I just had a couple of rolls developed from last summer. Take me back to all of it.
More pics from summer travels here: The Alps, London, Osaka, Italy, Paris, New York, Corsica & Monaco.
Photographs by Sophia Kaplan.
Archives for category: Travel
Two thousand thirteen was a hell of a year and I am so grateful for all the experiences I’ve had. There were some tough moments, some things I reluctantly had to give up, but I also managed to kick a lot of crap to the side and start doing what I really wanted to do, make a career out of my love of plants.
During the past year I travelled to New Zealand, Japan, France, Italy, the US and some places closer to home. To those I travelled with and others that I met along the way, thank you for making it all so incredibly fun. It’s also been a pleasure to return to Sydney after all of this to the birth of my brother’s first child and the sun and glow of family and friends and this amazing city.
I started this blog a little over a year ago and it’s been very gratifying to watch the number of readers grow and to get such nice feedback from you all. Thank you for reading!! Here is the first of a few posts looking back at the year that was.
In January we talked architectural, gardening and design greats Ricardo Bofill, Monty Don, Raf Simons and Stella McCartney, and explored decaying flowers, New York rooftops and some plant based gift ideas.
In February we followed The Little Flower School‘s visit to Australia, enjoyed the beauty of Zippy Seven and Kate Moss, and appreciated and then received a lovely fiddle leaf fig. We explored the Japanese art of kokedama floating gardens, I had my mind blown by nature documentary Microcosmos and happily discovered cabin porn.
In March I commissioned Lucy Allen to create some quirky images, visited the IS./WET exhibition, followed Lisa and Neil’s South African adventures, explored Madison Cox’s Tangiers retreat, took a look into some of Sydney’s kitchen gardens and a peek into the backyard of some friends in Redfern, found some dreamy images from Old Chum, got excited about new Sydney flower delivery business Little Flowers, and last but not least, discovered the incredible floral artist Makoto Azuma.
The rest of the year will follow shortly!
Image 1: Ricardo Bofill, image 2 Billy Kidd, image 3: Tim Walker, image 4: String Gardens, image 5: Beaver Brook, image 6: Lucy Allen, image 7: Neil Francis Dawson, image 8: Shunsuke Shiinoki.
For our final weekend in France for the year we went to a friend’s house in Morzine. I learnt (not very gracefully but nonetheless) to ski backwards and we had a great two days on the pistes. Compared to summer (check my other alps post here) when the insects and birds and water fill your ears it was so very quiet in winter. When we stopped yabbering to one another there was a beautiful peacefulness.
It was good to be surrounded by nature once again. We made a wreath for the maison and enjoyed breathing the clean air in the sun that shone all day long.
Thank you all for a lovely weekend x
All photographs by Sophia Kaplan
Just found these pictures on my sisters camera of some wildflowers I picked in the alps a few months back. They make my heart ache with happiness.
Photographs by Olivia & Sophia Kaplan.
This is the last of the summer travel posts. I can’t wait until next years adventures.
In September I did a roadtrip with some friends from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. We stayed in the Majave Desert before heading to Death Valley. Even though it was the end of summer Death Valley was still incredibly hot – mid 40s almost all day and not dropping much at night. It was interesting to see what nature survived and thrived in this brutal climate.
Driving through the Joshua tree plains was like being on another planet. Going off road we stumbled upon abandoned mines and cattle yards, eery when we felt so alone.
The Badwater Basin is a salt pan 86 metres below sea level. It was so very, very hot.
We slept in some curious places and met a lot of weird and wonderful people. It was a good crew to road trip with.
All photographs by Sophia Kaplan, Emily Morrison, Max Rapley & Sam Reid.
Following on from my last travel post… after our week in Tuscany we headed across to Corse with a few new friends. Initially we followed the same route my sister and I took when we were on the island last year, Bastia – Calvi – Ajaccio, but this time we continued on to Bonifacio and Porto-Vecchio. This is really one of my favourite places. The landscape is so stunning and the water constantly inviting, and my lord the sunsets.
Here the crew parted ways with some heading to Spain while we got the ferry across to Monaco to visit (the much featured on this blog) Tiffany. On our ferry we passed a pod of whales. It couldn’t have been more beautiful.
In Monaco we spent a very chilled day at Plage Mala before climbing the giant mountain behind to have dinner in the ancient Èze village.
All photographs by Sophia Kaplan.
These pics are not super heavy on the gardens and flowers but I wanted to share them nonetheless as Italy was another highlight of our summer adventure. From Mont Blanc to San Vincenzo, Portofino to Pisa we drove we ate and we drank a lot of spritz.
We also spent a week at a friends place in Tuscany for the Palio horserace of Sienna. Grazie mille to Lodo and his family for taking such good care of us.
Next stop Corse and Monaco!
Photographs by Sophia & Olivia Kaplan and Pierre Voirin.
In June this year my mother and sister visited Turkey. Here are some of their photographs from Istanbul and Ürgüp.
All photographs by Olivia Kaplan.
I visited the High Line in New York for the first time in summer last year and it was top of my list of things to do when I was back in town earlier this month. This rambling walkway park is made from a disused rail line and runs from Chelsea to Meatpacking.
Its historical past is beautifully evident in the old tracks and planting design which mimics the self-seeded landscape which once covered the unused tracks.
Sydney recently proposed its own version of the High Line, which they’ve called the Goods Line. Hopefully we get to see it get made.
All photographs by Sophia Kaplan.
We are about to venture into the California desert but while I’m still sitting in a nice hotel in my robe in Las Vegas, I can post some pics from New York. As per usual we basically just ate our way through the city. We stayed in a beautiful apartment in Soho with giant palms, caught up with loads of friends, visited Union Square Park Market, went to a few shows at New York Fashion Week, partied on rooftops, and visited a bunch of little gardens.
All photographs by Sophia Kaplan.
The Secret Garden 