It’s been an amazing journey. A roller coaster at times.

3650. A surreal milestone. 10 years worth of photos captured over 14 years. Today I couldn’t help but reflect on what I’ve learnt on this journey.

When I started out on this site, I was in my mid 20’s. Full of adventure and potential. Optimistic about the unknowns. The ups and the downs over the years captured in photos have been larger than I could have ever expected when I set out. They say a photo is worth a 1000 words, and my journal is dotted full of photos which look benign, but are full of emotions for which I still have no words. The downs stand out as they have been sharp, sudden and excruciatingly hard at times.

And that brings me to my greatest lesson learnt from this journey.

Life is a long term game.

There are wins and losses, but in the long run they all balance out and you make your own luck. The downs can feel unrecoverable at times, but they never are. Wrong decisions can feel insurmountable. But the right decisions add up quickly, even if not always as memorably.

The positive moments that happen every day add up little by little and day by day. In this way, you make your own luck. You make your own journey. The small wins aren’t as obvious, but a daily photo makes the journey much clearer and easier to see.

Did I ever think I would end up back in NZ with two loving boys, an amazing wife and a job I love? Yes, that was always the aim. And while I lost sight of that many times through the journey, and while we took unexpected twists and turns, every day was one step closer. Every day has defined who I am today in some little way.

Some of you will know my journey with Blip has been a somewhat unique one, a personal one shared in part with a small team through ups and downs. Having left Scotland to return to NZ in 2015 in unexpected circumstances, it took me a few years to regain my full confidence again. For many years my camera was also parked as I couldn’t bring myself to post a photo regularly. But time heals all things, and ultimately this journey has made me wiser, stronger and braver.

These days my journal is for me. I keep it mainly locked to private, as a personal record of our family growing up. The quality of the photos is less important than the quality of the memories. But I wanted to unlock it for today to say a thank you.

I know it’s probably no longer traditional to do this at a milestone any more, but I have to say thank you Joe. To all of the Blipfoto HQ, and to all the old regulars who are still around, tonight I have a good dram poured to toast you all.