Rachelle Louison - www.studiof8.com.au

“Studying with ACS gave me the confidence to change my career and start building a business in photography. I had been working in administration for 16 years and I hated every minute of it. In more recent years I had progressed to a more marketing-orientated role where I was taking images for many of the projects I was working on, so I really wanted to finally do a photography course. The photography course really improved my technical skills and also allowed me to be more creative because I gained more confidence to experiment with the camera. I just wish I had pursued photography earlier. I think if you really want to do something and you’re really interested in it and have a passion for it, you should give it a go.”

After 16 years chained to a desk, starting a photography course finally gave Rachelle Louison the courage to make a change and launch her dream career.
Ms Louison said the decision to do further study opened up a whole new world of possibilities.
“If I hadn’t done the course, I would never have had the confidence to change my job and start building up a business in photography,” she said.
“I’m now working part time from home while I get my photography up and running. The course re-confirmed that photography was something I’d always wanted to do.”
She said the course had expanded not only her technical ability in photography, but also her creativity.
“Before I started, I had everything set automatically and I wouldn’t be fiddling with the features and options,” she said.
“During the course I gained both the confidence and the knowledge to set the camera manually for each situation and it allows me to be much more creative and experiment.
I can really see the improvement in my work. When I pick up a photo from when I first started the course, sometimes I cringe, but now I can look at my photos, see how much I’ve improved and often I even think ‘I really like that shot’. It was also really good to be able to get advice from my tutor, who is a professional photographer and has won awards in the UK.”
The flexibility of studying by correspondence was a major advantage to Ms Louison, who not only changed jobs but also moved interstate during the course.
“I moved states, bought a house and renovated, got a new job. If I had been (at a conventional institution) I would have had to find a new course when I moved,” she said.
“The older you get, the less of an option study becomes because of the loss of income. What appealed to me about a correspondence course was the fact that I could still work while I was studying.”
Ms Louison said her only regret was not pursuing photography sooner.
“I had been working in administration for 16 years and I hated every minute of it but when I had earlier opportunities for study as a school leaver, I didn’t know what it was that I wanted to do,” she said.
“So I just did a course in administration and then became stuck in that environment since.
I just wish I had pursued photography earlier. I think if you really want to do something and you’re really interested in it and have a passion for it, you should give it a go.”
Rachelle’s stunning work can be viewed at her website: www.studiof8.com.au