Xenia
has been in the photographic profession since 2009 and after this walk
of three years, as she looks back she realises that this happened to her
quite by chance. It all began with the admiration of friend’s who
appreciated her photography skills. When she decided to continue with photography professionally, she got herself a 400D DSLR and set off. Initially she worked with ICE today magazine and some other corporate houses. To give her career a stronger base she started off with a basic photography course at Pathshala and then went for graduation in photography.
'Initially it was just covering friends' weddings and then I saw people liking my work more and more. Gradually, acquaintances started coming up to me to be their photographer for the special day,' says Xenia about how she started her career. Xenia loves capturing special moments at weddings. She has always admired the bride on the wedding day; and during her shoots she focuses on capturing special expressions of the bride and groom alike.
In course of her work she has observed that the level of comfort that the brides form with a female photographer is better than that they form with male photographers. The extent of shyness or introvert ness is much less when it is a girl. However, she feels that good photographs cannot be obtained without appropriate makeup, lighting, background, etc which should be borne in mind when planning a wedding.
Being
a female wedding photographer also had its downs for Xenia especially
in the initial days when her clients used to doubt if a girl could
manage such hectic events and produce the expected results. Moreover, as
a girl there are always restrictions from the family side regarding the
timings. However, Xenia has been lucky to have fully support of her
family especially her mother and has received much appreciation from her
family members for her work. She hopes to continue with this profession
in the times to come because the biggest achievement and work
satisfaction comes when the client show their appreciation for the work
and she thinks that the smile on their faces is priceless. Among one of the most interesting instances she covered at work is one where the groom burst out in tears on the stage when he saw the bride crying!
She has two different types of packages, one is where she covers the event for two hours along with an assistant and for that she charges Tk 25,000 and the other where the duration of coverage is four hours and she charges between Tk 40,000 to Tk 50,000.
