It was when film cameras still had dominance over the emerging digital form.

“Although my first images are pretty terrible, I still felt an immediate connection with the medium, which has never changed,” Ms Casey said.

“My wonderful parents even helped me to set up a darkroom in a small cupboard in our house, so I would spend hours there processing and printing in black and white.”

Ms Casey, now 38, grew up in Wagga and still has family in the city. She attended Charles Sturt University where her passion for the craft was nurtured by lecturer Jamie Holcombe, whom she described as brilliant.

“I spent most of my time photographing or in the darkroom while I was at uni using film,” she said.

In those years since she pressed a camera shutter for the first time, she has gone onto the global stage where she has won many awards and her works exhibited at various institutions and published in various outlets.

These include The Royal Shakespeare Company in London and BBC World.

Now, for the first time ever, one of her creations involving a family member is in the running for the 2019 National Photographic Portrait Prize.

Entitled ‘Ella in Callala Bay, 2018’, it is a photo of her niece Ella holding and embracing a chicken.

Her artist statement reads: “This image is an exploration of childhood and the meaningful relationships we have as children with nature and animals.”

The photograph is part of a series exploring the complexity and duality of family, home and belonging, played out among the light and shadows that co-exist within life.

“Ella is one of my favourite models so it was a joy as always,” Ms Casey said.

“She is at an age when she responds well to being photographed.”

Asked about her reaction to being one of 40 finalists, Ms Casey said she was “delighted to hear”.

“The image comes from a series of work I'm still producing, which I began after I had my son in 2014,” she said.

“Motherhood for me created many new challenges – among them a massive shift of my understanding of my own identity and a much deeper appreciation of my own mother.

“The work I'm producing looks at these themes: belonging, identity, personal histories and of course the importance of our bloodlines.”

She said these personal issues were important to explore because “life, motherhood and family are complex and multi-layered”.

“By photographing these themes, I gain a better understanding of the experience and bring these topics out into the open to discuss,” Ms Casey said.

“I feel we are often inclined to take a very black and white view of these experiences – particularly motherhood – when of course they are full of colours, light and shadows.”

All of her works are centred around themes or issues rooted in history that she considers to be important to herself and society.

Another ongoing body of work she is working on looks “at the unspoken history of Australia's colonisation and explores the conflicts that occurred and the way we as a nation have told this history”.

“By studying history, we gain a much better understanding of who we are today.”

In her creative pursuits, she said her biggest challenge so far has been juggling it with motherhood.

“But one feeds the other and, of course, one makes the other even more worthwhile and deepens the experience of living,” she said.

“For me, photography is very much a need – it's something I need to do to feel I am experiencing life fully.

“Being a photographer has pretty terrible financial rewards these days, so I also have to juggle family life as well as earning a living.

“So most of my photography post production and editing work gets done late in the evenings.”

However, she credits the days of analogue cameras as key to her success.

“Learning photography in an analogue way taught me a lot about the photographic chemical process,” she said.

“But even more importantly, about the patience, perseverance and dedication you need to have if you want to make it a lifelong passion and vocation.

“Using analogue meant that every frame counted, so I learnt to be decisive and wait for the right moments.

“I still use analogue large format today as I prefer the slow meditative approach film has and the magic of not seeing your image instantly.”

While her list of achievements is long, Ms Casey said one of the most fulfilling was forming a collective of eight photographers, along with fellow Australian and documentary photographer Morganna Magee, in 2017.

The collective is called Lumina in which Ms Casey said the inspiration and support of these other photographers has made an incredible difference to her creative practice.

Other noteworthy achievements include being named one of the ‘31 photographers to watch (worldwide)’ by the British Journal of Photography and being shortlisted for the PHMuseum Women Photographer's Grant in 2018.

Looking ahead, the artist said her long-term goals include having more time to produce the work she wants to produce.

“To have the gallery space to show the work and of course some more funding to help produce this work would be nice,” she said.

“All in all though, I'm pretty happy where I'm heading.

“The wonderful thing about photography is that there isn't any time limit to getting where you want to go – it's a slow burner.

“And by being patient and slowly pushing onwards towards your goals means that age and maturity are completely positive – they aren't negative as we are often led to believe in today's society.”

​Her advice for any keen photographers today is to be persistent.

“Read a lot, be patient, experience life, use the experiences to find your own voice, and understand that maturity and moving slowly is actually a good thing,” Ms Casey said.

“Anything that is worth doing will require huge patience and a lot of time – not merely 1/60th of a second.”

The National Photographic Portrait Prize is an annual event that promotes the best in contemporary photographic portraiture by both professional and aspiring Australian photographers.

The winner and highly commended photographers will be announced at 6pm on Friday, February 22.

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