CAPTURING the memories and smiles of people who are important to her has kick started a career for Sarah Wheeler, “Beethoven”, Rowena.
The creative teenager has always been a farm girl at heart, who considered sitting on the header with her father and a pickled sandwich the ideal way to spend the day.
Sarah’s father died when she was 12, which made her realise the importance of everyday experiences and having a way to remember them by.
“We didn’t have heaps of photos of dad, he didn’t really like to get in front of the camera, but it’s really encouraged me to create memories with everybody important to me,” she said.
When she was 13 years old, Sarah found a camera which belonged to her mother Terri.
She said it was love at first sight and from that day on spent every afternoon she could on her family’s cropping property, taking photos of anything she could.
“It was the sunsets that inspired me to go out,” she said.
“I’d do things like get all of our work boots, chuck them in the dirt and take photos just to see what happened.”
Until 2011, Sarah’s photography was just a hobby to her, until she shared some of her photos on her Facebook page.
The photos she uploaded were of her sisters playing in the flood waters, covered in mud.
Although they weren’t the best technical work Sarah’s ever done, the way she captured the moment caused quite the social media stir.
“I had friends coming up to me asking if I could take photos of them and their families,” she said.
“I started doing that, and got a lot of practice.”
Now 16, Sarah could be considered a professional photographer after being booked to take formal, landscape and even wedding photographs.
Making the leap from taking photos of her school friends in the Calrossy boarding house, to having people trust her with their special day meant a lot of hard work for Sarah – but she is definitely determined.
“I started entering a lot of competitions to get my name out as much as I could,” she said.
“I also did work experience with a photographer in Tamworth to build up my experience.”
The first competition she entered was for harvest photography, where Sarah was selected as a finalist.
The recognition her photography had potential encouraged Sarah to learn how to work her camera properly and she wanted to learn from the best.
“I went online and found people who were really good photographers that could teach me something,” she said.
“I then applied to do courses with as many of them as I could.”
With her mother behind her, Sarah’s travelled through NSW and Queensland to undergo photography training which has taught her the ins and outs of manually adjusting her camera and editing her photos.
Coming from a small community has given Sarah a leg up in her profession as she said she’s been given so much support from family friends and community members.
“People from home are constantly asking what I’ve been doing and are wanting to look at my work,” she said.
The fact that she’s one of the only photographers in the area has also helped her in developing professionally as people have spread the word about her work.
“I think if I had a lot of competition starting out, it would have got a bit much for me,” she said.
“It’s great because I take photos for somebody and they tell somebody else about me.”
Terri bought Sarah her first camera and has been her biggest supporter from the word go.
“I wouldn’t be able to do this without all the support I receive from my mum,” Sarah said.
Sarah will finish school next year and is hoping to attend RMIT University, a university in Melbourne which offers a specialised photography course.
Although she said attending a school in the city could change the way she takes photos, she’ll always have an interest in capturing rural Australia.
“I’ll always come back because the country is interesting,” she said.
“You can capture something different that not many people get to see everyday.”