The end of 2025 mark the third season shooting for the Melbourne Youth Orchestras. What I love about working with them is their openness to trying new ways of incorporating photography into the experience their young musicians have when they join one of their 16 ensembles. 

As always, the end-of-year showcase concerts were a highlight for me because the young musicians perform in one of Melbourne’s iconic concert halls. This year it was the Melbourne Recital Centre. While smaller than Hamer Hall, the acoustics are just superb. The music I get to hear while shooting in the balcony is rich and moving.

Trial for Sectional Portraits

This year we introduced several new photographic experiences for the musicians. The first being “sectional” portraits. We didn’t roll this out to all the ensembles because we wanted to gauge the interest level and test out the logistics of moving lage sections musicians around Southbank. Parents seemed to receive these images eagerly! We intend to offer this to more ensembles in 2026. I really enjoyed getting to capture the connections and communities that form within the sections of these ensembles.

Sold Out Mini-Photoshoots for Musicians

Parents also asked for more images featuring their individual musicians. So we created  “Mini-Photoshoots for Musicians” this year — outdoors for Winter School students and indoors at Iwaki Auditorium for ensemble program musicians. Every time we offered these sessions the spots sold out within a couple hours, so we definitely want to bring these back next year. These were maybe my favourite because they are most similar to the portrait photography I love doing with young people.

Jazz Bands @ The Jazz Lab

This season I shot the jazz ensembles for the first time at the Jazz Lab. As one of Melbourne’s premier venues, it’s known for its intimate atmosphere and excellent acoustics. The dim, warm stage lighting and small stage was quite the opposite experience shooting in the vast concert halls in Melbourne. Here it felt like a concert in your living room and the musicians were playing just for you. 

A New Assistant and Expanded Coverage

I had trained my first assistant! Kirsten has an artistic eye and natural attention to detail. Our images compliment each others. Together, we hope to provide a more comprehensive collection for the MYO community. With Kirsten’s assistance, we expanded our coverage at the Showcase concerts by capturing the moments behind the scenes while the various ensembles awaited their turns to perform. In these images we focused on the friendships between these musicians and catching the light hearted minutes shared before taking the stage. Parents wrote to me saying how much they liked seeing these moments. I’m working out how we can continue to offer this regularly. 

It was a year of bringing back what worked in the past and trying out new things. I’m grateful I get to grow as a photographer, serve a worthy community organisation, and hear fantastic music all year long while doing it. 

Thank you MYO for what you bring to our city and for the opportunities to be a part of it. I can’t wait to see what 2026 brings.