Before I kick my current guests out of the guest quarters (joking about the kicking, they have been the best of guests! although rather quiet, I am sad to bid them bon voyage), I wanted to leave you with a story of shots Michelle and I worked on together a little while ago. It is an old church hall in Sydney converted into a loft home and photographic studio. So much fun to play in I can tell you – the owners had many beautiful old treasures for me to work with. My favourites were the grammophone, the old dial up phone and the owners fabulous array of framed photographs.

I also wanted to dedicate this post to Jo at Desire to Inspire – Jo just so kindly gave up a number of her secret treasure troves in her home town for me as I needed the sources for an upcoming shoot. So these shots are for you Jo, hope you find some inspiration from them, and I have attached a little living treasure for you at the bottom!

I find this title,’hunter gatherer pia’ pretty funny, I have no idea why but there must be a large part of me that is one of those bizarro-world nerds that finds humour in unfunny things. Speaking of bizarro, I don’t recommend seeing ‘The Golden Compass’ at the cinema which we did yesterday, maybe rent it out on dvd but the adaption just doesn’t work, of course with incredible effects, but that is it – all these special effects are leaving children’s imaginations stale, I’m sure of it. Nicole’s role is not strong or believable, rather disappointing. The best part about it is the animal ‘deamons’, that concept is awesome and very inspiring.

But onward and upward, let’s go gathering! Here are a couple of my favourite recent shots…

Shot by Chris Chen for Home Basics.

I am a great fan of the found object as you are probably well aware by now. The beautiful antique saw is from Garden St Bazaar (I will be taking you on a guided tour of this treasure trove trés soon). The little yellow plant tags I found in a brocante in Paris, the keys are also from my Paris apartment. The little water spray vessel is something I found at Ikea years ago. The glass pouring jug is from Bodum.

another one…

The ruler I found in my parents tool drawer in their garage (I am known to raid my parents, aunts, cousins and grandmother’s house in the late hours of the night before a shoot to look out for any ‘wow’ objects I may have forgotten about! I do return all their items I promise!). The ribbons I gathered along my travels – whenever I come across ribbon I like I buy a few metres of it, regardless of whether I have a use for it at the present moment or not as it always comes in handy for shoots, gift wrapping and also for colour-combination inspiration. The antique string I also found at a Paris brocante and the scissors I bought years ago when I had my store, I think they are from Acorn Trading. Oh and another old tool from Gary at Garden St Bazaar . And the copper pot, I have no idea where I found that but it was amongst my prop collection in Sydney. I love that pot, it is one of my all time favourite finds. Oh yeah that’s right, I used it for a Delia Smith Christmas magazine shoot a couple of years ago.

I love the colour combination with the yellow – teaming it with these rusty blues and reds makes it warm and rich and brings all the objects out and off the wall. It makes me want to pick up each item and study it’s beauty.

I flew back to Sydney in August to shoot this summer bbq story for the launch issue of Home Basics, a new magazine put out by Shannon Lush and Jen Fleming (writers of ‘Spotless’). August is winter in Australia and I can tell you, it was hotter and sunnier than it was here in Europe for Summer! The story brief was to create a table setting that was loose, real and simple. The colour palette was to be yellows, blues with a backdrop of craft-paper brown. So this is what I came up with, taking the craft-paper brown as a literal background and using it as a tablerunner. I was inspired by these beautiful wattle branches I saw in a florist and dotted them around the table in little glass vases. Gayna Murphy, the art director, had found these fab old plates of all sorts of colours so I set the table with these mix-matches of plates and old cutlery. I made these little paper flower centre pieces from coloured cupcake cups, beads and ribbon. And I used fabric swatches that I have picked up over the years from designers and printmakers. The beautiful blue fabric swatch (called ‘The Cranes’) is from the Florence Broadhurst collection at Signature Prints.

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