There is a wildness in us that never left. It simply learned to wait.
I’m very excited to share something that began long before I found the words for what I was searching for in life. It’s a body of work born in Paris with deep personal introspection and access to the world’s best florists. A series of photographs that became the path I didn't know I was already walking on.
It's called Rewilding, and I invite you to take a look.
The Story Behind the Work
"I had an unconscious yearning for a profound change, something slower, wilder, and less domesticated."
I was living in Paris, restless, searching for a different way of living. I didn’t have a clear idea of what it was and I couldn't yet name. I wanted to throw off a life that had become too predictable. I had a deep desire to return to the feminine part of myself, the quiet, slow, nurturing, and creative part that longed for something new and to leave the masculine action-oriented energy that had ruled my life behind.
I picked up my camera and started creating these photos, searching Paris’s florists for otherworldly wildflowers like greater masterwort and love-in-a-mist that I had never seen before, but felt wild and free like the part of me I had forgotten. I chose cultivated garden flowers that were exquisitely beautiful, like peonies and ruffled sweet peas that felt like the tamed part of the woman I had become.
It was an unconscious yearning for a profound change, something slower, wilder, and less domesticated.
What surprised me was how the process of photographing the flowers, laying the wild next to the tamed, revealed slowly what I already knew I was looking for.
Each photograph in Rewilding is suspended against deep, atmospheric backgrounds, the botanicals feel both alive and contemplative, embodying the complexity and wonder of nature itself. But they are more than beautiful.
Each image carries a name that is also an invitation: Courage. Honesty. Trust. Yearning. Stillness. These are the qualities required on the path home to an authentic life. Each print is available as a fine art limited edition, made to live on a wall that matters to you.
The Collection — Fourteen Works
Each image. A flower. A message. A quality for the journey home.
Stillness
Coral peony · Ranunculus · Masterwort
Receding into the quiet to hear what calls from within.
Honesty
Peony · Roses · Ranunculus · Stocks
Turning toward the light — liberation through the courage to see truth.
Introspection
Raspberry peonies · Ranunculus · Red buckeye
Desires that become clear when we move into stillness.
Yearning
Coral peonies · Silver ragwort
The deep longing felt when the time has come to go home.
Opulence
Pink peonies · Sweet peas · Ranunculus
Our inner treasures — waiting to be rediscovered.
Imagination
Raspberry peony · Silver ragwort
The endless possibilities when we dare to think differently.
Perseverance
Love-in-a-mist · Gooseneck loosestrife · Masterwort
The rewards that open when we listen to inner wisdom.
Courage
Masterwort · Gooseneck loosestrife · Love-in-a-mist
Rising toward the light, finding the courage to listen to our wild side.
Curiosity
Masterwort · Gooseneck loosestrife · Love-in-a-mist
Emerging from the shadows — the wild part that demands knowledge.
Trust
Pink scabious · Peonies · Love-in-a-mist · Masterwort
The confidence to follow one's heart — wild and cultivated in balance.
Integrity
Coral poppies · Silver ragwort · Crimson clover
The joy of an authentic life — wild and tamed at one.
Wisdom
Pink peonies · Raspberry ranunculus
Basking in the light — the reconnection to our inner knowing.
Grace
Golden poppy · Peonies · Stocks
The ease that comes when we understand our own divinity.
Tenderness
Iceland poppy · Masterwort
A gentle invitation to embrace tenderness toward ourselves again.
Each print is available as a fine art limited edition — made to live on a wall that matters to you.
I made these photographs during one of the most searching periods of my life. What surprised me was how the flowers already knew what I was looking for. They held it — the wildness, the tenderness, the courage — right there in their petals.
I hope one of these images finds its way to your wall, and that every time you look at it, it whispers something true back to you.
With love,
Carla
CARLA COULSON · PHOTOGRAPHER & AUTHOR
Authenticity is not found in abandoning the tamed parts of ourselves — but in allowing the wild and the cultivated to exist in balance.
— Carla Coulson, Rewilding
The Collection is Now Available
Which word is calling your name?
Fourteen fine art prints. Each one a doorway.
Choose the quality you are cultivating — or the one you are longing to find.