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i'm a photographer. This is how I got here.

Daniela was born in Bucharest to a Romanian family, the youngest daughter of two civil engineers. She spent her early years in the sleepy mountain town of Busteni, raising chickens and picking mushrooms in the forest. After the end of communism, Daniela and her family emigrated to Belgium, just south of Brussels. It was there that she began her career in modeling, winning the “Best Model of Belgium” competition at the age of 17. Her early success encouraged her to move to Paris, where she lived and worked for 5 years. During that time she was featured in several national advertising campaigns in Belgium and France. She also worked in Athens, Zurich, Ibiza, Cologne, Luxembourg, Rotterdam, Cannes, and numerous other cities in Europe.

In 2005, bored with the Continent, she struck out for the Far East and landed in Beijing. While she continued to model throughout China, she also started her own business, the eponymous Daniela V. beauty salon. Beijing is where she met her American fiancee, with whom she would move to Hawaii several years later.

Throughout her career as a model, Daniela had the opportunity to work with many of the top photographers in the industry. It was a blessing, but it also gave her outsized expectations for the quality and talent needed to succeed. The chance Christmas gift of a Nikon DSLR from her fiancee inspired her to take photography and design classes, through which she met and was able to shoot campaigns for some up and coming designers.

As a photographer her vision has been heavily influenced by her international background. Assimilating themes from the calculated chic of Paris to the overfed smorgasbord of Chinese fashion, Daniela’s work is visually arresting, framing women in the context of the hunter-gatherer, Cleopatra, and Athena archetypes. Read Less