For anyone who knows my story I got my first break in Marie Claire and I am so thrilled to have a little interview and feature on my photographer with them.
Check out these few excerpts from the interview:
“Her iconic ‘Italian Joy’ and ‘Jeune Fille En Fleur’ photographs have become collectable items for fine-art fans worldwide. But it’s Carla Coulson’s azure-blue beach shots that have sent our wander lust levels stellar. Now living in Paris, Carla Coulson has her eye set on snapping the Med’s luxury shorelines next. Here, she speaks to Nicola Moyne about following her heart, Leicas and the art of shooting beach life”
“What advice would you give any aspiring photographers out there?
Follow your heart and don’t try and make money out of it too soon. There is an enormous value in letting your eye and style develop without the pressure of a job. It’s wonderful to let your heart lead you and see where it takes you. If you give yourself enough time in the beginning and develop a style and an opinion, it will ultimately make your journey to wherever you want to go shorter.”
If you want to read a little behind my shooting and visual philosophy click HERE.
Sending big love to the folks at Marie Claire for their ongoing generosity..
One of the questions I am asked often is ‘how do I find my style as a photographer’?
So let’s look first at what is a style or vision?
Photography is a personal vision. It is an individual way of looking at the world and capturing a photo that tells a story.
No two photographers see the same subject in the same way. Your particular taste and vision will set you apart from other photographers and this is your precious gift. A photographer’s vision can be seen repeated in their photos over and over again, like a brand.
The great Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt’s trademark black and white images of dogs, street photography and portraits are infused with humour, wit and romance. Steve McCurry another Magnum star almost works exclusively in vibrant colour with a more serious tone and if you look closely at his portraits they are always simple and engaging.
Robert Doisneau exclusively used black and white and his images of Paris are romantic, sweet and always with a dash of innocence. You can almost feel the kindness of this man in his images.
The great Elliott Erwitt also has this to say about his style and his choice of subject matter. Erwitt mentions in interviews that ‘his colleagues in Magnum are generally seen as more “serious” photographers– who photograph more “serious” events.’
However Erwitt tries to not take himself too seriously: “Well, I’m not a serious photographer like most of my colleagues. That is to say,I’m serious about not being serious.”
One thing that all these photographers have in common is that you can easily recognize their work without seeing their ‘byline’ (byline is a photographer’s or a journalist’s name printed alongside their story in a magazine). Their work is their byline.
They all have their own vision, their own style of lighting, emotions they wish to portray, their own presentation of their photos, mood of their work, personality and their own special way that they communicate through their images
When I arrived in Florence in the year 2000, I didn’t have access to a huge group of friends or contacts but I did have Popi (my gorgeous landlady) and her friends. I started there, I asked to photograph them, the kids I shared the house with and the people on the streets of Florence and slowly the people I would interact with each day.
I started messing around, taking photos that I thought I wanted to take from portraits to fashion inspired photos. I followed my heart and this is where it led me. I now realise the values I held dear and subjects that were in my subconscious at the time came through.
LOVE AND EMOTIONS
Love and lack of it in the previous years had been a big theme for me and when I arrived in Italy it seemed like I was surrounded by it. Photography has always been about the emotions for me. Capturing all those outwardly expressed emotions in Italy came naturally. I couldn’t believe the amount of public displays of affection and I think it was also a reflection of the highly emotional state I felt after leaving my life in Sydney to find something I loved – photography.
A lot of what we shoot as photographers is about how WE FEEL.
MOVEMENT
I had been trapped in an office for the best part of my adult life and movement felt like the opposite to me, it represented life, action and adventure. I was obsessed with movement of all kinds including families on vespas, people of all ages riding bikes in Florence or driving strange little vehicles in the Italian countryside. Movement has become part of my style as I am always attracted to it no matter whether it is vespas, cars or people. I love blur and the emotions that come with movement in a photo.
My obsession with religious iconography had to do with my lack of religious grounding in Australia and arriving to the overload and beauty of religious iconography in Italy. I was a magnet to a Madonna! I was obsessed with every tabernacle on a street corner, statues of Madonna’s in churches and religious art and just kept shooting them. I never asked why or what I would do with them but I think it comes back to my instinct.
I was attracted to the emotion they portrayed and just went with it.
ELEGANCE
I have always loved fashion and had long been a lover of fashion magazines and beautiful clothes. This love flowed over into photography even though I was shooting travel and life photos in the beginning it was often reflected.
I loved the innate elegance of Italians and would stop well-dressed people in the street and ask if I could take a photo. If I had the choice I would seek out someone dressed at the market in a certain way or with the right apron and boots. Clothes have always been a big deal for me and they are still are a big part of how I love to shoot. They really help make an image stronger.
Confession: I have ‘tweaked’ or created photos from the beginning, dressing friends and even Francesco on holidays to go out and take a photo that I wanted or felt would express something.
I love things that make me laugh in life and even more when I can capture it in a photo. I think this comes back to who we are as photographers, often what we shoot is how WE FEEL OR THINK. IT IS OFTEN ABOUT US.
BLACK AND WHITE
I shot and printed almost exclusively in black and white in the early years and as I didn’t have an end use at the time for my images, I did what pleased me. Black and white became a huge part of my style and in the early years I loved shooting at night and would always end up with half a roll of film in my camera the day afterwards and go out and shoot in daylight – hence I always had a lot of grain in my images – all by accident.
SUBJECTS
There is a certain romance, nostalgia and love of all things old and falling apart in my style (except for people). You will probably notice in most of my travel images there is rarely a modern building or a clean hard edged interior, you are more likely to find a building or street with an ancient story or full of life, walls with peeling paint and faded colours. This was and is a reflection of my love for Europe and its stories and layers.. just like life.
Don’t be in hurry to develop your ‘style’. It will come naturally if you take the photos that you love and from the heart. Try not to be too influenced by everyone around you.
Ask yourself what are your values, what is important to you?
Keep shooting the photos you want to take and listen to your inner voice. Don’t ask why
Ask yourself what is it you want to say in your images?
With time your style will come without you even realising it. You may find using a particular camera, a particular lighting setup, a post production process, a lens, injecting energy and emotions or using a certain depth of field may create an effect you like and your natural style will develop.
The post production choices that you make to present your photos is also a big contributor to your style, whether you choose to use high contrast black and white, punchy colour, faded vintage colours or low contrast sepia images all becomes part of your photographic look.
Music portrait photographer Anton Corbijn found his style by accident. He decided against using a flash or a tripod when shooting his portraits — he claims that he’s never been good with the technical stuff — and because of that he developed an instantly recognizable style using high speed grainy film early on.
“Your handicap is your strongest asset,” he explains. “I made it work for myself, and then somehow that becomes how you take pictures, which is different to a lot of people. I mean, you always strive for the perfect thing, but then life gets in the way. A lot of my better pictures have slight imperfections… I look back at the old pictures, and I made so many mistakes.”
I hope this helps you on your path to finding your style and personal vision.
“But I tell you, for me, each photographer brings his own light from when he was a kid, in this fraction of a second when you freeze reality, you also freeze all this background. You materialize who you are.” Sebastiao Salgado
It feels like so much has happened this year, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
I have had a chance to reflect back on the past sixteen years and what has actually happened, why somethings worked and somethings didn’t and what photography has given me.
I give photography much credit for everything I have today!!
When I left Sydney in 2000 I lived along, ate take-away food each night alone, dreamed of finding someone to love and share my life with, to live in a community and belong and spend the 2nd part of my life doing something I loved (not much to ask for right??)
When I arrived fresh of the plane in Italy in 2000 and started at photography school, I was a clean slate. I had just pushed aside the first 35 years of my life and was about to start on a path that I knew nothing about.
Learning photography and watching images appear in the darkroom filled me with excitement, wonder and curiosity.
Each day I went out into the streets of Florence and took photographs. I had no agenda other than learning, seeing, feeling what came naturally and trying out my ‘training wheels’ photography skills on daily life.
Days, weeks, months, years passed and I was still out on those streets taking photos of things I loved – that brought me pleasure, made me laugh and filled me with happiness.
When I decided to try and publish a book in 2003, I looked at all the pictures I had taken and there seemed to be some recurring themes. Like a lot!
There were images of love, kissing on church steps, couples locked in a passionate goodbye at the train station and sitting on a bridge in the sun. There were images of friends, family and community, of people eating, share and enjoying food together, of Italian beaches and summer, faith and travel and of course Joy. These images were what I was attracted to without any ulterior motive.
So off I toddled to a publisher one day with my big bunch of photos and hope in my heart. These photos and my story became my first book Italian Joy and I will be forever grateful to the wonderful publisher Julie Gibbs and Penguin for her vision in saying yes to my dreams.
This summer (11 years) since Italian Joy, I picked it up and started flicking through it again. I started for the first time to see it in a different light, with new eyes and new thoughts and what has happened in the intervening years.
Well, I am sure you have all heard about affirmations and mantras? The power of repeating something you want, over and over again till the big boys and girls upstairs hear it and grant you your wish.
I realised that my photos were my mantras – I took so many photos of people in love that it eventually came to me. I took so many photos of family, friends and community – I found my tribe. I took so many photos of summer and Italian beaches it became part of what I do and I took so many travel photos that I became a travel photographer for the first 12 years of my life and got lucky enough to publish 7 books. I took so many photos of joy it became part of my everyday and all those poor people I stalked in love helped me find my very own sweetheart. And I started to believe in something greater than just what we see.
Did focusing subconsciously on things that were missing bring them to my life??? Were the big boys and girls upstairs hanging over my shoulder in the darkroom looking at what was appearing in the developer? Did someone not only hear my message they saw it? Or was it the fact that hundreds of thousands of moments of everything I wanted were recorded not only on film but in my heart and mind?
This summer I was lucky to meet the gorgeous Claire Lloyd (above) and her partner Matthew in Sydney. Over dinner with mutual friends on a little balcony overlooking Tamarama I tortured poor Claire about living on a Greek Island.
You see I have been in love with her life for years now ever since my publisher told me about a book she commissioned years earlier and I joked ‘that was the book I wanted to write and the life I want to live’!
Well gorgeous Claire did it and so beautifully and since I opened my copy of My Greek Island Home I haven’t stop dreaming of blue seas, fresh air and white painted floors.
Not only did she write My Greek Island Home but she photographed it too.
Who doesn’t dream of living on a Greek Island?
I certainly do in the midst of a cold winter, yearning for sunshine, the sea and a little garden. Claire has been kind enough to share her thoughts on her life, creativity, cats and living on a Greek Island and some of her favourite addresses on Lesvos.
What inspired you to move to Lesvos?
I definitely had a deep need somewhere inside me for a simpler life and a need to reconnect with my creativity. For many years I had been living a very full and hectic life in London, Art Directing and designing for brands, magazines and advertising agencies and I felt tired. It was a trip to my homeopath, Vicki, in London that encouraged me to change my direction. On that particular day I said to her I had lost my personal creativity and felt disconnected. Vicki held up her mobile phone with a photograph on it of, a basic stone house, in the middle of a field with a walnut tree. The house stood alone, solidly, under piercing blue skies. This visual image made an immediate impact on me. Vicki said, “perhaps this is your remedy, I have just bought a house in Lesvos, maybe you should go there and take a look.??? I am impulsive, and so was there within a week.
How has your move enhanced your lifestyle?
My lifestyle is much gentler and I have regained my personal creativity, I also have more time to observe and enjoy my surroundings.
I have many amusing anecdotes from my daily life to share.
What do you have more of living on an Island than living in a big city?
Cats and dogs………..I’ve never had a dog before and now we have as little as 2 or as many as 4 at one time. We try to re home strays. We always have lots of kitties to feed too.
You see more stars because there is little streetlight, in the village, and the skies are vast.
Being on an island the Aegean sea surrounds you and is nearly always in your sight.
We have more seasonal fruit and vegetables and, more time to speak to people and reflect on life.
How has photography allowed you to communicate with the locals?
Photography has opened up communications big time. The Greeks are very social and generous people and they have welcomed my partner Matthew and I with open arms and with great warmth.
My camera has added another layer, it has given me more confidence to approach people and it has also given me something I can give back in my appreciation. Most people love getting an image of themselves and it’s also a lovely documentation of a village life. Last summer I hung up 250, A5 images that I printed out at home, on a bamboo fence outside one of the village café neas, the people loved it and they could take their photo away at the end of the evening.
It was Matthew who encouraged me to start taking photographs by buying me my first Cannon camera. It was a gift; a gift I never imagined would change my life so much.
What influences your style and how have you adapted this to creating your Greek Island home?
Light, simplicity and space influence me as well as an enormous amount of bright white paint.
These have always been my staples.
I had no difficultly adapting any of these elements to ‘My Greek Island Home’ as they are all part and parcel of Greece.
Style Icon?
Georgia O’Keeffe, she was an original. Pure style in everything she did, her paintings, her living spaces and the way she dressed and looked. I admire her art, love of nature and her focus.
How do you feel waking up on a Greek Island every day? (Sounds amazing when you live in a big city)
I feel privileged, and really happy to be alive.
What would you say to your friends thinking of swapping their lives in a big city for an island? Should we do it?
I am a great believer in change and I think any change is positive. I also believe people have dreams and life is short. So I think whatever your dream you owe it to yourself to explore it. I understand it’s easier for some of us to make changes and that circumstances can make it difficult. But I also believe any change small or large is worthwhile giving a go. So I’d say ‘go for it’.
Has Island life been good for your creativity?
Yes it has been amazing. It has given me so much. I feel I have just scratched the surface of my creativity and here I have found a place where it can evolve and develop. It’s great not knowing where it will take me.
Is there something you miss about your former life?
I loved my former life and still get to dip in and out of both Sydney and London. I am lucky because I can visit the cinemas, my favorite restaurants and galleries when I’m there. I also love catching up with friends.
I miss my creative friends but they come and visit and there is the telephone and skype.
And it makes it even more special when I do get spend time with them.
Tell us 3 cool things about Lesvos that we don’t know?
Lesvos is the 3rd largest Greek Island and extremely close to Turkey, at one point there is only 5 kilometers of sea separating them.
The topography changes dramatically from one side of the island to the other. You can travel through deep green pine forests or be in the middle of a vast, arid, volcanic, and lunar like landscape.
This week we were told, by, the President of The Chamber of Commerce that Lesvos has been given a UNESCO listing.
I love that you look after all the local animals, how did this happen?
I think we must have an invisible sign on the front gate that only animals can see. They all seem to know where to come instinctively. It started with Sweetie my special girl.
I was eating outside at a local taverna and this tiny kitten, way too young to be eating scraps appeared. She was begging. When she saw me she immediately, and with no encouragement, jumped on my knee and refused to get down. She was so pathetic looking and her eyes were gummy. It was suggested by the locals to take her home, so after my meal we headed off up the hill to the top of the village. She buried her head in the crookof my arm and shook. She must have known instinctively she was doing the right thing. Now she is big and has a gloriously, luxurious fur coat, better than any you would find in Fendi. Sweetie rules and yes, we love her big time.
What’s on the menu today?
Fish baked in the oven with lemon and a simple green salad, all bought from vans that pass through the village daily, selling fresh produce. In the summer I grow a small amount of salad in pots outside my kitchen door.
What has your reward been for your courage to switch lives so dramatically?
My rewards have been many, warm friendships, serenity, creativity, unconditional love from animals, incredible beauty in the landscape that surrounds me and of course the opportunity to photograph, write and design my latest book “My Greek Island Home???. I am no doubt a very lucky girl! (woman) I have also been extremely lucky having Matthew to share it with.
The Local’s Hotlist
Café
Travel north to Sikaminias. There is a small harbor port Skala Sikaminias, which has some great little restaurants. You can watch the local fishing boats arrive with their daily catch. Above the port is the main village, Sikaminias and in its small square there are a couple of café’s that are really worth sitting in and soaking up the local life. It’s a beautiful village so take a wander.
Eat
Fish cooked by Yiannis at Cavo Di Oro in Sigri.
Yiannis loves the Beatle’s and if you are lucky enough he will play you some of his favorite tracks.
Swim
Find a way to the beach from the dirt coast road between Sigri and Eressos. The water is crystal clear and there is no one to be seen.
Taverna / restaurant
The Octapus in Molyvos is right on the waters edge at the harbor, and you can see Molyvos Castle crowning the top of the town in the background.
Stay
Birds Bay This is a very quiet and beautiful spot, a place to forget the world and be at one with nature. It has superb sea views and a fabulous view of Molyvos at night, sparkling in the distance.
Shop
Shop at the Women’s co-op on the main road into Molyvos.
They make traditional and delicious home made preserves and biscuits.
My favorite thing, without a doubt, are the chocolate tarts. A tip, you must order them
Sunset drink
My terrace!!!!!!!
Indulge in..
Just being there.
Don’t leave without
Visiting the monastery at Ipsilos. There are still monks living there, although you will only see one who sits in the little museum. It’s a fascinating little museum, with all sorts of religious items. The views from the monastery are superb.
A huge thanks to the lovely Claire Lloyd for sharing a little of her inspiring life and for those of you who can’t get to a Greek Island soon I suggest you buy My Greek Island Home ,a beautiful book of dreams and this is for anyone who has ever dreamt of changing their life and doing what they love.
You may also enjoy a look inside the Guesthouse created by Claire and partner Matthew’s beautiful artist studio in the heart of town. For more Greek island Inspiration go to this page.
“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.???Ella Fitzgerald
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