LAST weekend, the NAB AFL Women’s community celebrated Indigenous Round for the very first time across the competition.

I was lucky enough that AFL Women’s asked me to help capture some of the special moments behind the scenes in the lead-up to the game as well as pre-game in the rooms against Brisbane.

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I was given a film camera by the Fremantle Football Club. I was so excited to be capturing and then endure the wait to see how the final result would turn out once the film was developed.  

I’ve loved taking photos ever since I was little and I’ve just recently found a new passion for taking film photos, it’s exciting to see what the outcome will be.

The AFL Women’s Indigenous Round is so important to the whole community, and to me, a proud Jaru woman from the Halls Creek region.

The round itself raises so much awareness around educating people on culture and I believe that the AFL provides such a good platform for us to highlight our people.

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The round also gives a really special reason for us to play, it means so much to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

Particularly, I know how much it means to everybody here at Fremantle.

I started playing footy when I was five or six and went through Auskick before playing junior footy in the country and then moving to Perth to play women’s footy.

Since then, I haven’t stopped.

The passion has always been there. I can’t think of a time in my life when I wasn’t playing footy. It’s such a huge part of my life.

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In my images, I wanted to try and highlight some of the candid moments behind the camera and really capture the essence of Indigenous Round.

The intricate details of our Indigenous guernsey, the Free the Flag t-shirts, and some of the fun we have together as teammates were some of the things that I wanted to draw attention to.

I asked two of my teammates in Tiah Haynes and Gemma Houghton what Indigenous Round meant to them:

Tiah Haynes: "It's just really important to recognise how far we've come as a culture as well as being able to showcase the girls and guys that get the opportunity to represent their culture in this kind of round. It's really important for us to be able to express how privileged we are to be a part of a round like this, but also reflect on where we've come from as well."

Gemma Houghton: "To have that younger generation look up to us as leaders and to be able to represent not only our culture but the young Indigenous kids growing up is incredible. It’s so nice to see the excitement in their faces at the game and to share that special bond that we have at the club. To be able to run out there on Indigenous Round and have on the back of our shirt our tribe name written across it, it just means so much and I will always wear that jumper with pride."

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