Colour Portrait Challenge Winner - Cara Davidson

Last month's creative challenge had two winners - and one of those was Cara Davidson, who created this floral work of art! The colours from the flowers travel around the frame, making the appearance of her beautiful model seamless within her surroundings. That hair colour belongs in this stunning flora and Cara knows this, and don't get me started on the pictures below (the colours!!!)

We asked Cara to tell us a bit more about herself and her journey with photography...

Tell us about you...

I’m Cara – a nature loving photographer from Scotland. I am a massive film photography fan and often spend most of my time talking about film to anyone who will listen!

When I am not taking photos I work as a careers adviser within a high school – a job which I also love.

I got into photography about 4 years ago when my best friend bought a camera.I found that during our walks I kept asking to borrow it and then eventually I decided to buy my own. I started by learning on a digital camera and then discovered the world of analogue photography, which is what increased my passion for photography even more. I love that with film you don’t know what the photo is going to turn out like and I always get very excited getting my scans back!

What do you love most about photography and how does it benefit your life? 

I love how photography can capture a moment in time – you just as you were. I am fascinated by the idea of nostalgia and how photographs can make us feel so many emotions : happiness, sadness , awe, to name just a few. I love looking at old film photos of my family as it's often like a window in time. Photography massively benefits my life as after graduating university, I felt like I didn’t have a creative outlet for a while and then when I started taking photos it felt so exciting, and now something I turn to, to help me relax and push myself creatively.

What three words describe your style?

I would say three words that describe my style would be nostalgic , natural and innovative.

Nature is a big inspiration to me. I love using nature as a background to my portraits and thinking about how different environments can work as part of a portrait. I started my photography journey taking photos of wildlife and I think that nature and green spaces will always be a big inspiration and feature in my work.

Practice on your family and friends! I did this to begin with and it is really helpful to learn more about light and angles and also try out different creative ideas. I built my confidence in directing through taking photos of my sister and this allowed me to bring different creative ideas to life. Another tip would be to create moodboards for shoots - I find it really helpful to share my vision with the subject/s I'm shooting with before and during the shoot to give me more pose ideas and further inspiration. Lastly, if you can, it's great to take part in photography courses. I did the Lens Eleven's Next Level course last year and really enjoyed doing the different challenges, as it really allowed me to push myself creatively and focus on different areas like colour, light, black and white photography and motion blur.

In what capacity will photography feature in your future?

I hope to move more into family photography and this is something I am really excited about. I also hope to continue to grow my skills in film photography and at the moment, I'm working on running more community photography workshops, titled 'Swim + Snap' which combines my two big interests in wild swimming and film photography (using waterproof cameras).

At Lens Eleven, we ADORE Cara's unique eye and post processing to deliver on authentic imagery that connects on another level. To soak up more of her epic work, check out her insta and Cara's feature in Shoot It With Film.

If this inspired you to dive in, and you'd like be apart of our amazing Full House community, all the details are here!