Welcome to 2022 Review! To continue my own little tradition, I like to write a review of each year sometime around December because I like looking back at my previous achievements. Often it gives me time to reflect, compare, remind myself of how far I've come, and plant the seed of ideas for the next year ahead :)
2022... Wow. If I thought that 2021 was one of the best years in my modeling career, I reckon I just didn't have an idea of what is around the corner.
This year, I've not only continued enjoying modeling and having my own Zavod Studio, but I have also got my first-ever camera (as a birthday present - thank you so much Ash!), which allowed me to start my own photography in February. I already knew quite a lot about how to light & operate the camera, and with a little help from my photography friends Alan Ward, Martin Liddament, David Linford and Martin Higgs, I was set to a pretty speedy start.
Having my own studio available at any time meant that I had an opportunity to really push myself and experiment with lighting, learning new techniques one at a time. I truly feel that in a space of under a year my photography has come so far - I really didn't expect this!
I've registered a separate Instagram account @zavodphoto on 28th Sep solely for my photography, and my work was featured in multiple magazines - what an absolute shocker! Here are some of my own work featured, but you can see everything else that ended up in the magazines from Zavod at published works by myself and guests:
Some other fun photography jobs that I have a pleasure to work on:
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| Me, looking pretty chuffed next to the massive poster for NTLTP at the Botanical Gardens |
Forgot to mention, I moved the studio to a bigger room in the same Pinder Brother's building too... Things just kept happening, and with lots of hard work, I felt like I am finally getting somewhere :)
I also held a whole programme of the photography events, such a studio days and themed events, here are just some of my sold out favourites that were a real success for Zavod:
... And we had a little get together for Zavod's first birthday! Thank you to all those who came :)
Let's next move onto my modeling round-up. 2022 has opened so many doors and so many new friends were made along this journey :) I travelled to Wales for the first time, where I worked with an absolute legend Mick Payton on his workshops, I did multiple London tours and even visited the most gorgeous Inspire Studios in Salisbury for a two day event. I had a pleasure to work on multiple Tabitha Boydell events, return to Creativity Hub for a few events and much, much more. I also seriously lost count in how many magazines I was featured and what other photoshoots I had an opportunity to be a part of, but here are some of the highlights:
To say that at the beginning of this year I had to register a new Instagram account
@xeniamodel_official, I definitely feel the love and ever so thankful for it.
The old account
@xenia_model is still up there and I still have the access to it, which was very frustrating but I knew that people who know me and care for my work will come and find my new account. I turned it into the positive - I applied to be exhibited in the
Rankin Creative @Quantus in London for the compilation of works called 'THE UNSEEN' and to my own very surprise my shadowbanning story got accepted alongside a photograph of me and I couldnt be happier! I have put together a whole blog post about it earlier this year, which you can read
here.
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Moving onto some of my 10 FAVOURITE shots of the year... Gosh this was hard to narrow down! I have tried to select these based on what hasn't been featured in the review so far and here are my picks in no particular order:
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| Photography by Mick Payton, taken at one of our workshops, MUA by me |
And a very last thing I like to do at the end of my annual review is to have a look at the FPI's on
PurplePort. Erm, I had total of 93 by the end of last year... I have 219 now! I think people might like my work? That's crazy!
If you would like to see my reviews from previous years, here is a little blog archive of them, just click on each year and it should take you to the right page:
Blimey! That is all for today :) Thank you ever so much for looking though my annual review today. I wish you the Merriest Christmas and a Happy New Year! С Новым Годом!
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