styling by Pia, photography by Brian Gilkes.

While I seem to be on a rather botanical theme lately, for us poppy lovers here is another fun image with the lovelies in there, surrounded by the new Le Forge range. I had alot of fun shooting this as the request was for something fun to show off the new colours and designs. The photograph is part of a series, this one also being amongst the collection.

And since I am on the subject of poppies, I must send you over to poppytalk who has an incredible series of interviews on ‘collecting’, and showcases some great designers and artists’ personal collections. To go straight to the series, click on one of the pictures on poppytalk’s left side bar under the title ‘collecting’. While you are over there, check out today’s post titled ‘share your love’ where jewelry artist Colleen Baran is asking for submissions of love stories for her upcoming ‘like wearing a love letter series’ jewelry collection…

What a beautiful idea, and Colleen’s work looks gorgeous! I am thinking I have a few love stories of my own to share. I adore all this collaborating and sharing via the blogosphere.

I was flicking through Geoff Lung’s fabo new f8 photo library the other day and came across an image that brought an instant smile to my face. It was this one you see above, and it was one of my first ever prop styling jobs. It was a few years ago now, but I still remember how anxious I was, hoping I had found satisfactory props – had I collected too much, too little, had I understood the brief correctly, were my colour choices right… going into the most exquisite stores in Sydney and introducing myself as a ‘stylist’ for the first time, hoping the staff would oblige and lend me their beautiful pieces. I barely slept the night before this shoot, for not only was I anxious about getting the right props, I was so excited to be meeting and working with one of my all-time favourite photographers: Petrina Tinslay. This photograph brings it all back to me. It was such an exciting shoot, I was absolutely wrapped with the results and everyone seemed thrilled with my finds. It was alot of fun working with the Vogue Entertaining + Travel team, and having worked a number of times since with Petrina she still remains to be one of my all-time favourites.

I’m sure I still have this spread somewhere back in Sydney so next time I am there I will try to find it for you, it was quite a beautiful story.