishing my first book (Tails of Melbourne) and just the general craziness that is running your own business, I feel like I've barely had a breather. I always clear the first two weeks of January from sessions, so I have a good fortnight to re-calibrate (#photogeek) and look at my goals for the upcoming year.
One of my biggest, personal goals is to further improve my work-life balance. For a while after Misty passed, I attempted to bury myself in Ragamuffin. For a workaholic, it's an easy thing to do, and I quickly slipped back into all-nighters and anxiety. But then I remembered everything that my little grey monkey had taught me.
So in an attempt to do more for fun in 2015, I have three resolutions:
1) Shoot more personal work (this means making time for Lyra's Project again) 2) Go on weekly dates with my fiancé (teehee. still not used to calling him that.) 3) Get some non-work related hobbies. One of my least favourite questions is "What hobbies do you have?" (closely followed by "Where is your home town?" #expatchild. Why do you want to upset me, Facebook?!)
To encourage myself on all three of these resolutions, I've started a little personal side project called The House with the Red Fence. At the moment, it's full of short daily vlogs and randomness like my favourite vegetarian recipes, crafty diy type things, behind the scenes peeks at Ragamuffin, and just general giggles. If that sort of thing floats your boat, you can subscribe to the youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWysYb5yAvRPS2xjXDcM8Tw and hit the good ol' "like" button on facey here: https://www.facebook.com/TheRedFence. It feels really vulnerable having something so new out in the big, wide world and the temptation is not to tell anyone about it, but there you go!
Anyway, sorry that seems like quite a ramble. Guess it's New-Year-Reflectionitis. But I'm so very happy to be back on the Project 52 train and can't wait to see everyone else's introductions for 2015!
Head on over to the blog of Kelly Wolfe Photography, Morrinsville, New Zealand to see her take on Week One of 2015 (Introductions).
Lyra’s Project is an ongoing personal series, and part of Project 52 from the Beautiful Beasties Network (an international group of professional pet photographers). Project 52 exists so that we may collectively challenge ourselves and our creativity with a weekly assignment. Every week a different pet photographer chooses a theme, which each person interprets in their own way. The photograph must be taken during that week, and on Friday evening (8pm Aussie time) everyone’s blog posts go live. Click the link above to see the next photographer’s image and continue around the blog circle until you end up back here – enjoy!