january update

Hello lovelies,

     I suppose it's time I sat down and wrote a proper update about where my photography is going.

     Firstly, I am pleased to have finally found time to edit the rest of the photos from my shoot last month with Lauren. I'll be posting the full series in the next blog post. I managed to salvage the best shots from the series and I'm really quite happy with how they turned out, despite my lens playing up.

      As I mentioned in the previous post, my 50mm wasn't working properly. The focus has been off (and I noticed this throughout both shoots with Lauren and with Chelsea) and by the end of the last self-portrait shoot the lens began to make high-pitched whirring noises, on top of the autofocus issues. It seemed to only happen when I was using AF point select, and worked fine when I focused using live view. Anyway, I've taken it back to JB Hi-Fi to get sent off to Sigma to be repaired... 6-8 weeks is the estimated repair time. That's an awfully long time to be apart from the lens that lived on my camera 100% of the time. :(

     In other news, I've been confirmed as the photographer for a wedding in June between the beautiful Stephanie, and Bradley (drummer of my favourite band, La Dispute). I'm so nervous! Organising this has been (and still is) incredibly anxiety-provoking for me. Firstly, wedding photographers are under a huge amount of pressure to get it right. (I've never even been to a wedding!) You don't get a second chance at it if you screw it up. Every time I think about it I realise that so many things can go wrong. A camera stops working, a lens shatters on the concrete, the memory card is corrupted, it starts raining heavily... My heartbeat races just thinking about the fact that I could so easily fail at this. My camera has never failed me before, but what if...? Over the next few months I'll be tagging along to weddings with other Canberra photographers whenever I can, just to get an idea of what would be expected of me. I suppose I still have time to get ready for it, but 5 months really isn't that far away.

     This coming Saturday I've organised a photoshoot with my first Chadwick model, Nikolina. The shoot is inspired by the work of Damian Vignaux - a raw and edgy take on the female nature. I can't wait to shoot this concept! I'll be travelling to Sydney for the shoot. I freaked out a little because I wasn't sure I'd find a location in time and I had no connections in Sydney... Fortunately, my good friend and photographer Jack Grayson (check out his work) has offered his apartment and his lens for me to use for the shoot. People like Jack make the world a better place. :)

     My second upcoming shoot will be in Melbourne with Japanese beauty, Akane, a friend of mine. We haven't worked out the final details yet but it looks like I'll be working with Shannon as MUA again. I can't wait! I love when a collaboration just works, and you can count on each other when you need the creative muscle. This is what I'm hoping to build up in Sydney over time. Slowly but surely.

     Other shoots coming up will have me working again with Zoe Brown and Nastia, this time with my housemate Eleanor, and portrait shoots with Rachel (Juzz Photography) and Divya. It's going to be a long year ahead of me, but I have high hopes for 2013.

Until then,

x Daniele