We are in Portugal this week during Mila‘s half-term school break.

We found a gorgeous holidays home through Behomm, a site where you can list your home and exchange with creative home owners around the world so Luis, the owner (an Architect) will stay in our London home* with his family soon. It is our first time using Behomm and so far so good. The house is simply perfect, not big (only 70 sqm2) but very well conceived, full of inspiring design ideas and my love for white, modern interiors is fulfilled. Read on…

*Behomm is by invitation only so if you don’t have a home or job that fits their requirement, you can still find some beautiful, creative homes to rent on Kid & Coe

However, the most exciting thing for me is, that I think I have finally turned a corner with my photography. After years of using my iPhone more than my camera, I was really struggling to grab my camera once in a blue moon and come up with some decent shots.
So as part of my new resolutions and monthly goals, I have been forcing myself since the beginning of the year, to pick up my camera every week to start with, and now I’m using it daily.

The few mnemonics I came up with last week, are also working for me too and I can’t tell you how excited I’m to have rekindled with this old passion of mine and embark on this new creative journey.

Photography has always been a huge part of my life and I have been longing to go back taking portraits like I used to (see here and here photo 1 & 3 and here).Here are a few snaps I took these past few days with my camera which are unedited for the simple reason that I haven’t worked out the editing part in Lightroom yet (one for my list of monthly goals in due time!). I’m sure professional Photographers will spot lots of rookie mistakes but these make me a lot happier than anything I’ve shot recently.

If you wish to learn photography or rekindle with your old passion pre-iPhone and all its useful filters, here are few online courses you may find useful:

• Creative Live: is a great site offering heaps of free courses online to learn about Photo and Video, Art & Audio, Music & Audio, Craft & Makers. If you miss the online free class, then you have the option to buy the course and watch it in your own time.
• The French alternative to Creative Live is a new site called Empara. They don’t have as many courses (yet) as they’ve just launched but they have a 4-days course coming up on Photography and another in March about finding your signature style in photography. I have signed up to both.
• I also recommend Makelight, the courses taught by Emily Quinton. Emily is a fantastic teacher and one who will put you at ease if you’re feeling self-conscious.

I will do a recap of our stay in beautiful Portugal with details of the beach cabin in a few days. In the meantime, you can follow my visual diary of Portugal on Instagram. xoxo