I am so excited to share with you some of the photos I shot recently with the beautiful Mithra of The Bubble Joy.
This superstar collects and sells vintage deliciousness in her online shop known as Finder Not Keeper and she was a joy in every sense.
Cool, funky and fun and the ultimate pleasure for a photographer, she hands over the trust and was willing to play and play we did!
What a treat, a day in Paris that felt like I was hanging out with someone I had known for years and we had the honour of having a long her super husband Gary.
I am so grateful and fortunate that beautiful souls like Mithra find their way to my door and adore that we have so much in common, love for photography, beautiful things and life.
We roamed around Paris, drinking coffees and rosé (well just a glass) and Mithra shining her light for the camera and all the lucky passersby and folk we found along the way.
A special shout-out to Miloufar and the beautiful boutique Yveline Antiques in St Germain des Pres which is our favourite antiques shop in Paris…
Please check out Mithra and her work HERE and follow her on Instagram HERE.
“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.”
Huge thanks to Mithra for allowing me to share her photos with you…
Carla x
P.S. I have just had a shoot postponed so if you are feeling game and will be in Paris in July or early August I would love you to be my muse. Shoot details HERE.
I am happy to announce I have opened up 3 spaces for my all-time favourite portrait session in Paris for June, July and September where you get to be the rockstar.
This isn’t any regular portrait session, it’s you caught in your own cinematic Paris film!
Slip into the noir of Paris like a movie-star on set, un-observed in quiet moments in cool bars, shot through the window unobserved. It’s for lovers of Paris and photography that want something a little more rock-n-roll, you caught in a whir of blur and the only thing in focus is your beautiful face.
Celebrate being fabulously single at 30 or 40, celebrate you and motherhood and coming out the other side of the toddler stage and finding yourself again. Celebrate being in love or getting divorced but most of all celebrate YOU, YOU, YOU. You are fabulous just as you are today, not SOMEDAY and I love nothing better than celebrating you in Paris in the coolest way possible and creating images that will become part of your story and your families story.
If you would like to make some magic with me click HERE to read more.
Our beloved parents have heirlooms that they desperately want to pass onto us and wish and hope that we love them with the same passion they do.
My mum (love ya mum) wants me to love her corner cabinet with the wooden fretwork with the same passion she does and hopes that one day it will sit in the corner of my house or my brother or sisters and remind us of her.
She has already passed on her beautiful green deco sweet dishes that I treasure and use at every opportunity and the gift of fine coffee cups for her engagement that I use with love and joy.
But there is another treasure that is contained in a box that is the real heirloom that I love and treasure with passion of my family and all the people connected to it, it’s a box of photos.
You see my memories of my family are vast and joyful. My parents created so many memories for us, picnics by rivers with our dog Jedda, scents of barbecue sausages and jumping off rocks into water, travelling to Magnetic island in the 80’s and being allowed to explore pristine beaches on our own. They took us on visits to my Aunty who had a horse named Ben and it was the first horse we ever sat upon and it was exciting beyond my imagination.
These memories and so many other stories of our ancestors have been captured in photos and cemented in my memory forever, this is my heirloom. For me it’s a treasure trove of who we are and where we came from. Sometimes I stare into these photos and I try and get to know a grandfather I never met or see my parents, young and beautiful, the way they were before we came along. I wonder about my Uncle and Aunt who travelled the world by sailing boat who meticulously documented this trip in a trip book along with numbered slides.
I had an Aunty and an Uncle (not by blood but an Uncle all the same) who loved photography and they contributed to so many of these memories with their camera, eye and heart. They photographed me on my ‘maiden flight’ with my big sister, on Ben the horse and us in the backyard playing together.
When I started taking photos I turned my camera on my own family and those small moments with my nieces and nephews at the pool, in the backyard, messing around and playing like kids do, I took photos of my brothers and sisters and my parents. They allowed me to fall in love with taking photos of people and it is THIS heirloom that I want to leave them.
Each of us value something different, I am a sentimental fool and even though I don’t have children of my own I like to think my family extends beyond blood. That I can take pictures and leave a heirloom for others that too may pick up a photo one day and ask the question ‘who is that girl’ or ‘where’s that’ or ‘I wonder what her dreams were?’.
If you too would love to leave your family memories on paper you may like to learn how to master and enjoy taking photos of people in Puglia Italy this October at my workshop, Heartland, where we explore the art of people and spaces.
My love for photography and people is vast, if you share the same passion you can see all the details HEREand unlock the secrets to capturing people as you see and feel them.
What heirloom would you like to leave your family?
Sending love
Carla x
PS. Mum, I do love your corner cabinet but I love you and all the joy you have given us even more!!!! (look after those photos)
I recently read Shonda Rhimes book The Year of Yes. I loved it for so many reasons because it reminded me of me years ago when I was frightened of life and commitments.
I would say ‘no’ to everything. And it took years to realise I was saying no to myself and no to life.
Till one day I say ‘yes’ to me, I made the decision to leave Sydney and go find the right life for me and then there was no holding me back. I became the ‘yes’ girl (kind of like Jim Carrey in Yes Man) but without the old lady upstairs!
I said yes, to moving to Italy, to going out with cutie Italian hotties, to becoming a photographer, to having lunch with strangers, to improbable friendships, to picking a destination at the train station and going their spontaneously, to not knowing what tomorrow held.
I said yes to jobs that freaked me out, struggling with photography but kept on going, to learning about art and history, to meeting friends of friends for coffee or lunch. I said yes to Italy and travelled her from top to bottom, I said yes to writing it down in a book (Italian Joy) and I said yes to falling in love with the most beautiful man I know.
I said yes to life and that big old guy upstairs returned my Yes with love, friendship, tribe, happiness, excitement, travel and creativity. He decided to reward me for my bravery, my courage of going wayyyy out of my comfort zone and each time I became a little more open to life when I uttered the word Yes.
The last couple of years I got bogged down in stuff, in new learnings, a little too much routine and I started to become the ‘no’ girl again. I could hear it before it even came out of my mouth.
So yesterday I made a vow, that 2018 will become my Yes year. A year of adventure, love and happiness and I know the universe returns if you dare to open your heart and mind so dear folks anyone out there that wants to join me on the year of yes???
Ultimately the more we say no to others the more we say no to ourselves. What are you saying no to?
Have you ever thought, ‘there are just too many photographers, I might as well quit now.’
It’s true, if you look around us everyone has a good camera these days and they are all madly snapping photos of almost anything. Phone cameras have become so sophisticated that even they produce the most incredible images and even top end brands are paying ‘stars’ to create million dollar campaigns on their iPhone.
There are images everywhere you look, on buses, social media, television, billboards and giant screens around the cities and sometimes you might ask ‘is there room for one more photographer?’.
But a voice inside of me says ‘so what if there are too many photographers?’. I believe there is enough room for all of us.
I am sure people in other artistic fields feel the same way. A graphic artist, illustrator or even interior designer if they just kept looking at the numbers of people in their field would curl into a ball in the fetal position and throw the pen or fabric down.
But my lovelies, I would ask you not to look to what everybody else is doing and look inside and listen to the voice of your inner photographer who has something to say. Maybe the voice is quiet right now, self-doubting, shy, scared but if you start to trust it and allow yourself to do what it wants, you will find an incredible vision of your own.
It’s your vision that is your Excalibur sword. It’s your vision that will slash its way through all the images out there and have someone saying ‘I have to have my photos taken by THAT photographer or whose photos are these?’
If you trust your vision, if you you listen to your inner voice instead of comparing yourself to everyone else, you will let the magic out!
So on the days you are doubting your greatness, listen to your inner photographer or creative, even if it is a soft whisper and then go create what it is whispering to you.
If this subject interests you and you would like to know more about creative vision and having your images published the LAST PLACES are going for Get Published 2017, you can read more HERE.
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Dear Folks,
