About Digital 1

The Digital 1 Group

 

Wayne Robertson

From Hobby to Profession.

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Back in 2000 Heather and I were embarking on creating a website building company with grand ideas on getting everyone's business online. The only problem was that neither of us had a clue how to do that. So we started simply. We knew that as part of building someone's website they needed to show the workshop, product or office space etc on the pages. This required some photos but again we had no camera or any idea what to do with one. We invested a whopping $3500 for a 3.2-megapixel Kodak camera. (point and click) That camera became the beginnings of some life-changing events in both our lives.

     Working around with some web pages I had realised a massive problem. Creating graphics and logos for the pages was not something I could fix by throwing money at. I had to learn an editing program. The local computer shop had a woman working there who built websites for clients and she said she was happy for me to learn from her. I thought to myself " If she can do this, why cant I". So every day during my lunch break I would sit with her and watch what I felt then was a wizard at work. Creating logos from scratch, distorting images and making cool graphics. She would type and I would sit, eat my lunch and watch. Then every evening try to remember what I'd seen that day and repeat it on my own computer. Watching Photoshop tutorials became an obsession, to say the least.

     After a year or so our little web building business was staggering along with no real prospects but my late nights in front of my monitor were as strong as ever. Photoshop and image editing were now at a better level and my confidence was growing. A trip to Thailand prompted me to buy a better camera and having an interesting subject to photograph I was motivated. I started collecting Camera magazines and would read them cover to cover many times over. Sending in images to the publishers i won several awards for my photographs and started to see some recognition. I continued this process for 3 years and to this day still hold dear my collection of over 100 DVDs and dozens and dozens of books, novels and magazines. What happened next was career changing...

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   A phone call from a friend's friend stating that he would like me to photograph his wedding day. My mind went blank. There was no way of photographing a wedding, with so many people and so many things happening. It just wasn't something I could successfully cover. Only professionals did that sort of thing...

Then I thought to myself, " If they can do this, why cant I". That night was a particularly late one, with image searching and equipment pricing... I didn't even own a flash. Just a reasonable point and click camera.

   The very next week we went out and spent $6500 on camera equipment to photograph a wedding. The groom asked me 'how much will it cost' and I said 'I will do you a fair price seeing that it was my first wedding' ( out of fear that I did not know what I was doing )

Just to show how early in the digital age we were at, we shot the wedding on 512MB cards. I turned up at the bride's house at 7 am and I and Heather shot all day till 11 pm. We had charged $200 for our efforts. something we hadn't planned for was the editing of all the photographs for the weeks that followed.  $200 doesn't sound like much but if you can photograph 1 wedding you should be able to photograph another and then another.

     In 2004 we photographed 1 wedding, in 2005 we chased up another 6. By 2006 we had successfully covered 31 weddings in a calendar year and when 2007 rolled in we were at 40 per year. Most of these weddings were referred to us through the many couples we had serviced. Holding down a day job and shooting weddings on the weekends and editing during the nights was exhausting work but to think we could have 'one work day' per week and the rest of the time at homemade us hungrier and gave us the energy we needed.

    In August of 2007, Heather and I both retired from our daytime employment and became small business owners and operators of the 'weddings by Wayne' label. 2008 saw us become involved on a weekly basis with over 50 weddings per year. It was then I had another friend call me to ask me a question. " hey I'm selling my house'. can you take some photos for me?'. 5000 houses later I am still loving finding the best angles for homeowners and contracted agents. Everything from run-down renovators to very high-end Multi-million dollar luxury homes.

    The last few years have seen us take fewer weddings onboard and concentrate more toward the commercial area of our photography. However many families are still contacting us for family shoots and events etc.

    

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