Anne Geddes

Anne Geddes was born in Queensland, Australia on September 13, 1956. She grew up on a huge cattle farm in Northern Queensland and is the 3rd of four daughters. During her childhood she was a true tomboy; she and her sisters enjoyed swimming the the overflow of the stream near their house during the spring, riding horses, and herding cattle on long drives for the family ranch. She was not necessarily interested in photography as a child, until one day it became clear to her while talking to her mother one day in their family garden. She says that her mother thought that she was just playing, however she knew that she wanted to photography nature as well as people. From that day forward she studied National Geographic and Life pictures, she says that she was fascinated by the way that the photographers capture the moments in time that can never be repeated.
At the young age of 17 she took a job for a tourist hotel chain in New Zealand. She decided that since this was the first time that she had ever been out of the country, she would document everything with her camera. It is her that she learned to appreciate different textures and the different natural light

that is present in nature. Along with all of the extraordinary things that she got to experience, this immense traveling brought her to Hong Kong, where she met her husband, Kel Geddes. They were married in Hong Kong in 1983.
She and Kel stayed in Hong Kong long enough for Anne to start her own portraiture business. She started out photographing her friends and their children on location at their home, gardens, or local parks. She took one day a week to just go out and take pictures purely for her own enjoyment. She learned to love nature even more than she already did, as well as learning how light bounced off of different surfaces.
In 1984 Kel and Anne returned to Sydney so that Kel could continue his career in public broadcasting. It was a very exciting time in their life seeing as how Anne delivered their first daughter there. Anne, then obsessed with her new little girl, decided to start photographing her little girl for fun. She developed many good shots as well as an expert eye for detail. One of these pictures was made into the families first Christmas card; leading Anne to want to develop more cards, so she started her own small card business.

 In 1986 she and Kel moved again, this time to Melborne. She was very fortunate due to the fact that the house that they moved into had an old garage in the back that she reclaimed as her photography studio. the family stayed there for less then a year before moving to Auckland, New Zealand. There she started seriously focusing on child photography. She stated out using her own children, by then she had two young daughters, but then added others children and her business boomed from then on. She published her first calender in 1988.
In 1992 Kel quit the broadcasting business to become Anne's business partner. He helped her build her business into a huge empire. They started this by launching a very successful line of cards, then moving to calenders, then books.

She is very influenced by nature, in particular flower buds and pupa. She loves to experiment with her art form still, and will continue, she says, till the day she dies. She says that the pictures are not taken to make money, she photographs because it is soothing to her.
Her photography really influenced me because I want to become a portrait photographer, however I love nature. She has made a balance between the two that is very beautiful to me. She is a true inspiration to the photography world, and will continue to make new way for herself and other photographers.