Behind the Lens: Discovering My Path to Photography and Embracing Slow Living

Hey there, I'm Chloë, a creative photographer and stylist, and I'm so happy you are here and might want to get to know a little more about me.

Originally from London, I’m now blessed to call the breathtaking West Coast of Ireland home, where this wild and enchanting landscape continually offers me endless inspiration to weave through my creative work.

In my now home county, Donegal, I spend my days embracing the art of slow living, both in my everyday life and through my work. I am passionate about crafting poetically femme visual narratives here, juxtaposed against the rugged, untamed landscapes that define this part of the world, as well as encouraging the preservation of the magic of the nature here and beyond.

When I'm not immersed in Donegal's natural wonders, you'll find me exploring new horizons across Europe and beyond, always drawing on my wandering spirit and creative roots for every project. Wherever I go, I seek to capture the essence of the story to be told, weaving together visual tales that speak to the heart of the brands and individuals I collaborate with.

My wandering spirit is what ultimately ignited my passion for photography and landed me on the wild west coast of Ireland, where the roaring Atlantic now stretches out before me.

But let’s rewind a few years.

This is where my story-time really begins as I want to share with you the shifts that happened within me and my life that brought me to where I am today, so you can get to know me a little better.

In 2018, I was living not too far from where I was raised, just outside of London and working within the creative industry, as the project lead on luxury heritage property renovations. It was a real “original” dream come true to be working within these ornate, history-rich buildings. But, after 10 years working in the city that literally never, ever sleeps, and after a particularly harrowing commute on the underground one day, I realised that, actually, the relentless speed I was living at was absolutely not sustainable long-term and my job was no longer creatively fulfilling, but completely exhausting.  

Following this striking revelation and extremely eager to figure out how to “unplug” from the city grid we were firmly wired in to, my partner and I started to hatch the ultimate escape plan. We wanted to figure out how to live a life that spoke to our wandering souls and officially check out of the grey. 

I won’t bore you with the full set of blueprints or how they came to fruition, but here’s the brief overview: we tunnelled our focus and meticulously mapped out a plan, set goals, and didn’t let anything stand in our way. We were dedicated to finding a way to live an authentic life that fitted us.

Fast forward eighteen months post-realisation and plan making, we sold almost everything we owned and moved to a tiny Greek island in the Dodecanese, that had a minuscule population of just over 2,000. It was a whirl of madness—but the best kind.

Our move coincided with the second wave of lockdowns (2020, you know what I am talking about) making the timing feel almost, oddly, perfect. It forced us to ground ourselves on this tiny piece of rock in the Mediterranean, get to know ourselves without being part of the hustle and learn to connect with our new surroundings whether we liked it or not.

We spent 15 months doing exactly this on the island of Symi, attempting to immerse ourselves amongst the close-knit local community, where we were so lucky to be met with incredible kindness and a welcoming spirit. It was a way of life we hadn’t known existed, and it offered us a unique perspective, as well as time and space to reflect.

During those 15 months, whilst still working remotely, the shift in my perspective on life and what I was doing with mine well and truly began, and within the space I had created for myself, I started to explore thoughts about what moves I wanted to make next and how to revitalise that creative soul of mine that had laid dormant for too long. I knew it would be something that I could pour passion into, but the exact path wasn’t clear.

Photography wasn’t an instant calling. I dabbled with painting, sketching, digital illustration, and dressmaking—enjoying each but not finding that spark I was searching for.

I had a vague awareness I suppose back then, that I had an eye for capturing scenes; I often found myself mentally composing visuals in my mind when visiting beautiful places, but (now, quite obviously), simply snapping photos with my iPhone never quite matched the vision in my mind and I was always frustrated as to why.

Back then, I possessed an old camera that I used for capturing my interior design projects. I would always shoot in Auto mode without much knowledge about photography as an art-form. But I do know that I REALLY enjoyed this part of the job, particularly the styling and composition to get the shot *just right*.

One day, I dug out my old camera that I had lugged to Greece and flicked through the images on the memory card. Among the photos, I stumbled upon an image I had taken around five years earlier, a moment from my past, frozen, of these sparking, alluring women singing on top of an old car in Shoreditch, back in the day before Brick Lane has been polished up and given its new gleam.

I stared at this image on my camera for a while and couldn’t quite believe I had captured it. It wasn’t the most spectacular image, granted, but it completely transported me back to that moment, that feeling of being in my early 20’s excitedly darting around brick lane searching for myself and my individuality I was so eager to locate but couldn’t quite find, and seeing these women thinking WOW they are so cool!

Consider my curiosity piqued and my spark ignited after that. I started to play.

After 15 months of island life (and the end of the utopian lockdowns), we temporarily moved back to the UK to build our dream luxury home on wheels. (This was the plan we had been hatching whilst soul searching in Symi).

Build complete, we hit the road and headed over to the continent to start our “life on the road” adventure. A good friend lent me a camera they had left over, unused from their uni days, full frame and with a few lenses to try out, so a slight upgrade from what I had been experimenting with in Greece. I started to explore the art of photography with a little more depth, capturing our journey and seeing what caught my eye along the way.  

I figured out quite quickly that I didn’t find landscapes alone a very motivating subject, I was drawn more to vignettes of places, where I could envision entwining feminine flow and movement, but for now, I stood my masculine partner in the space and played with the light and the colours and kept at it, but becoming increasingly aware and frustrated that feminine subjects were what I was missing.

I came to realise, there was only one way I could start to nurture these imagined visuals and bring them to life without outside coordination or pressure and the personal space to play.

Put myself in front of the camera.

So, I invested in a sturdy tripod, and my journey of self-portrait began. This exploratory path was so much more confronting than I anticipated it being. Not only during the process was I still self-teaching the art and technique of photography, but I was forced to connect with my self-image and self-acceptance.

The process was a personal chrysalis for me, beautiful but isolating and self-assaulting at times. I do believe in hindsight, that this approach accelerated so much needed change and growth within me, naturally fuelling the creativity that had been sitting dormant within myself and working on my self-doubt.

Once I started to push through the process, and I could see my visions coming to life through my lens, I was hooked. Travelling through Greece, Türkiye, Italy, Ireland…..many other magical places, I continued to encourage this little sprig of creativity I had thoughtfully planted, nurturing it at a steady and considerate pace to allow growth at a joyous pace. I was learning about manual shooting, lighting, composition, colour, context, by diving out of my van armed with my camera and tripod when the lighting and landscapes beautifully collided and felt right.

It was a ride and a half, and I was loving there being “no rules” just me and my imagination in the space, capturing what felt right to me and focussing on how I saw “it”, my unique point of view.

Once I was feeling a bit more confident in my self-taught, on the road education, I dubiously started to query if I could photograph people we connected with along the way, and WOW, I quickly realised the self-portrait shooting had helped so much. I could whip together an envisioned shoot in no time without the restriction of tripod positioning and moving between in-front and behind the camera and experiment so much more with composition and details.

Along the way my hobby started to grow, and I carried out a few “creative exchange” self-portrait projects for some lovely, trusting sustainable clothing and homeware brands, which amazingly, then turned into paid projects. Fast-forward to now, and I have been working on an array of different photography projects, still some self-portrait shoots, but plenty shooting with models, branding shoots, product photography, retreats etc, all threaded with my unique point of view and take on the scene.

Through this beautiful craft becoming my job, I started to realise that to continue to grow this passion, I wanted to find a stable base where I could ground myself and my creative flow. That’s how I ended up living in a 200-year-old cottage on the west coast of Ireland. My new little creative sanctuary and playground all wrapped up under the guise of home.

Why Ireland out of everywhere I have visited? If you have visited this part of the world, you will understand why, but if you haven’t and you are curious, well. that’s a story for another day, or post.