ABOUT
What I'm actually here for.
I have kept a written record of my life for over fifteen years. Three continents, a dozen addresses, five cameras, two degrees, over twenty random jobs, and thousands of records of my life written in pen and paper. Back then, most of the entries felt plain and dull, but looking back they are proof of the evolution of my spirit. That's what convinced me the ordinary days still count, and it's why I photograph the way I do.
I'm not there for the peak of anything. I'm there for the version of your work that exists on a normal Tuesday, because that's the version that's true for most of the year.
Most people find me when the work is already good. The website is three years old, the services page has a stock photo of a candle on it, and the business has quietly outgrown everything representing it on the internet. That's the sweet gap I work in.
Most of those people also arrive having decided they're bad at being photographed. Nearly everyone says a version of it in the first five minutes. Nobody knows what to do with their hands.
So the first twenty minutes are planned for. We get to know each other, the purpose behind their work, walk the space, you talk, the camera stays on my shoulder. Then I give you something to do rather than a pose to hold, because hands stop being a problem the second they have a job. Somewhere around minute fifteen you stop bracing, and that's where the shoot actually starts.
The journey that brought me here was sideways. I started modelling at fourteen, which taught me what it feels like to be badly directed by a photographer and how long an hour can feel when someone can't tell you what they want.
Years later, studying anthropology at UBC, I was teaching yoga and running the social media for the studio I taught at, which meant I was the one photographing the classes. That's where the camera came back. Modelling taught me what not to do to a person in front of a lens. Yoga taught me how to use my words to inspire movements my subject can actually follow.
My years of devoted yoga practice coupled with modelling made me a better photographer than the photography did itself. Marketing did the rest. Running social for the studio meant I wasn't just taking the photos, I was watching where they landed and what happened to them there. Three things came out of that: photographs, films, and websites with the copy written on them. It isn't three businesses. It's what happened after I kept photographing good work and watched it land on pages that undersold it.
Based in Gold Coast, Australia. I travel for the right work.
If your work is already good, let's make the internet catch up.
xx, Vannia