Carla Coulson is no stranger to flowers. At a young age, she spent much of her time in her parents’ garden, watching all kinds of colorful hues bloom before her eyes. In the last few decades, her own photography career has blossomed. While her work takes her to all kinds of places around the world, florals always bring her back to a sense of self. Coulson talked with FLOWER about her latest series with a floral focus.
The photographer described how her floral story began with her parents, who were both devoted to the garden. She spent her childhood in garden shops and nurseries, developing an innate knowledge of blooms without realizing it. When she moved to Paris, she discovered the most beautiful floral shops and was always buying flowers. With the “Young Girl in Bloom” series, she noticed that people really loved when she posted flowers as opposed to other photos, so it kind of organically came from seeing what people loved.
Related: Photographer Publishes New Floral Collection Book
The series is colorful and fun, but there is also a lot of depth behind each photo. Coulson wanted to tell a story. She was noticing all these young girls in their twenties who were having conversations about not being good enough or pretty enough or thin enough—the same things she worried about in her twenties. When she was taking a picture of a particular girl with flowers, it sparked an idea. She wanted to make something positive about this story and about self-esteem.
She created each photo one by one, matching a theme that was going on in somebody’s life at the time. Every flower used was according to the season. Even in a city like Paris that has the best flowers, you can’t cheat. So it started with what season we were in and what flowers were available. Since the girl is always hidden, she needed big flowers. Ideas would come from a conversation among the girls being photographed, or something going on in her own life. The “New Beginnings” series came when she was about to really change her life again. She asked herself, “What would a new beginning look like and feel like in a photograph?” It’s a mixture of excitement and fear of this whole unknown and colorful future ahead. She also was obsessed with Paris, but most of her Paris is not the Eiffel Tower version or the big obvious parts. She loves all the shop fronts and the big, beautiful doors—more of the lived-in, local Paris. So she would spend days searching for the right backdrop. The images all have messages she deeply cares about and wants to pass on to young women. For her, those messages were really important to inspire women and encourage them to listen to themselves and what they want instead of listening to all the voices around them. She put a lot of consideration into each name and image, as well as the actual visuals, because she deeply cared that somebody might read that message and it would maybe resonate with them.
It impacts you more than you can ever really understand. Moving around a lot while growing up teaches you to really pay attention. You’re always going into new environments; it’s like you’ve got this antenna for what is different and what is new. You also have to learn to adapt to new environments. For her, that came from moving all the time and always being in a new environment, seeing new people, and hearing new languages. In her youth, she hated it. But she couldn’t see how it actually became part of her story. Now, she has this intense love and curiosity for new places and new experiences. Outside of that comfort zone, there’s lots of magic to be had.
Related: Inside Casa Egle Where Every Object Tells a Story
Quiet and wild
After finishing the “Young Girl in Bloom” series, Coulson had this deep desire to do something quiet. The new series she launched is called “Rewilding.” Everything she had done up until then was very noisy and energetic, which is part of her story. She is always energetic and always out there moving around. But she wanted to do something that connected more to her feminine energy of being quiet, thoughtful, mindful, and beautiful. She was obsessed at the time with this masculine vs. feminine energy—being a tamed domesticated woman, as well as a wild woman.
When it came to “Rewilding,” she sort of felt like “Young Girl in Bloom” was growing up. She also was a more mature, grown-up woman. She started to look at flowers differently and was discovering ones she had never seen before that were incredibly beautiful and detailed and interesting. Then she wondered what would happen if she mixed the tame, beautiful blooms with the wild ones. It really was her searching to broaden her comfort zone of flowers. And then she thought about how could she create something completely different by photographing the flowers in a different way. It was a lot of trial and error and a lot of relearning for her as a photographer.
She has done a series that was shot in Italy and it’s almost ready, but she hasn’t put it out into the world yet. She has also got her own garden now, and it’s incredible to watch the way flowers grow. And she’d love to do something else on women—women in nature has become sort of a passion. Because it’s very hot here in Greece, the only things that will grow in summer are some zinnias, jasmine, hydrangeas, and lots of geraniums. She has a new house she’s about to move into, and it has a lot of Mediterranean plants in the garden, so she will be combining a romantic English garden with a bit of Mediterranean.
Related: Luxury apartment in Muscat showcases bold design
Knowing it’s so stereotypical, Coulson thinks peonies are crazy good to shoot. They’re so amazing. She also has discovered that she really likes love-in-a-mist and masterwort. But she thinks if she had to choose just one flower, it would be peonies—they are so amazing and beautiful.
Photographer Publishes New Floral Collection Book
