Sharyn was born in the New Zealand town of Timaru – but she tries not to let that get her down. She never knew what she wanted to be when she grew up which meant that in her final year of high school she didn’t have to do course work because her teachers found her work experience as a receptionist at the Boys’ High School.
After school she made the move to Christchurch and got a real job as a receptionist but was fired from that job because she couldn’t spell. To the horror of her parents, who exclaimed, “what do you want to do that for”, she decided to go to university – hoping it would help her to spell better.
She spent four years at Canterbury University and completed both a Bachelor and a Master’s degree in Commerce, majoring in Management Science. To this day she hasn’t been able to explain what management science is and consequently why she suddenly managed to excel at something.
Her career took her to Wellington where she worked as a business consultant building mathematical models of electricity markets worldwide – a job that luckily didn’t require her to spell much. She realised that her passion for consulting was fading, and that the only other job she dreamed of doing that didn’t require her to spell was photography. She enrolled late in a Massey University photography course and was given three days to decide whether to quit her consulting job and become a student again. She quit the job and completed a two year Diploma in Photography.
Sharyn works from her studio in the James Smith building in Wellington. She lives with her partner Grant and her no longer imaginary border collie Bree. She uses a spell checker whenever possible.
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