STORY BY MIRANDA REYES PHOTOGRAPHY BY SELINA YE
“It’s the little things.” This is a phrase we often throw out to encapsulate our admiration for life’s most infinitesimal details. As artists and creatives, it’s often these little things found around us that capture our attention and allow us to manifest our brightest ideas. A thrift store. A perfectly textured pair of jeans. A piece of glassware or a quintessential piece of vintage clothing. One small detail allows creativity to bloom, our best work manifested. This inspiration is the spark to the flame in the work of photographer and designer LAUREN LEGGATT. “I find with any creative process it starts with a seed of an idea or a piece of inspiration. One of my life mottos is to never ignore those odd or crazy ideas, the ones where you think, ‘well that’s super weird,’ because I’ve usually found that when I run with those ideas and build on them they turn into really cool projects. Usually, consciously or unconsciously, shoots are centered around a feeling, color or some sort of texture that I’m inspired by currently (i.e. mylar, linens, a light airy feel, the color blue etc.) I can build an entire shoot in a couple minutes around the fact that I found a perfect shade of textured pants at a thrift store.” Growing up in Bermuda, Leggatt’s dad always had a camera in hand, and would regularly lend her his DSLR. Time spent running around her backyard taking pictures of plants and bugs led her to winning second place in a biodiversity photo contest at age 7 for a photograph of a snail. Though she admits it was the last time she’s ever taken a picture of a snail, her love for photography has been fierce ever since then. Her passion for design began after she watched the film Julie and Julia in 2010, and began her own blog. “I’ve always been an insanely crafty kid — why buy something if you could make it? — so it was good to have a place to put all my ideas.” Posting regularly about her fashion, recipe, and craft adventures forced her to think creatively, eventually designing the blog herself, and was constantly pushing herself to make it better. “I loved the process so much that I started offering blog design to people all over the world. I ended up designing around 60 blogs for people in Korea, Australia, the UK, Turkey, the US and Canada and more. This was by far the most pivotal moment in me realizing that this was a career that I could actually pursue — and love.”
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