I was born on December 30th, 1976 in the beautiful village of Stepanov which is located in the Czech Republic. The village is about 10 km away from the town of Olomouc and is surrounded by the breathtakingly beautiful Jeseniky Mountains. It is my favorite place in the entire world. The home where I grew up will always be my home.
How did I get into modeling? Well, when I turned 16, some friends sent my pictures to a beauty contest. A short time later, I received an invitation in the mail to attend the semi-finals. I went (even though my Mom wasn’t too thrilled about it) and was lucky enough to have won 1st Runner Up Miss Moravskoslezsky Den, Miss Photo and Miss Publicum all on the same night! One of the judges at the competition was a very famous Czech photographer named Jadran Setlik. Mr. Setlik offered me modeling jobs in Vienna, Austria and Prague, Czech Republic. That is how I began my career as a model! Subsequently, I participated in other beauty pageants in which I was also fortunate enough to win several times. To date, I currently hold 9 titles. Around that time, I also had an opportunity to work for the Metropolitan Agency in Paris, France. I left home to try it out but all of the travel involved in being a model wasn’t to my liking - after all, I was still only 16 years old! I returned home to the Czech Republic.
Modeling wasn’t my only dream career. I had a good friend who worked as a radio announcer and I had always admired his work. One day I heard they were looking for new radio announcers at a local station - Radio Pohoda. I didn’t tell anyone at home and I went to the station. To my surprise, the audition went very well and I was hired. My Mom almost fell off her chair when I told her. Everybody knew me as a quiet girl who never talked too much (that has changed with radio though…
) After a few weeks of training my radio career started. In time, I worked at several radio stations: Radio Pohoda, Radio Hana, Radio AZ and Radio Crystal. It was an amazing experience! I loved it so much that I also became a Production Manager. Radio was great but eventually I was forced to quit in order to come to Canada. I got the opportunity to come here and I took it.
My original plan was to stay 1 year and study English. Somehow I stayed a “little” longer than I expected - it has now been 14 years that I’ve lived here in Toronto area where I continue to pursue my career……
Four years ago, I discovered photography which I absolutely love. It has been great 14 years in modeling industry which gave me a great knowledge and experience.
What do I like about photography? I’ve always liked collecting European fashion magazines just to look at the photos. I used to dream about having these images in my own modeling portfolio but I never was able to get those images from other photographers. This gave me a courage to give it a try. I love all sorts of images. Fashion, glamour, portraits, lifestyle photography, nature, travel and other.
What I love the most, is working with new models or women which never appeared in front of the camera. I love teaching them what I have learned…. and I love to see their reaction when they see the results for the very first time.
Zdenka Darula
