Mom and Baby

The Rewards of Patience

Growing up, I used to silently hate my mum telling me to be patient. I HATED that word. 20 years later I, realise what she meant.

Patience isn’t passively waiting. Patience is practicing, training, and working your ass off, whilst you wait. It’s staying ready for the moment you want, even, and especially, when that moment looks far off.

Family photography is probably my favourite reminder of this. Screaming kids. Wait. Parents in a rush. Wait. Siblings hate each other. Wait. Sun comes out. Wait. Baby stops crying. Wait. Mum walks over. Wait. They make each other laugh. Annnnnd shoot.

Shot taken in New Jersey.

Girl behind wall

Spotting the Lens Fairies

This was taken from a recent photo shoot in New York. She starts out shy, starts out crying, doesn’t want her photo taken. I sit on the floor put the camera between my legs, take the lens cap off and start taking loudly to the invisible helpers that live in my lenses.

Slowly she moves from the edge of the room until she is standing in front of me with a look of pure wonder. I tell her that the lens fairies say she is the best in the world at hide and seek. She almost levitates with joy. She wants to see the lens fairies. I tell her they are shy. But if she shows us her best hide and seek moves, they might appear. An hour later, I have become her climbing frame. Ninety mins later, we get this shot and she tells me that she can see the fairies. She tells me they are triangle shapes. The Tao of photography. Have an intention, let it go, but stay ready.

Wedding

Like a Scene from a Bond Film

All of our drones have nicknames, this shot was taken by ‘Gypsy’ I love Gypsy especially after she allowed me to take this shot. It was taken for our James Bond-styled love story wedding film last weekend in the south of France. This location had me walking around in slow motion with a theme tune in my head.

Hawn Shoot

Kids Talking about The Brain

We spent today filming for the @hawnfoundation and were inspired beyond words, listening to 8-year-olds talking about the improvements they’ve made in their school and home life through mindfulness practices. When an 8-year-old schools you on her favourite parts of the human brain and wraps up by letting you know how to improve your focus, well then, that’s a good day.

Grit Film

Interviews for Grit Documentary

We spent Sunday working on a documentary on resilience, called Grit. We interviewed a sports psychologist who shared secrets of gold medal Olympians. It was the kind of interview that makes you want to do press ups in a Batsuit. Very happy to be working with the talent that is @hopproductions Co-Founder Johnny Ho. Can’t wait to get this one out into the world.

Eva

Be Like Eva

This is @evaliparova. She is one of my newfound heroes. About two years ago, she connected to a creativity born out of frustration and boredom. On a long haul flight, she took out a notepad and wrote a simple set of rules.
1. Answer the question below.
2 Pass it onto the person next to you.
3 If you don’t want to answer please pass this along.

She then wrote her first question, got up, walked to the front of the plane and gave her notepad to a complete stranger, shared a warm smile and walked back to her seat and waited.

By the end of the flight, 33 passengers had shared secrets, answered problems and shown that, though society might try to convince us how different we are, we ultimately have more dreams and more fears in common than not. Two weeks ago, CNN picked up this story. Eva is being contacted by airlines and press as more people want to use this idea to capture #planetales.

I reckon there are a few films to be made from this. But, whether we make them or not, this is a story worth sharing. This is Eva, when she is bored and frustrated she helps people connect. Be like Eva.

Simona

The Growth of Ideas and Connections

Working on the plan for next week’s film with the smiling genius founder of @hubdot. Four years ago I made their first film around a simple dream of women dropping their labels and connecting through stories and coloured dots.

What started as a coffee around a kitchen table has now grown to a network of 16,000 women in 20 cities around the world. Watching this grow has given me faith and inspiration for what my small team is building with Stories Like Us. Here’s to those chasing a dream!

Studio Space

Our Stories

My first dream job as a child was to be an actor; what I lacked in talent I made up for in enthusiasm. I even got some TV parts: I played a footballer on a Saturday morning sketch on the show ‘Going Live’. I got a part of a young prince in the play ‘Thyestes’ and was at the Royal Court Theatre at age 11 for a month. I really thought it was gonna happen. Read more

Johnny Camera

Countdown to Launch

Our life savings, our time, our energy, our passions, our dreams. From April we will be launching Stories Like Us full time. We are leaving well paid jobs to make this stuff full time. We are committed to making online content and apps designed to inspire, encourage and uplift anyone who is chasing a dream.

Why?…

Read more

Boy and Curtain

Do the Work, Trust the Process

Do the work and trust the process. That’s my constant reminder when shooting. If you could see how shy he started off during the photoshoot, and then five mins later jumping out from the curtains in hysterical laughter…
Thanks, little buddy, for reminding me of the lesson – do the work and trust the process.