Ashley: Yeah I’ve been good, I was in Melbourne a few weeks ago doing my first major FW. I applied for it last year but only got accredited for one event so I didn’t bother going down. This year I was wanting to apply but completely lost track of time and lucky enough I just made it in time to apply for accreditation with literally 1 hour left. I ticked every event that I wanted to shoot at throughout the week hopeing I would get it, a week later I got a message saying that I got absolutely everything I couldn’t believe it. I booked flights for Melbourne then I flew out a couple of days later. It was one of the craziest and best weeks of my life so far.
A: Yeah after doing my first shoot with you I asked my friend Samie if she wanted to do a shoot and I had leah as a friend on facebook so I thought I would ask her if I could have samples for the shoot in return for some photos.
A: Leah was the main designer and one of the organisers for Gold Coast FW that year, she wanted some shots behind the scenes and gave me a pass, it was pretty cool but I honestly had no idea what I was doing or how I should have had my camera settings at the time, plus all of the photographers that were there weren’t friendly at all so I couldn’t ask anyone.
The shows here are completely different to what its like for Melbourne FW, on the first night I was really nervous and decided to hang on the edge of the media pit. I thought everyone would have been real serious and really not friendly, but I was totally wrong, all the photographers were acting like they were family and were all helping one another out. I became friends with one of the main photographers there and he helped me work out the correct settings I needed for my new camera. that gave me enough confidence to claim a position right in the middle of the pit for the rest of the shows. most of the time i was surrounded by at least 40 other photographers, some nights I was shooting right next to the official photographers for Vogue Australia and Lorea’l, that made me a little bit nervous haha.
A: I used to bodyboard alot with some of my close friends at the time, one of my mates bought a camera and started taking surf shots, I bought a setup and we both learn’t from each other, I loved taking surf photos but I really wanted to get into fashion.
A: After doing the shoot with Samie Robinson everyone started to noticed the both of us. Leah from white sands loved the whole shoot and wanted me to do more shoots for her. Division Models messaged both me and Samie on Facebook asking us to come in to their agency. Samie ended up being signed for them a week later, and I assisted and worked on a couple of shoots for them.
Because the shoot I did with Samie was so popular I thought I would enter one of the photos into the Rayban Competition. About 3,000 people entered the comp last year and I made it to the top 3! i still cant believe i did so well with one of the first shots i ever took.
A: I’ve been planning to move to Melbourne with my girlfriend for awhile now and we should be down there by the end of June. While I was at LMFF (Lorea’l Melbourne Fashion Festival) I actually met Marina Dojchinov, the editor for this new up and coming fashion mag called “Loki Magazine” we exchanged contact details and I took photos at the festival for the website all week. She loved the shots and my portfolio. amazingly, she asked me to be one of the official photographers for the magazine. I’m pretty excited about it, see what happens.
In the mean time I have about 4 shoots planned with models, I’m wanting to create a double exposure series before I leave, I just did one recently and loved what came out, so hopefully I can get a rad series of shots before I move.
HANNAHWAKE collective 