Marta Romashina has turned her travels into a lucrative career by blogging under WhereMartaWent. She’s been traveling full-time for the last couple of years and visited almost 50 countries, creating content for various hospitality brands like Four Seasons, Ritz Carlton, Mandarin Oriental, Hyatt, etc.
That was not always like that. Marta Romashina has a fashion background and pursued her education in fashion schools across Europe and Asia. After graduation, she worked for fashion companies across SE Asia for a while. But after she has met her photographer boyfriend they both embarked on their new travel journey. However, her love for art and fashion never left her and she always knew she would be back in the industry one day. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed her to finally make it happen.
“Like many others at the start of 2020, I was looking forward to the upcoming year, with some ideas to grow my business, travel, and expand my portfolio for wheremartawent blog. I remember hearing about Corona Virus from friends in Shanghai and not thinking much of it but then really out of nowhere, things came to a crashing halt.
I had two major trips planned for the coming spring: visit Peru as a travel blogger and stay in Lanzarote island for three months helping local boutique hotels with their Social Media strategy. That’s when it all started to sink in. Both of the countries have closed their borders in March and all the flights from Moscow were suspended.
On the 30th of March, the first lockdown was announced in Russia. As a travel blogger, I used to spend lots of my time outdoors and capturing interesting places around the world. When our stay at home order went into effect in April, I wanted to challenge myself to stay creative in my craft without leaving my house.
With the extra time, I challenged my creativity inside my apartment. I considered my usual nature-photography process and how it could be applied to my new normal. Since it was spring, I used some lilac flowers to create self-portraits that eventually got on the cover of a printed publication.
I’ve also spent lots of time editing my old pictures. One of those was published in Photo Vogue Italia and gave me lots of confidence to proceed further with my photography.
When the lockdown was over in June and we were allowed to meet other people, the first thing I did was calling up my classmate who I haven’t seen since high school. Olga is a beautiful girl who was based in Seoul and got stuck in Russia as well. She has that particular look that I had in mind for my future editorial. But what fascinated me the most is her hard-working attitude and how much she was willing to do to help me out with photography. Eventually, I have built a solid portfolio which allowed me to get my first commercial works.
Since then I have been shooting fashion editorials for magazines like L’Officiel and ELLE. I’ve established my creative team here in Russia which was a new step in my career.
As the saying goes, you adapt or you die. From what I learned about myself, experiencing different cultures around the world, I learned how to embrace change. That said, I still look to the future with nothing but positivity and what it holds for us all.”
Jumping into a new career isn’t something to take lightly—especially with all the uncertainty that comes from living and working through a pandemic. This very moment could be the perfect time for you to make that change.
Amanda Byers is a graduate of Columbia, where she played volleyball and annoyed a lot of professors. Now as Zobuz’s entertainment and Lifestyle Editor, she enjoys writing about delicious BBQ, outrageous style trends and all things Buzz worthy.
