French Boy, you might want to close your eyes. Everyone else, come with me.

La Pipelette in me has surfaced. I am pouring a big pot of tea for you and have some cookies awaiting your arrival. But to save boredom setting in early with my passionate ranting, I am writing with bullet points…

phew. i am pipelette-d out. xx

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.

Styled this for Le Forge in Sydney a few months ago, with photographer Brian Gilkes. I just love this image. We shot it at the end of the day, it was raining, we were tired, but I had seen this fantastic wall in the car park on my way in that morning and I was determined to capture one of the Le Forge pieces against it. I picked this piece from the new range at the Le Forge studio and with poppies under my arm I dragged Brian and his divine wife Trish outside in the rain. They both indulged me but I’m quite sure there was eye rolling going on behind me. But once outside, with lots of passionate arm flailing to explain my idea, they were both hooked on it. In the end, it was I who had to drag them away from the shot!

Another fun day at work, thanks to the Le Forge team and Brian & Trish. I will be posting more on Brian’s work soon.

While I was cleaning up the guest quarters getting the space ready for my next guest, I found this little beauty accidentally left behind…

It is from the story of the converted church hall by Michelle Young and I. If you look closely, you can see the reflection of the original stain-glassed windows in the little black glass vase. I found the vase (well, ’70’s tumbler more like it) in an op shop in Sydney somewhere. This is actually my favourite shot from the series - I am a sucker for reflections, and anyone who works with me will no doubt have heard me say way too many times, ‘what if we try shooting it through this mirror?’. Again with the rolling eyes.

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.