Author Archives: Milena Dekic

A new day is dawning

November 28, 2013 12:48 pm 8 Comments

So…

Where do I begin? I’m going to preface the enormity of this post with it might be a little all over the place, but I wanted to get out exactly the why and how and who has helped make this crazy change of a website.

They say that change is as a good as a holiday, actually, you know what? Who are these THEY that people always talk about? It seems so slightly weird to talk about them without knowing who they are.. but I digress… I’ve heard it said that change is a good as a holiday and you know what? Change is a lot more stressful than a holiday, but it is wonderful in it’s own special way. This change has been a little over a year in the making.

For those of you that know me well know that I started off in the industry as a designer, and when I started I Love Wednesdays I really wanted to be as hands on with it as I could, so I designed everything, the logo, the website, the blog, brochures, CDs, little stickers, EVERYTHING. It was (and is) my baby.

Probably about 18 months ago now, I started to see that my photography voice and my style as a designer were going in two separate directions, I shot so many wonderful couples, and got to be a part of their lives and that inspired the way that I work. With those changes, I decided to start sketching and working on new ideas, but I kept going with what I already had, maybe in a different colour, or slight variations, but I knew in my gut that I needed something radical.

It was so difficult to separate myself from something I was so close to, I lived and breathed I Love Wednesdays for years and it’s difficult to take a step back and look at it from an outsider’s perspective. It was then that I started to put feelers out trying to find a designer that I thought could be a good mesh with my voice and I also started one very epic pinterest board, which you can see HERE. I emailed, interviewed and stalked designers and none seemed like a good fit. I’m a firm believer in gut instinct & feeling and it wasn’t until I came across the work of the wonderful Cody Small from Caava Design, that it all quite literally suddenly made sense. If you’re in the need of a graphic designer, I have to tell you that I am probably one of those demanding clients from hell, I am very, VERY particular about what I like and also really protective of the little bubble that I’ve built here, and Cody was with me every step of the way. From our very first meeting, he got who I was and what I wanted. My current logo is, no a word of a lie, one of the initial concepts that Cody showed me, exactly. I remember doing a happy dance and yelling at Nick to come over and have a look. That it was “the one.” We changed the colours around, because, well I had no idea what colours I wanted and, like most design clients, the colour that I initially thought I wanted was not actually what I wanted. Nick took the handle on building the website and making sure things were pixel for pixel what Cody had designed (I am very particular about that, and I feel so fortunate that Nick puts up with my particular brand of crazy).

It’s been a journey and a half and this whole design process has been so transformative, not just for the business, but also for me. Letting go of something so important to me was, as anywho who knows me well can attest, difficult.

So, please feel free to have a look around, enjoy the fruits of our labour and let us know what you think!

And because no blog post would be complete without images, a little taste of the main site and some images that to make your day a little brighter.

xx Len

Vy + Matt // Cafe Morso Pyrmont Wedding

August 20, 2013 10:57 am 26 Comments

I feel like there’s so much I could write about Vy & Matt’s wedding day, but I honestly don’t know where to start. They are just truly two of the nicest, warmest people I’ve had the fortune of meeting and their wedding day reflected just that. It really struck me how close they all were and that so very much comes through in the planning of their wedding day. Everything was about them and their families, with Vy’s sister Theresa even utilising her design wizardry to create some pretty special graphics for the day (including an amazing canvas of their love story). I dare you to look at these photos and not just smile, because their day was just filled with such warmth, love, a lot of crazy dancing and a heck of a lot of laughter.

Vy & Matt thank you so much for searching through 25 pages of google to find me and letting me be a part of your day, and big thank you to my sister-from-another-mister Brit for being a second pair of eyes.

the post about getting older

June 3, 2013 12:10 pm 14 Comments

I have a lot to write, but I don’t know where to start.

That’s always the problem, figuring out what to say and how to say it. What’s too much/not enough/too personal/not personal enough/too funny/not funny enough. I haven’t blogged for a little while because the last few months have been filled with just such overwhelming  journeys, change, joy and maybe some hijinks thrown in for good measure… But the start always eludes me.

I guess I’ll start with today and work my way back a little bit. Today I turned 30 and the experience has been quite different from what movies & TV have led me to believe. The characters always seem so neurotic about getting older, but the last couple of months have done nothing but prepare me for the awesomeness of it. There have been travels to the worlds of yonder (the US & Canada for the wonderful Canada Photo Convention and finally meeting a lot of photographer friends who I’ve only known online), winning of awards (both of my albums submitted won Accolades of Excellence at WPPI), the getting to meet so many amazing couples.

I have to say though, there’s been a lot of happy tears shed at meeting so many friends at Canada Photo Convention and there are many, MANY phone photos of me hugging people whilst crying. It really just is an overwhelmingly awesome feeling to finally get to meet people you’ve been talking to for years. I really can’t express how much that experience and that trip meant to me. Although, I am hoping that the crying photos don’t start mysteriously appearing online. I am not one of those fortunate people who is a pretty crier, I cry and it’s that puffy eyes/snot coming out of nose kind of cry. Pretty criers of the world, I envy you.

With WPPI, I MAY have forgotten when the awards deadline was actually happening and MAY have frantically been sitting there yelling at my computer to “UPLOAD FASTER.” To have both albums that I entered win awards really was the icing on the cake of a wonderful year that was. I’ve always felt like nothing is as important as the story of the day and the way that you tell it, so to have that sort of love reaffirmed by a community of photographers is such a wonderful experience (there may have been tears involved here too, and also a lot of happy dancing).

I feel like there’s so much more to write, but not enough words to describe everything, so with that I bid you farewell as I go and celebrate an ending and a beginning. A new decade and hopefully a lot more happy snotty tears.