styling | Cristina Colli

Oct

October floral notes

photography / Seasonal notes / styling / 4 Comments / October 31, 2018

October greeted us with an Indian summer, warmer than usual temperatures, and glorious sunny days. I took advantage of the lovely weather and went for long walks in the woods with my husband, collecting leaves, rose hips, crab apples, and other botanical snippets to use in my work.

Walking in nature is my favourite way to get back to the present moment, connect with the Earth, and quieten my anxious mind. When I’m back home I like to create seasonal displays to celebrate the season and reconnect with that feeling of stillness and belonging I experience when I’m in the woods (I wrote an article about this for Breathe magazine issue 16, on sale now).

All the little bits and pieces I collected found a place in my floral images, and I also resurrected an old prop – an vintage French manuscript – and played with it. I get bored of props all the time and stop using them, but after a while they feel inspiring again.

The garden gave its last bounty of miniature roses and Japanese anemones, and I was able to find some colourful dahlias at a local flower farm. I felt drawn to pink, purple, orange, and blue.

Little pumpkins started to make an appearance too, and the last of the café-au-lait dahlias.

Mid-October I spent 12 days travelling to France and Italy, to visit friends and family. We drove from Oxfordshire to southern Tuscany, which is quite a long, tiring journey, but I loved the slower pace of travel and enjoyed looking at the beautiful autumnal landscapes we found along the way, together with some spectacular sunsets.

On our return the weather changed and temperatures dropped. On Sunday the clock went backwards, and each day is getting shorter and chillier.
In the morning I like to spend a few minutes wrapped up in a blanket, nursing a warm cup of tea, just looking at the frost in the garden, with its sparkling lacy patterns spread over the lawn and plants.

Slowly but steadily, all the leaves are changing colour and falling, reminding me of the beauty of letting go.

Today I made my first pumpkin pie of the season, just in time for Samhain – the Celtic festival celebrating the end of harvest time and the beginning of winter, the darker half of the year. The Celts used to remember and honour the family’s ancestor, inviting them home, and wore masks and costumes to disguise themselves as harmful spirits and so avoid harm. They lit bonfires, and went from home to home reciting verses in exchange for food.
That’s where the tradition of Halloween originated, and even though I don’t go trick or treating I do like to celebrate with a lovely meal based on autumnal food, like pumpkin, apples, chestnuts, and mushrooms.

My local flower farms have all closed down for the winter season, and are getting ready to plant spring bulbs. Even though I prefer home grown flowers, I’ll start buying from the florist again…waiting for the first hellebores to bloom in my garden.

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Mar

BTS: Blossomzine Spring cover

creativity / photography / styling / 8 Comments / March 15, 2018

The spring issue of Blossomzine is just out, and I’m thrilled to see my image on the cover! I enjoyed creating the cover image very much, and I’d like to share a little behind the scenes of the whole process.

The brief

When SBM Life Science commissioned the spring issue cover of Blossomzine, director Dana Frigerio contacted me to create and photograph the image. I’ve been a regular contributor of Blossomzine since November 2015, and met Dana a couple of years ago. We regularly Skype to brainstorm ideas and chat about all things creative, so I jumped at the opportunity to collaborate with her.

The challenge

The company asked Dana to feature their NutriOne fertiliser in the cover image in a subtle, creative way.

The brainstorming

We had a long brainstorming session on Skype. We discussed the concept for the cover, Spring, and the way it symbolises rebirth and growth. We talked about plants, and how they need water, nutrients, and good soil to develop strong roots and grow.
After looking at many images of spring flowers, roots, seeds, and bulbs, we decided that Dana would paint an illustration of roots using NutriOne fertiliser as ink, and that we would use spring flowers and bulbs. Some of the bulbs would be whole plants, complete with roots and possibly soil.

The collaboration

Dana painted the illustration of roots, to fulfil the brief, while I chose the flowers, and created and photographed the composition.

She flew over here with her precious illustrations, and her trip was an adventure! Storm Emma got in her way, and after one cancelled flight and a delayed one she finally arrived at my place at 3.30am, chilled to bone and exhausted.

I had placed an order with my florists days in advance, but after reading the weather forecast I started to fear that I couldn’t get my delivery. I scoured every possible place in town, and even asked my husband to visit a florist and supermarket close to his office, to get as many flowers as possible. Thank goodness for this, because the delivery guy couldn’t reach my florist, so I had to make do with the bits and pieces I’d managed to buy the previous days, and a single snowdrop that I managed to salvage from the garden.

We chose the grey backdrop together, from a selection that I had just painted. The storm had a silver lining though: I take photos in natural light, by a large glass door, and the snow covered ground acted as a giant reflector – the light was beautiful!

The styling tips

I paired flowers in odd numbers – like five yellow flowers, three blue grape hyacinths, and so on.
I always work in odd numbers – this is called the rule of odds, and even though I don’t like rules I always follow this one.
Using an odd number of subjects makes the image visually interesting. We naturally try to pair items, and when we cannot find the pair we keep looking, staying engaged with the composition.
The only exception to the rule is the couple, as two subjects work well together too.

I added some soil to the image as texture, to soften the edges of the illustration and tie all the elements of the composition together.

Reflections

Having too many directives often stifles creativity. The best scenario, in my opinion, is when you have creative freedom with one single challenge. This is a good starting point, as it prevents the “fear of the blank canvas” and leaves plenty of room for individual creativity – do you agree?

Dana and I only had one requirement each: she had to include the fertiliser in the cover, and I had to use her illustration in the image. SBM Life Science gave us creative freedom, and that let our creativity shine – a perfect job!

Blossomzine is a bi-lingual e-magazine about flowers and plants. The articles are both in Italian and in English, so head over there to feast your eyes with beautiful photographs and read interesting articles – I particularly loved Mali’s ink paintings, Samantha’s decorated leaves, and Katie’s floral meditations.

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts about your idea of a perfect job in the comments below :)

P.S. I’m currently creating lessons for my new online course “Visual Storytelling 2: photography & composition essentials”. The class will teach you how to use your DSLR camera in manual, and the fundamentals of editing and composition. If you want to be the first to know when the course opens for registration, sign up here.

Mar

The why behind your photographs

photography / styling / visual storytelling / 2 Comments / March 7, 2017

Today I’d like to talk about visual storytelling, and the importance of knowing what you are trying to communicate with your images – basically, knowing what your story is.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and it’s true – you can tell a whole story with a photograph. Every element you introduce into a photograph evokes an emotion and contributes to the overall story you want to tell. Colours, shapes, forms, light, textures, objects, placement…they’re all important, and they all send a message to the viewer.

When I work with brands, the first thing we talk about is keywords – those words that represent the core message of the brand, the values and story they want to communicate with pictures.

Afterwards, I create a moodboard to have a visual reference of the style, feel and mood we want to achieve. It’s only after these two steps that I start thinking of the images I want to create, then source the right props, and finally take photos.

In my opinion, this process is essential to create images that all consistently send the same message, and tell the same story. Having clarity on what you want to achieve gives purpose to your photography, and lets you avoid the mistake of sending conflicting messages that just confuse the viewer.

As an example, have a look at these images. They all tell a story of some kind of tea/coffee break, but the different choices of backdrop, props, light, texture, colours, and composition evoke different moods, and reflect different keywords.

The two images below feature the same white board backdrop as a table, but the red and white mug, that’s perfect for the first image, would look totally out of place in the second one.

In the same way, the rustic wooden backdrop and vintage crockery that work so well with the autumnal flat lay below would contrast too much with the muted colours and simple, quiet feel of the second photograph.

Even the same subject can evoke a different mood – and so tell a different story – depending on the light and editing, as you can see in these photographs:

From bright and airy, to dark and moody, with various levels of colour saturation and contrast: same cupcakes, different stories :)

To create beautiful images you need a combination of technical skills and vision. The vision, the “why” behind your photographs, is what I cover in my e-course “Visual Storytelling 1: create your story, find your voice”.

I created this course to help bloggers, Instagrammers, makers, brands, and creative persons. All the exercises are based on my own process, and are designed to help you figure out your own keywords, find the elements that best tell your story, and create a moodboard that represent the style and feel you want to achieve – your photographic voice.

I love it when students have an aha moment, and tell me that thanks to the exercises they finally know what their vision is, and what direction they want to take with their photographs. Every time I get this kind of feedback, my heart fills up with joy! Seeing students grow and find their creative voice is definitely the most gratifying reward of teaching this class. Learn more about Visual Storytelling 1: create your story, find your voice here.

At the moment I’m working on my second e-course, Visual Storytelling 2: Photography & composition essentials. As I said before, to create beautiful photographs you need both vision and skills, and this new course will focus on all the fundamental skills of photography, composition, and editing, to help you bring that vision into reality.

If you want to be the first to know when this class opens for registration, you can sign up to my waiting list here.

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Once or, occasionally, twice a month I send out a Creative Note to my readers, with my thoughts on the creative process, inspiring links, and course news.

Signing up also gives you access to my Inspiration Library, with free resources like my ebook “The heart of Instagram: finding your peeps and building community”, the creativity workbook “Creative Intentions”, desktop wallpapers, and more. Interested? Sign up here

If you’re on Instagram and would like to follow me there, my account is @c_colli

Feb

Visual storytelling: MuLondon

photography / styling / visual storytelling / 6 Comments / February 10, 2017

Over a year ago MuLondon contacted me to see if I’d be interested in creating a range of images for their rebrand, and I’m thrilled to finally show you some of the images I created for them. I love working with ethical brands passionate about their values and products quality, so I was delighted to be part of this collaboration.

Boris, the founder, is a modern apothecary who cares about using pure, organic natural ingredients for all MuLondon moisturisers and cleansers, which are also free of any artificial preservatives, fragrances or emulsifiers.
Pure essential oils and herbal remedies naturally scent and preserve the products, and the company doesn’t test on animals – which is very important to me.

I was excited to work on this project: the products are excellent quality and ethical, flowers and plants are my favourite photography subjects, and my artistic vision was in line with MuLondon’s – a dream collaboration!

Effective visual storytelling takes time and thought, and this is especially true when you want to create a series of images that tell the same story.
Each image needs to constantly communicate the same message, albeit with different nuances. This means having a clear understanding of the brief, brainstorming ideas to best represent the message, and also creating one or more mood boards to have a visual reference for the desired feel and look of the images.

In MuLondon’s case, all photographs need to translate the overall keywords of the brand, obviously, but each skincare range has its own specific set of keywords too, mostly based on the ingredients used, type of skin they’re aimed at, and feel and scent of the product.

This meant creating a visual story for each product, based on the specific keywords, that nevertheless would harmoniously fit within the main story of the brand.

After the brainstorming phase, we used Pinterest to share images that reflected each keyword, and the result was a massive moodboard which included textures, colours, materials, and props.

I painted a backdrop for the images, using mostly off-whites to create a light texture, and chose props with simple shapes and natural textures, such as ceramic, wood, and slate.

The mortar and pestle, boards, bottles, bowls, and spoons, all hint at the handmade nature of the skincare. Together with the botanical prints, they evoke the idea of an apothecary using natural herbal ingredients, but with a modern, fresh look in line with the rebranding.

It was great fun to use all the natural ingredients as props – I’d never seen a cocoa pod up close, they’re beautiful!
I enjoyed working with such a variety of colours and textures – a wonderful mix of simple and exotic that I found really inspiring.

Styling each product was a pleasant, soothing, and beautifully scented experience – what with the lavender, chamomile, vanilla, and rose petals, just to name a few! A true multi-sensory experience :)

The White Chocolate Truffle moisturiser is so decadent, and smells so delicious, like having some white chocolate vanilla mousse right under your nose…I had to restrain myself not to taste it!

It’s been a real pleasure working with MuLondon. Head over to their new beautiful website to see all the images and learn more about their ethos and wonderful skincare.

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Sign up to get my monthly Creative Notes here and receive access to my Inspiration Library, which includes my creativity workbook “Creative Intentions 2017”, ebook “The heart of Instagram – finding your peeps & building community”, desktop wallpapers, and more.

If you’d like to follow me on Instagram, my account is @c_colli

Oct

Flower flatlay routine & tips

creativity / photography / styling / Tips / 6 Comments / October 20, 2016

Today I’m sharing with you my routine for creating floral images, and also a tip for making flowers last just a little big longer for your flatlays.

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If you follow me on Instagram, you know that every day, Monday to Saturday, I post one of my floral images. I often get asked if I buy fresh flowers every day, or if I have a large garden filled with blooms.

The answer is no to both questions – I have a small garden, mostly paved, where I grow a few flowers in pots. I most definitely don’t buy fresh flowers every day – I wish I could!

Also, I don’t take photos every single day. I used to do that at the very beginning of my Instagram journey, when I was posting much simpler images with just a bloom or too.
The moment I started to create compositions with more flowers I quickly realised that I couldn’t afford to create an image a day though, so now I create as many floral images as I can in one go, to make the most of the flowers I have on hand, and then post them on Instagram during the week.

When I get the flowers home from the florist, flower farm, or from my garden, I first condition them (lots of good advice on how to do that here) and then I store them in the coolest room I have.

It’s best to photograph flowers as soon as possible, so that they look their best. I start with the more traditional still life compositions, because of course once you’ve cut the stem for a flatlay you cannot reuse the same flower for a posy any more.

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This might seem pretty obvious, but I can assure you that I learned the hard way…I’m all for going with the flow, but in this case a little organisation helps to avoid disappointments, believe me.

It’s also much easier to set up the scene: when I set up for a flatlay I need to move the small table that I use for classical still life photography to make room for the flatlay set up. Focusing on just one type of still life means that I can leave everything in place, table and tripod, until it’s time to create flatlays.

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At first I arrange and photograph the tall, large compositions, and then I move on to posies perfect for small vases – again, once you’ve cut the stem short, it’s not that easy to make it long again!

At times I have used florist wire to recreate a long stem, but depending on where the flower needs to go it might be hard to disguise the wire even if you wrap it with florist tape…and it’s all a bit of a faff anyway…not the fun kind of faffing, the tedious one :)

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Once I have finished photographing flowers in traditional still life set ups, I begin creating flatlays. First I use the whole flowers, and when I can’t think up of any more ideas I start snapping the flower heads off the stems without being afraid that I might need the whole flower again.

This works in theory, as sometimes I think of a new flatlay or composition where I need the whole flower just right after I’ve cut off its head…oh well…

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When I have finished photographing the flatlays, I always feel bad about throwing away the flower heads…sometimes I fill a bowl with water and let them float, so that I can enjoy them a bit longer.

Most of the times though, I put them in a lidded plastic container, mist them lightly with water, put the lid on and store them in the fridge. This way they stay fresh for about a week or more, depending on the type of flower.

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I learned this tip from Philippa Stanton (@5ftinf) and it really works! Some very delicate flowers, like sweet peas or poppies, last only a couple of days before the petals fall off, but others can last even 10-12 days! This is a great way to keep your flowers nice and fresh for longer, ready to use in flatlays.

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I have a small fridge and need to restrain myself to avoid filling it up with flowers – my husband still thinks that a fridge is for food…what does he know right ;)

Jokes apart, store only flowers that are fresh and still look good. If they are already starting to wilt, storing them in the fridge won’t help much I’m afraid.

That’s it for now, I hope you find the post helpful :)

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If you’d like to follow me on Instagram, my account is @c_colli

Jul

Still life: behind the scenes

photography / styling / 28 Comments / July 19, 2016

During my workshops and e-courses, I often come across students who are afraid that they won’t be able to create beautiful images unless they have a dedicated room for taking photos, or a gorgeous home, or a beautiful garden, or all of the above. This is absolutely NOT true, and today I want to show you where I create my images, and give you a few tips about setting up a space for your still life photography.

In an ideal world, I’d love to have my own studio: a light-filled space, with lots of room to work and create different types of images. This dream studio would be in the garden, close to a small greenhouse and potting shed, and a patch to grow flowers…in the dream, there’s also a house with wooden floors, airy rooms, a fireplace, and a beautiful view over fields and woodland…

The reality is quite different though. We are renting, so we’re stuck with beige carpet and slate flagstones, no fireplace, a small garden paved with ugly concrete slabs, large radiators in inopportune places, and views of a small court cramped with houses and cars…it’s a nice, comfortable house to live in, and I’m grateful for it, but alas it has no photogenic areas that are Instagram-worthy.

I have lots of ideas for images that I’d like to include in my visual storytelling, like larger still lives, and garden scenes too, but at the moment I can only work on a very small scale…and yet, that doesn’t prevent me from creating. Other things sometimes do, but that’s for another day and another post ;)

I thought I’d share with you where I work, to show you that you can indeed practice still life photography even in small spaces.

I shoot in my dining room by the glass door leading into the back garden, and my set up consists of a small folding table, my painted wooden backdrops, and a small selection of vases, teacups, and other props.

Every time I shoot I need to move the table and chairs, to have enough room for moving around, and when I finish taking photos I always need to move the furniture back and tidy up…and believe me, there’s usually quite a mess to clear up!

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Sometimes I find the thought of putting everything back a bit annoying, but overall I don’t mind it too much.

Let’s have a look at the set up for a simple, classical floral still life: I leaned my painted backdrop on the wall (well, on the radiator!) by the window, and placed a wooden tray on a wicker box to create my “table”. I then arranged the flowers and fabric, and took the photo.

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When I edited the image, I cropped it square as that’s my favourite format.

floral still life © Cristina Colli

In this other image, I propped one backdrop on the wall, and placed another backdrop on the folding table.

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After editing I cropped the image square, as usual.

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When I set up a flatlay, I place the backdrop directly on the floor. Some people work on a table, but I prefer to work on the floor, even if that means doing a lot of crouching, because I suffer from vertigoes and I don’t want to stand on a chair to photograph my work.

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I don’t use a tripod when I take photos with my iPhone, but I do use it for my DSLR. I also always use a white reflector to bounce off the light from the window, and soften the shadows.

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See, I wasn’t joking about the radiator – definitely not photograph material!

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If, like me, you want to shoot with natural light, the most important thing is to find a spot in your home that has the best light for your style of photography.

A north-facing window will provide you with soft diffused light that won’t change much during the day, but if your only option is a south-facing window don’t despair: just use some white cloth, like a sheet or curtain, to cover the window and diffuse the light.

If you don’t have enough natural light, use a lamp with a daylight bulb, to avoid colour casts, or perhaps practice low-key photography a.k.a. dark and moody. In this type of photography, even a small amount of light will allow you to create beautiful, dramatic still life images.

moody floral still life © Cristina Colli
A small table, a portion of the floor by a window, even a windowsill can all be suitable for still life photography. Granted, you will have to work on a small scale, like I do, but limitations are actually a great way to stimulate creativity and improve your work.

Try different windows, and different set ups, until you find one that works for you and your style, and then keep practising and have fun!

So where do you take your photos? I’d love to know :)

***

Once or, occasionally, twice a month I send out a Creative Note to my readers, with my thoughts on the creative process, inspiring links, and course news.

Signing up also gives you access to my Inspiration Library, with free resources like my ebook “The heart of Instagram: finding your peeps and building community”, the creativity workbook “Creative Intentions”, desktop wallpapers, and more. Interested? Sign up here

If you’re on Instagram and would like to follow me there, my account is @c_colli

Feb

Making a spring flat lay

creativity / photography / styling / 10 Comments / February 25, 2016

Earlier this month I wrote an article for the Spring issue of Blossomzine magazine, the first of a series.

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Blossomzine is published every three months – spring, summer, autumn, winter – and since the seasons have a huge influence on my work it made sense to write about seasonal inspiration, starting with spring.
Dana, the director, decided to take full advantage of the fact that the magazine is digital, and thought of adding links to videos and other media to the articles.

I loved her idea, and I created two videos showing a floral still life in the making, and a composition tip. Actually, I recorded three videos, but in the first one I positioned the iPhone at the wrong angle and ended up recording just my back, shoulder and arm…oops!

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I’m happy with how the other videos turned out though, especially because they show two different scenarios: one where the still life seems to happen on its own, and every flower or object seems to find its place almost by itself, at first try, and one where there’s a lot of moving stuff around before I can actually feel satisfied with the result.

Talking to students, and colleagues too, I realised how many people think that once you know how to compose a still life, they all come to you easily. Well, that’s not the case. I wish it were, but sometimes the muse just isn’t there, and I might spend a whole afternoon trying to create a still life, only to end up frustrated and not liking any of the shots I took…and that’s ok. If this sounds familiar, please don’t think it’s just you: it happens to everyone.

We all have good days and bad days. The important thing is not to beat yourself up because you “wasted” an hour/a morning/a day and didn’t create anything you like. That’s what I used to do, but it only made it more difficult to get back into the flow of creation.
So when you have one of those days, please give yourself some slack. Take the bad days as part of the creative process, and just keep trying, without expectations, without the pressure to create the “perfect” image, but simply for the sheer joy of creating. Keep trying, until you stumble across a good day again :)

So, here are the videos: the one where everything falls into place very quickly

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and the one where I keep moving stuff around

I hyperlapsed the video, and cut all the parts where I just kept staring at the composition scratching my head, so that you wouldn’t be bored to death, but know that it took me at least 30 minutes to get the still life right!

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Finally, here’s the composition tip about negative space, and its importance in an image.

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I hope you like the videos, and do have a look at the magazine – there are some lovely articles, as usual, and the cover is gorgeous!

***

Once or, occasionally, twice a month I send out a Creative Note to my readers, with my thoughts on the creative process, inspiring links, and course news.

If you’re on Instagram and would like to follow me there, my account is @c_colli

Feb

Favourite Instagram hashtags

Instagram / photography / styling / 6 Comments / February 12, 2016

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On Instagram, hashtags are a way of grouping images under a common theme, and strolling through hashtag galleries is a fantastic way to discover lovely photos and inspiring accounts. Some hashtags are used on a specific day, while others are ongoing and you can use them any time you want.

In no particular order, these are some of my favourite Instagram hashtags at the moment:

#seedscolor by @designseeds – Jessica is a master of colour, and she creates wonderful palettes inspired by images in the #seedscolor gallery. Not just for still life photography, you can also see many beautiful landscapes, and even some portraits.

#dsfloral by @designsponge – Grace has lots of other interesting hashtags such as #dstexture #dscolor #dslooking and more, but the #dsfloral gallery is, for obvious reasons (flowers!) my favourite one.

#mystillsundaycompetition by @kimklassen – This is for all kind of still life images, not just floral ones. Another beautiful gallery with an emphasis on finding stillness through photography – definitely my cup of tea!

#natureinthehome by @littlegreenshed – Lou has been running this for quite some time. I love scrolling through the feed and see how other people are finding ways to bring nature inside, and make their homes more welcoming using plants, flowers, and other natural finds.

#itsamoodywednesday by @jocelynhefner and @stilzitat – A varied gallery, with a mix of still life images and beautiful landscapes. It runs on Wednesdays, and it inspired me to experiment with dark backgrounds and low key images.

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#aquietstyle by @aquietstyle – This gallery is all about peaceful styled images – mostly still lives, but also some lovely portraits. Runs on Tuesdays.

#floralfridaycompetition by @emilyquinton – a gorgeous gallery of floral images. I have a special attachment to this hashtag…when I first started posting floral images on Instagram, this is one of the first competitions I came across. It inspired me, kept me motivated, and allowed me to connect with many talented artists. Runs on Fridays.

#capturingcolour by @capturebylucy – a bright, cheerful gallery where the main theme is, of course, colour. Again, a mix of still life images and landscapes, with lots of flowers (yay!). An injection of happiness :)

More hashtags with an emphasis on flowers that I like are

#underthefloralspell by @flowerona

#slowfloralstyle by @thepeacefulposy

#teaandseasons and #coffeeandseasons by @coffeeandseasons – I use the tea version, of course ;)

I also recommend checking out @its_my_week (they run weekly challenges so their hashtag changes every week according to the theme) and the #whp theme that Instagram runs every weekend (again, the hashtag changes every weekend). These galleries are chockfull of gorgeous images, and even though often the style and subject of these images are something totally outside of my range of interests, I think it’s good to keep an open mind and check out other people’s work regardless of how different it is from yours – you never know what might sparkle your imagination and give you new ideas for your own work!

There are many more hashtags I love, and many more that keep cropping up on my radar, but I don’t want to overwhelm you with too many links so let’s leave it at this for today :)

Hashtags are a great way to find your peeps and build your community, and I wrote a lot about the subject in my Instagram ebook “The heart of Instagram”. If you fancy a copy, subscribe to my newsletter here and I will send you a link to download it.

Feb

January

CCseasonal / photography / styling / 4 Comments / February 1, 2016

January was a month of stormy weather, with just a handful of crisp, frosty mornings. It’s been grey, wet, windy, and unusually mild. I dislike this kind of weather, especially because it just doesn’t feel like winter…but on the up side, lots of spring flowers are already available at the florist’s, so I suppose that’s a silver lining ;) Going through my iPhone camera roll, I realised that this month I mostly worked with tulips and anemones.

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I also had fun creating some dramatic, moody images – after all, the (lack of) light was ideal for this kind of photography.

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January was a month spent teaching one-to-one workshops, working on a few collaborative projects, and hatching up plans for a couple of online courses. I finally finished and launched my ebook The heart of Instagram, and also made a couple of video demos of my floral flat-lay in the making (coming soon on the blog!). I made sure to have some slow days too, just for reading, journalling, spending quality time with my husband, and generally taking it easy.

I’ve noticed that when I take time off to do something not work related, I actually become more productive. Walking in the woods at the weekend is my favourite way to unwind, but the weather has been so wet that the tracks of our local wood turned into a mix of huge puddles and mud. So I turned to my small garden instead, and spent some time pruning roses, potting bulbs, and tidying up the flower beds.

The seemingly “idle” hour spent in the garden turned out to be the perfect way to nourish and ground myself.

Immersing myself in these simple activities stops the whirlwind of thoughts cluttering my mind, making me anxious and scattered. After a little while, the mind slows down, creativity flows again, ideas percolate and mature, and I feel more focused…January has thought me that pottering around in the garden is a wonderful way to reconnect with my self, and I want this pottering to become a practice for the whole year.

Now it’s time to talk about the #CCseasonal Instagram hashtag project. I have decided to share four favourite images each month, both on Instagram and here on the blog. The four favourites for the month of January are all gorgeous, and they capture different moods of the month:

JanFaves_CCseasonal

TL – @tesslovesflowers
TR – @thedizzybee
BL – @idreaminflowers
BR – @toile_blanche

Thank you to everyone who joined in! If you’d like to take part this month, simply use #CCseasonal to tag your still life images inspired by February, and I’ll share four favourites on 1st March. Here’s a link to all the current images in the #CCseasonal gallery, they’re all so beautiful…have a lovely February,

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Once or, occasionally, twice a month I send out a Creative Note to my readers, with my thoughts on the creative process, inspiring links, and course news.

If you’re on Instagram and would like to follow me there, my account is @c_colli

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