I accidentally took two months off from the blogosphere. It was a crazy end to 2016. I checked with Qantas who told me that I took 31 flights with them, totalling some 26,500 miles, from April to December 2016.
In January 2016, I moved to Melbourne and didn’t travel for those first 3 months as I settled in to my new place.
I have found my comfort space here in Melbourne. This is my city. I love it here, I love the lifestyle, I love the streets, the people are great, my suburb is happening and super close to the CBD, I have trams outside my door, there’s plenty of places to walk GG and there’s heaps to do.
I have friends here as well, both old and new, and I have friends from Brisbane and Sydney, who visit pretty often and I visit them as well, thanks to my travel schedule.
I visited Hanoi in Vietnam in December – an amazing, eye-opening experience. I will post about that separately soon.
Creatively and photographically, 2016 was a fabulous year. I met my blogging buddy Julie and we became firm friends who push each other to do some really cool and fun photo shoots – whenever we find the time to get together. I want us to make more time for that this year. Julz has an amazing home studio that she has welcomed me into and we have had a lot of fun creating cool shots in there.
In November, I finally registered my new business name and started my business website – desleyjane pictures – where I hope to soon set up an online store where people can buy prints and other paper goodies that I’ve made. This is a huge passion for me and I’m so excited for it to get going.
I did two professional (!!) photo shoots in November! Yay! One was a series of product shots and model shots for a small business owner here in Melbourne – that’s her modelling in the image as well. More on that in another post but if you follow me on Instagram, you will have seen many of those there.
The second shoot was for Griffith University. The new Director of the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery invited me to shoot the re-brand of the institute, which involved portraits and creative shots of the leadership team as well as students and lab shots. It was a lot of fun, a huge job and it will have a lot more follow on work to finish out the rebrand.
It has been a struggle trying to combine my real job with my #sidehustle – especially since it’s the photography that always takes a back seat.
But we keep going, we work late, we work weekends, we try to fit in as much as we can, and we try not to burn out. And above all, we have fun!
I have a very regular posting schedule on Instagram (@desleyjane). I try to post every day – either something from my life or something from a photo shoot.
I have also started a second Instagram account for my planning obsession (@desleyjane_plans) – this will coincide with part of my online paper products business once I can get that off the ground.
Time! How do we stretch it out? I’ve studied Physics, that little task is beyond me. It all comes down to planning 😊 and organization and prioritisation of tasks and events. This is my focus for 2017.
In fact, my word for 2017 is FOCUS.
How did 2016 finish for you? I hope you are all doing well and I look forward to catching up with all of you over the next few weeks as I make my way back around the b’sphere.
x desleyjane
Musings of a Frequent Flying Scientist 
I’d love to hear from you!