We walked up to the hall via the grand old stairs into a big room with high ceilings and little windows. The once charming place is a gallery with prints, photos in frames, that line the walls, and the spaces in between. It's like a maze, and around every corner was something to make you pause; light, colour, connection, emotion, story. They caught your attention; almost demanded you to stop. It's a whisper quiet yet deafening shout that comes with no words from a room full of stories. And as this wave of stories washed over me, I felt the disconnect of social media, the continuous scroll, the attraction of hearting someone's art, start to wither.

Above each portrait, an imaginary fluoro sign flashed. It read "PRINT YOUR PHOTOS" in bold colours. The personal reminder to make something tangible rather than fill memory cards or disk space. This exhibition, filled with emotive, soulful, vibrant stories, was a firecracker for the senses. The connection to why I create, why I take photos, why I weave tales jump-started: heart pumping, electricity fuelled, goosebumps. I can get lost in the bright lights of social media, and I have, or I can pull myself back to the real world to create a better balance. I've been leaning in favour of the quick like, rather than the slow love, and somewhere that's more in the middle is probably a better happy place for me, if not all of us.

I left the room with tears in my eyes, entirely moved by the world and how other's see it. We walked down the stairs, out into the winter air, and my creative mind had hit refresh. I'm ready to create, print, make, tell, listen, be, remember, capture, shoot, watch, photograph. I'm ready to be fueled by curiosity again!

Note about the above image. Chloe Lodge and I are doing our #herwildandpreciouslife 365 project, and to celebrate the different yet similar stories, we created a series of diptychs. We love the connection in this one and decided to enter our combined work into the @headonphotofest competition in Sydney. We were awarded a place as a semi-finalist and included in the slideshow at the finalist exhibition in Paddington. Yesterday, I went to see our image and was blindsided by a wave of pride as our image popped up on the screen. The whole exhibition inspired these words and feelings. Print your photos.