A woman travelled around Australia to recreate her parents’ holiday photos – 30 years after they visited the country.
Deni Jessica, 30, always loved the pictures on the walls of her family home of her mum, Ceri Baker, 62, and late dad, Clive Smith, 59, on holiday in Australia in 1990.
Deni and her boyfriend, Matt Carcer, 34, a seller hand, flew to Sydney, Australia, for their own travels – and decided to recreate her parents and grandparents’ pictures.
Their two-year adventure around Australia took them to Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane and Melbourne.
Deni posed at Uluru, the Blue Mountains and Australia Zoo – to replicate the snaps her parents had taken.
She also recreated their picture from a holiday in Barcelona, Spain, in 2023.
Deni, a professional traveller, from Swansea, Wales, said: “I went to Australia in 2018 and I took the picture of me at Uluru.
“My parents have always had this photo montage in the bathroom from when they were younger and that inspired me to go travelling.
“In between my first and second year of Australia, I went through my parents photos and when I went back to Australia for my second year abroad I decided to recreate them.”
In January 2019, Deni went back to Australia with her boyfriend, Matthew, for a second year of travelling the country.
They bought a Volkswagen Caddy and travelled around the country – stopping at Mount Gambier, Port Hedland and Cable Beach.
Deni said: “We stayed in the van for the whole year, it was someone’s work van – we put a shelf in the back and chucked our stuff in.
“Some of the pictures were taken in locations that were similar to where my parents were as we couldn’t work out the exact location.”
Deni said her parents were “very excited” about the project and her dad would help her through the photo albums to tell her where to go.
She said: “What I love is that my dad was so excited and he was helping me put them together.
“In 2022, I was in New Zealand and my dad passed away.
“I think this project was close to me as it was one of the last things my dad and I did together.”
Deni said her favourite images she recreated were the photos at Uluru and the Blue Mountains as she looked so much like her mum.
She said: “The Uluru picture is definitely the most iconic one.
“I really like the Blue Mountains photos as I could see the resemblance in my mum and nan.”
Deni also recreated her parents’ photo from their holiday in Barcelona and is planning to recreate their holiday pictures from Europe too.
She said: “I look back at the pictures and I wish my dad was in them more.
“When me and my partner go travelling now we make sure we are in them as much as possible.
“My parents also went travelling around Europe so we are going to re-create that.
“We just spent some time in Barcelona and we recreated their photos from there.”
