Whimsical Boudoir Session in a Parisian Hotel

A dreamy editorial session in a bathtub in Paris.

Being a wedding photographer, it feels good to step outside the wedding world from time to time and go on create more personal work, let the imagination run a bit wild(er). This summer I had this opportunity with the amazing designer Violette Tannenbaum. We had the same vision of a whimsical, ethereal boudoir session that would include beautiful flowers and a... bathtub :)

Here are the photos of the day dream we created together (press play for the music! ) :

A huge thank you to Hotel Le Crayon in Paris for letting us borrow their amazing Suite Exquise Esquisse.

And thank you to the awesome team of vendors who worked on this project:

Dress designer : Violette Tannenbaum | Overall Styling : Celine Chhuon Photography | Florals : Roses by Claire | MUHA :  | Ring designer : Myrtille Beck | Film Lab : Carmencita Film Lab

Music : Dream a little dream of me by Amy Vachal 

Summer Fig & Mascarpone tartlets

 

This fig tartlets are a light and fresh dessert recipe for your summer gatherings with friends and family.

Those who know me well, know that apart from being a destination wedding photographer, I have a passion for food. Both cooking AND eating! :)

So sharing with your today this as a celebration for the last days of summer and welcoming fall with this new recipe. Here's a super easy recipe (yes I love easy and yummy recipes, remember THIS) for fig tartlets. The great thing about this recipe is that you can actually keep the base and switch with any fruits you'd like (berries, apricot, apple, pear etc), fits any seasonal fruits !

Shot on Mamiya645, Dev & Scans by Carmencita Film Lab

 

Recipe for awesome summer fig & mascarpone tartlets:

Pastry:

• 250g flour
• 125g butter
• 50g icing sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 30g cold water
• 1 pinch of salt

Cut the butter in small dices and mix it with the flour [use your hands! :) ] until the butter is 'absorbed' by the flour. Add the icing sugar and mix again. Then add the cold water and the egg yolk, finish with the salt. Once everything is well mixed together, keep in the fridge for 30min.

After 30min, roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface. Cut out the size of the tartlets you'd want, I personally use an ordinary water glass to cut them out (about 6cm diameter, note: they will shrink in baking) and put them in muffin tins. You can also use a normal 20-25cm flan tin if you want to make a normal size tart. Bake for 15 mins at 180°c. Let it cool down before filling in.

Mascarpone filling:

• 125g mascarpone
• 1 egg
• 35g honey + tbsp vanilla essence (optional)

eparate the egg white and yolk. Mix the yolk and honey (+vanilla) together and whisk until you see some foam. Add the mascarpone and blend together. Beat the egg white until stiff and incorporate slowly to the mix. Keep in the fridge for 45min-1hr

The figs :

• 6 to 8 figs - depending on the size of your tin. Cut into 4.

Roast the figs in the oven for 7min at 180°c or even better if you have a blowtorch, sprinkle a little bit of sugar and caramelized them using the blowtorch.

Serving:

Fill your tartlets crust with a tablespoon of mascarpone. Top it up with a 1/4 roasted fig.

Tadaaaa you're done ! Enjoy !

You were born to be REAL not Perfect

Yes YOU.

As a wedding and portrait photographer here in France but also around the world, how many times have I had female clients believing they will never look beautiful on pictures because they were told they're not "photogenic".

So let me tell you now that Photogenic is a myth honey, your beauty is unique and can be shown is so many different ways, but most of all, it's in your beliefs. Once you understand that there can be no other you than YOU, that you have a light that no one else has on this planet, that your uniqueness is what makes you gorgeous, then you'll understand the power you have within you and grow that confidence that'll make you shine. And if you don't get it, hit me up and I'll show you your beauty through my lens✨

Find your way back to CREATIVITY - Reconnect with your inner child

Are you lost in your search for creativity? Every artist might face this phase where he/she feels stuck, whether you are a wedding photographer, or even travel the world as a destination wedding photographer, whether you are a painter, a singer, a writer... I bet we all have felt that at some point. At least, I have. Until that day, when my sister called me as she needed me to babysit my nephew...

Spending time with my 3 year-old nephew has opened my eyes on how we think about creativity. I realized that as adults, we overthink creativity, we think that it’s something we need to find outside, draw inspiration from God knows what source … Pinterest? Instagram? Fellow artists ? (yes, I do all of these three I have to admit) but we forget that creativity comes from the inside FIRST. Watching my nephew create his own world for a whole day made me realized that every one of us used to be THAT creative, we could see a sword in a wooden stick, we could see a castle out of a couch and a pile of pillows, we could talk to anyone anytime, we never felt judged for not being creative enough or not doing it right… But growing up, we built walls with social pressure, fears...and we stopped exploring.

That’s it.

We  JUST. STOPPED. EXPLORING.

Because we are driven by the pressure of creating. We think we need to create, we must come up with something others will like…

Remember when we ALL used to be like this creative building our own reality:

Best of Action Movie Kid's adventures Thanks to Hashi and his son for these great videos. You can find the original channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2hAbftpVjHtFrDOpEM90aA http://www.kainio.com

I gave my nephew an old Holga plastic camera for him to play with. Oh boy, I can’t even describe the joy and light in his eyes! He grabbed the camera and snapped the hell out of it, he snapped everything that caught his attention. He was so happy about it. Did he care that there was no film roll inside? NO. Did he care what people around him would think ? NO. Did he felt pressure to come up with amazing pictures? NO. Although I’m sure in his mind, he did created amazing pictures! 

I asked myself when was the last time I felt so much joy and excitement… 
If only we could reconnect with our inner child, if only we could reconnect with that joy, that part of us that doesn’t care what others think. If only we let ourselves to just be. If only we could let the social pressure go. The pressure we create ourselves in our own mind about : the NEED to create to please others (aka get praise, get new clients, get likes, get shares and comments, etc)

STOP PUTTING PRESSURE ON YOURSELF to create AMAZING things. A lifetime of creativity will probably bring out only a few chefs-d'oeuvre and THAT IS OKAY. Let me ask you: Who's your all-time favorite artist? Can you name some of his/her major chefs-d'oeuvre? How long is your list ? I bet it has less than 10 items. I remember reading the story of John Keats, one of the greatest English poets. He lived his whole life thinking his work was mediocre, he even wrote himself : “I could have been one of the greats if only I had enough time”. Isn't it sad ? So don't waste your time trying to create the perfect thing. JUST CREATE.

One effective way I found to reconnect with our inner creativity is to break the daily routine. Remember the very first time you brushed your teeth, on your own? Weren’t you the most excited kid the the WHOLE WORLD ?! Of course you were. Were you that excited about brushing your teeth this morning ? I guess not. But that’s because it became a must-do, a daily thing we need to do for a specific goal : get our teeth clean. 
Why not try doing something without a goal? Trying just for the sake of EXPLORING. EXPERIMENTING. Because the joy we will feel doing this, will trigger a new way of feeling, seeing, and then CREATING differently. 

“I find as my imagination strengthens, I live not in one world but a thousand” - John Keats

We can just start by doing ONE thing differently everyday. Take a different route to go to work, change the order of our daily routine, eat something we’ve never tried, but above all, just create without any goals in mind : pick up your guitar, your pen, your brush, your scissors, your camera, whatever is your favorite tool of creation and just do it. CREATE.

"All children are artists, the problem is how to keep being one ?" - Picasso

Here are some phone snaps of my day of adventure with Leo :

Leo on top of a Skyscraper

Saving the world like Spiderman

Leo being a photoreporter

Leo catching life in motion

Leo creating magic on the train

Leo checking his shots on his backless camera

Share with me your thoughts about creativity and your experiences on reconnecting with you inner child. I'd love to hear about it and get inspired ! Meanwhile, register below if you want to receive your daily dose of inspiration.

With love and gratitude,

Celine xx

About luck

"You’re so lucky, you’re living a dream life and you get to travel all the time !" I get that really often. So let’s get clear here. Being a wedding and destination photographer has nothing to do with luck. I’m not lucky, I show up, I hussle and I make things happen. However, some part of my life can be called “lucky”. I am lucky to be born in such a beautiful country as France and a pretty city like Paris. I am lucky to have the freedom to be who I want to be, to say what I want to say, to make choices...when in a lot of countries, it’s not the case for most women. So I get slightly puzzled when people are telling me how lucky I am to be where I am at now, as if it was a magical thing, as if it didn’t require any efforts from me. Because just as a reminded dear friend, this is what Luck is :

LUCK : (noun) : “the force that causes things, especially good things, to happen to you by chance and not as a result of your own efforts or abilities”.

So for instance : seeing wild dolphins while cruising Milford Sound, THAT was lucky.

Anyways, what I wanted to share here is that YOU can live the life that you dream of, EVERYONE can. Sounds stupidly easy? Well, believe me it’s not. Living the life you dream of requires actions, it requires commitment, it requires becoming comfortable with uncertainty, it requires fighting against yourself sometimes, because you have fears, because you procrastinate. Basically, it requires personal growth, and growth is painful. BUT the pure joy of being able to decide how you want your life to be, the freedom that comes with it, and feeling that you serve your life purpose,  is totally worth every single painful steps. It’s like losing weight, you can’t expect to be fit and healthy without taking actions, and sit on your couch, complaining how fat you are and binging on Häagen-Dazs (me, last Saturday night. PS: my favorite flavor is Pralines&Cream, what’s yours??).

Ever since I quit my day job which I’ve been working at for 8 years, I made a commitment to myself that I wanted to work on myself everyday to become the person I need to be to create and live the life I dream of and to be of service and selflessly add value to the life of people who will cross my path, be it through my Faith activities or through my work as a photographer. People think that success - whether we talk about business, money, love or health- comes to those who were born in the right network, whose parents had the useful connections, to those who are more beautiful, have the right genes, etc. Sorry to say, but these are just excuses we use to avoid taking actions to build our own success. It’s all about the MINDSET : “ You are just as worthy, deserving, and capable of creating and sustaining extraordinary health, wealth, happiness, love, and success in your life, as any other person on earth. It is absolutely crucial - not only for the quality of your life, but for the impact you make on your family, friends, clients, co-workers, children, community, and anyone whose life you touch - that you start living in alignment with that truth” (Hal Elrod - The Miracle Morning )- PS : READ THAT BOOK, it’s life changing.

From a young age, I refused to believe that because I was a daughter of immigrants who don’t have much education, I was not entitled to have a higher education, that because I lived in a neighborhood where drug dealer was a dream career for some, I was doomed to a not so bright future, that because I was a girl, I was worth a lesser pay than my male peers… Of course, oftentimes I have doubts, I have fears, I compare myself to others, but I am aware that this is not the right path that will lead me where I want to be. So I fight, I fight against myself, against my ego, I stop asking the wrong questions like : “why am I not as successful as X” ? but instead : “What can I learn from X’s success and how do I become better to achieve it?”. The only person we should compare ourselves to, is the person we were yesterday, and the day before, and one month ago, a year ago, five years ago. And surely, if you take actions and commit, you will see how a better person you’ve become. “Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become” (Jim Rohn). So it starts with YOU and it starts NOW.

Keep me posted on how you are taking actions, I’d love to hear and be inspired ! (remember, it always starts somewhere, even with baby steps ;) you GOT THIS !

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With love and gratitude,
Celine xx