What an amazing experience! I was incredibly priviledged to be invited up to mission beach with the McMahon family to take their family portraits. It was the first time they had been back to Paronella park in 20yrs, having had many happy family holidays up there in the past. As a very important family birthday wish included a return trip the family decided that it was time to get an update of the family photographs – which is where I come in! We discussed the possibility last year of maybe me coming along for the first couple of days to record the trip, I couldnt really get my head around the idea that they would want me to go with them, but to my amazement they contacted me a few months ago to tell me my flights were booked and to not book anything else for early July 2012!. This was also my first trip up to north Qld in nearly 14 years (since i did my first backpacking trip up to Cairns in 1998! so I was interested in how much it had all changed. My first thoughts were of cyclone yasi which crossed almost directly over Mission beach (where we were staying) in 2011. I couldnt see much damage to begin with as much of the vegetation has grown back but when you look deeper you can see huge amounts of trees broken and falling over and lots of houses with new roofs! The location choosen for the shoot was a place called paronella park. A truly amazing place, mostly constructed by one man and definatly worth a visit if youre in the area. Thank-you to the whole of the McMahon family, for allowing me to be part of this trip and for making me feel so welcome. I hope you enjoy these pictures I’m posting (I have an awesome amount to get through so this is just a small number of my fave’s so far ) Hope the rest of your holiday was great and see you when you get back…
