There is that famous Confucius quote that I’m sure you’ve heard many times “choose a job you love and never work a day in your life”. Well I am proud to say hand on heart that is 100% true and I’ve cherished all my days growing Marie Ramos photography into the lioness that she is today. Over 25 years she survived recessions, covid, marriage, pregnancy, a fire and a divorce just to name a few but through all the trials there were countless rainbows. I always believed in the business and most importantly I believed in myself and the gifts god gave.
In my recent book “Heart led” I share in-depth stories of how I built my business from a small spare room in my parents house when I was just 19yrs old and literally followed my heart ever since. My career took me to places I never thought I would go, even my volunteering stint at a hospice during my uni days led me to capturing memories not only for newborn families but for bereaved families as well. With my passion of both photography and ceramic imprints mastered, these skills not only improved the business but it would lead me down the path of philanthropy. It was important for me to use my time to give back to the community. In 15 years we have donated close to $200,000 to causes and charities that spoke to my heart.
Following my divorce in 2022 my new found time and freedom meant that I could choose my next chapter in life. My next brave step was to head into uncharted territory, I wanted to create an app that encapsulated all of my lessons about the importance of celebrating people and fragility of life. An idea popped into my mind in October 2023 and I knew instinctively this was the next step. By coincidence or design my amazing friend and now business partner was also exploring a similar idea so we combined our super powers to create our app which we appropriately named “Pressnt”( more details on what Pressnt is all about in my next blog).
For the past 12 months our talented app development team from Melbourne have been building our vision from scratch and we are proud to say that version 1 will be released in December the same week as my birthday! This by far is the best present anyone could ask for. Since our studios have been running for almost 18 years the Sydney and Brisbane studios stand confidently on their own as I have trained my teams to run the businesses without me and I feel now is the best time to step back and explore this exciting new chapter of my life. Even though I am taking a step back I will always be around overseeing everything so that our customers continue to enjoy the warm experience and beautiful products we offer.
As I take this big leap into the unknown world of tech and start ups I take with me the same belief system and confidence I’ve always held in my core. I believe Pressnt will hold a special place in the world because of its universal message of kindness thoughtfulness and yes love. My favourite themes of all time! So this is not goodbye it’s a “watch this space” and perhaps follow and support us on this journey too. To everyone I have met along the way and had the privilege of capturing memories for, thank you for trusting me with your families memories and supporting my small business, it wouldn’t have been possible without you. Cheers to 25 years, to future possibilities and doing it all with a heart full of passion joy and a whole lot of love.
