Vive La Différence – Mother Nature

It’s the penultimate Vive la Différence of 2013! Wow!

My guest this month is Emily Quinton, writer of The Startup Wife. Emily writes about startup life from a mum’s point of view and runs photography workshops for bloggers who want to learn how to take beautiful images for their blogs. Emily also just launched a new website.

For new readers:

The concept: each month I will invite one blogger. They will create and showcase one image/vignette. There are 20 themes and 20 objects for my guest to choose from. They choose 1 theme and up to 3 objects. I will then create an image/vignette based on their choice. Everyone has free reign on how to create the image. It can be simple photography, a drawing, a collage, a hand-painted image, a styled table top… the choice is yours! The fun part is that you, my readers, will see 2 versions inspired by the same subject matter. There is no right or wrong. There’s just ‘different’.

Emily chose the theme: Mother Nature with the objects: fabric and flowers – Here’s her take on this.

I was really excited when Tina asked me to take part in Vive La Différence. I love the idea of people having the same starting point and seeing where they go with it.

Mother Nature jumped out at me as a theme straightaway but I was then a little nervous that I might make it too obvious by using flowers and fabric as my objects.
However, this is very much my world. I photograph flowers every day and most of the fabrics I choose to work with when I am making things for my children, our home or for gifts feature flowers too. So, I decided that it might all be obvious to me as it’s all around me but not everyone lives in my floral world! It’s the beautiful Mother Nature that I celebrate as part of my everyday and share with my children.

I have a rather busy, hectic life with four little children but by bringing flowers into my home every week, I feel like Mother Nature brings some calm into the mix. I also love how seasonal flowers in the home celebrate the changing seasons, which is something I like to share with my children.

I spent a few years working on my (sadly unfinished) PhD research on plant hunting, which brought up may difficult debates about our desire to control nature, to own nature and to battle over nature. I have stepped away from the academic arena now but there will always be a place in my heart for celebrating, protecting and respecting Mother Nature.

My image is a little celebration of the colours and beauty of Mother Nature and the joy that she brings to our every day.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Mother Nature – where do you begin? There is so much to be greatful for! We have to trust that she knows best!

Today I’m taking you through an imaginary road journey through Autumn’s colours and flowers.

I used some off-cuts of Japanese Decorative Paper. I cut around the coloured leaves and placed some green flower leaves underneath. The flowers used were a lovely surprise from a very dear friend and so am happy to document a few stems online forever! My fabric is the little car on the bottom right.  Cute, no? As it was white with black outlines I photoshopped it with some of the flowers patterns to make it look like camouflage.

The idea is to imagine the vignette being a road path and you driving through it…. Mother Nature will do the rest. This vignette is dedicated to Nicola!

Thank you Emily for taking part and sharing some of your story. There’s one more VLD in December. Have a good start to the week.