The Girl Behind the Camera
Hi! Hola! My name is Dani.
I am an Orlando based photographer with dreams of photographing moments worldwide.
I love photographing candid moments, lots of laughter, and loving glances. I am forever grateful that I get to work with so many amazing individuals who trust me to capture special moments in their life.
Beyond Photography:
I want to travel the world, fingers crossed I go to Europe in 2022
I love meeting new people and learning about different experiences and cultures
I am an HR Professional, I’ve been working in HR for a little under 10 years
I have rewatched Grey’s Anatomy more times than I’m proud to admit
I was born in Colombia but moved to the US at a young age and grew up in two cultures.
It took me a while to understand photography was my passion
I have loved photos since my earliest memory. I have containers full of our family photos growing up, the random pictures of friends I’ve had along my life, and the thousand self portraits I’ve taken. I have always loved collecting memories, snapping random un-posed pictures to freeze the moment forever. When I look at my pictures I remember what I was feeling in those moments, the joy, the sorrow, the happiness, the silliness. The silly moments are my favorite!
My cellphone cameras have been my bestfriends for many many years but here is my non cell phone camera journey:
The first camera I can remember using is a Kodak disposable camera my parents bought me. I brought it on an elementary school trip to a NYC museum and took pictures of my friends, the dinosaurs, everything and anything. I still have those photos.
Growing up I got multiple point & shoot cameras for Christmas and Birthdays. I had a red one that was my favorite. Oh, and they were always Canon cameras, I’ve been a Canon girl for many many years.
While I was in college my dad found a Canon DSLR that I was only allowed to use during special occasions… think Christmas, Graduations, important trips… and then it would go back in the case and in my dad’s closet just to make sure it was taken care of.
Once I graduated college and had my own money I bought a crop-lens Canon. I didn’t even know that there was a difference between a crop-lens and a full frame camera at the time, that would take me years to learn. I loved my Canon EOS 200D, it was the best camera I ever had and I learned manual mode with it. There was so much to learn! I would take it to work and walk in the park after work to practice movement and light. I would drive around on the weekends and photograph different scenes. I never did much with those pictures, they were all for me. They were mostly landscape photos, things I thought only I cared about. My family always asked me to bring it along for special occasions like birthdays, graduations, baptisms, but beyond self-portraits I never really captured other people with it.
August of 2020 I was visiting my best friend’s family and it was a very meaningful weekend that needed to be commemorated so I brought my camera and took random pictures throughout. A few weeks later, my best friend’s brother called me and asked me if I would be willing to take his engagement photos. I was shocked! I almost tried to talk them out of it lol. “Are you sure? I’ve never done something like this before.” He and his fiancé were impressed with some of the photos I had taken that weekend and trusted me to take their engagement photos, they felt comfortable with me.
I did SO MUCH RESEARCH to prepare. I was on Pinterest for HOURS looking up poses and posing prompts, googling how to coordinate with them, and what questions to ask, I was so nervous! I sent them a few proposals, had a call with them to talk outfits and ideas, I felt like a professional! During the session, I felt alive, I felt like I had found what I wanted to do every single day: capture all and every special moment. (The picture on the right is one from this first session)
I already had a photography Instagram account where I was posting all of my travel and landscape photos so I decided to turn it into a client focused photography account. (Fun Fact: if you scroll to the origins of my account you can still see all of my original landscape posts.) I started bringing my camera with me to all social events and photographing my cousin with her boyfriend, asking my brother and sister in law to do a session with me, and offering as many free sessions as possible to build my portoflio and practice.
I’ve built this slowly and I’ve enjoyed every second of it (Ok, maybe not the ironing fabric for backdrops part) and I’m so grateful I get to capture all sorts of special moments.