Nicole's Captured moments

Since she was a young girl, Nicole Avagliano has always loved taking photographs. She never dreamed that taking random photos of anything and everything would lead to a career. Now, with her photography and graphic design business Nicole’s Captured Moments, Nicole is forever expanding and honing her skills.

Beginnings of photography

Nicole grew up in the suburbs of Western Sydney. “I took photography classes in High School which I learned more things I didn’t know. I expanded on my skills and learned a lot”. After leaving Jamison High School in 2010 she kept at her photography, receiving praise from people who admired and loved her work. This led to Nicole thinking about her future and wanting to make a career out of her photo taking.

All photographers have a favourite style of photography and f or Nicole it is landscape images. “I’ll take a quick snap of wherever I seem to be at the time whether it be because the sky has a few different colours in it or the place just looks lovely.” Nicole’s photographic style really brings out the best of the colour scheme, particularly with those taken at sunrise or sunset.

Her favourite place to take photographs is at a place called The Entrance on the New South Wales Central Coast, where she now lives. “Most of my landscape photographs are from there. I’ve spent a lot of time there since I was kid. They have amazing photography spots that are a must go-to”.  Elevated places such as look-outs are also high on places Nicole likes to photograph from.

Nicole has photographed at several weddings and regularly shoots family portraits. This gives her great joy being part of someone’s special moment and providing them with lifelong memories. With portrait session starting from $60 for one hour and Wedding Packages from $400, she offers affordability as well as quality.

Lens Ball and Travel Vlog

Recently, Nicole has experimented with her photography style by using a lens ball. “I follow other photographers on Instagram who use a lens ball and the images always looked out of this world,” Nicole says. She decided to get one for herself and so far the results have been stunning. “I like that no matter where I am, I can use the ball to capture something amazing. I especially love using it at the beach”. It’s likely to become part of Nicole’s photography style as she experiments further with it.

Along with her sister, Nicole created a YouTube channel “The Travelling Coasties” in August. Nicole will often travel about to take photos,so it’s really no surprise that she has decided to document these trips in the form of a vlog. The vlogs feature both still and moving images and are a great tool of promotion for Nicole’s photography.

Graphic Design

To add to her skills, Nicole started looking into web and graphic design. “I had wanted to make a portfolio for my photographs and looked around on free websites and just started designing.” Once she started she couldn’t stop and web designing wasn’t enough. Nicole wanted to learn to make someone’s website by scratch/coding so she studied to do a Diploma of Web Development. From here she began offering and web and graphic design with her business Nicole’s Captured Moments.

The first website that Nicole ever created was for State Steel Treatment- Abrasive Blasting and Protective Coating. “With it being my first official web design site I got to do, I had quite a few different drafts up quite quickly on how I wanted it to look, what we would put on it etc. When I went to show them what I had they loved it. We discussed some things we could add and what they wanted to add so we had to go over which photos to use,” Nicole says of the experience.

Another website that Nicole created was for All Things Mystical. They already had an outdated website so required Nicole to revamp and redesign it. “The client wanted to keep to the same colours as what she had so once I had the drafts done I started redesigning it.” She got to fiddle around with a few things in order to make the website work and reflect the nature of the website. The end result was a company logo and tabs that looked like they were floating in the clouds.

Helping Others

Apart from an obvious interest and love in photography and graphic design, Nicole loves being able to help others which both allow her to do. “Even if it was something as simple as taking a photograph of someone to see their smile, that when they saw the photo they instantly loved it, is a great feeling inside. With Web design, not only are you getting to help others and their companies, you get to become familiar with someone new and make friends which is always great,” Nicole tells me.

For now, Nicole continues to create websites and capture special moments in time on camera as Nicole’s Captured Moments grows and she is loving every moment of it. “I’ve met new people, found old friends and there’s nothing that would make me quit what I do now.”

Visit Nicole's website for more