The Making of Our Imagery: A Look Behind the Scenes

Where It Begins

Every collection starts as a feeling, long before it has a name. With our new Cottage Cushion Collection, I kept returning to the same image in my mind: gathered blooms, warm wooden furniture, a window seat you could curl into with a cup of tea and simply not move for an hour. I filled a corner of my desk with fabric swatches and bits of inspiration, moving them around until the palette felt right, colourful but never loud, playful but still unmistakably ours. When it finally clicked, I picked up the phone to Hayley Jenkin at Wholehearted Studio. We spent a few Zoom calls talking it all through from my office in the Coffs CBD, sharing screens, walking her through the brief piece by piece, until she had everything she needed to start mood-boarding on her end. Hayley has a way of styling a room with such warmth and intention that it never feels staged, and I knew if anyone could bring this particular kind of joy to life, it was her.

Talking it all through with Hayley, screen to screen

The Quiet Work Nobody Sees

Once the direction was set, the house itself had some prep to do. Oxleigh House is a beautiful, historic Queenslander, all high ceilings and wide verandahs, the kind of home that feels summery and breezy even before you've styled a single room. Hayley had commissioned the wonderfully talented Lauren Horton to paint a small series of original artworks, pieces that would sit quietly in the background of our images and echo the collection's palette.

At Oxleigh House, the beds were swapped over and the old window seat cushion was carefully reupholstered, so that by the time we arrived, the room was already halfway to telling our story before a single cushion had been placed. It's easy to miss all of this in a finished photograph, but it's exactly this kind of unseen care that gives our images their warmth. Nothing about a Salt Living shoot is thrown together; it's built, slowly and by hand, long before the camera ever comes out.

Gathering the Finishing Touches

In the final days before the shoot, Hayley made her own pilgrimage to the flower market, choosing blooms one by one and spending her weekend conditioning them so they would open beautifully under the lights. It's a quiet, yet essential task, easy to overlook in a finished photograph, but that fresh, gathered feeling is such a big part of what makes our imagery feel alive rather than staged.

Packing Up and Heading North

The afternoon before we left, hours were spent by mum at our Coolangatta warehouse, gathering all the products and checking everything twice and still somehow feeling somthing had been forgotten. There's a particular kind of quiet satisfaction in watching a concept that has only ever lived on a moodboard become something you can actually pack into a car.

We were on the road by five, leaving Coffs Harbour in the dark with coffee in hand, chasing the sunrise up the coast. I stopped in Kirra to collect Mum and her packed car, and by the time we reached Mooloolaba that afternoon, the light had turned soft and golden and the lorikeets were in full chirp. We caught up with my Aunty Jen and Barb, and spent Sunday enjoying Mooloolaba before making our way to Wholehearted Studio's beautiful Oxleigh House the following morning. Side note: Lunch at Rice Boi - omg - Everything was soooooo delicious!

Two Days at Oxleigh House- Nambour, Qld

There's a particular rhythm that settles over a shoot once everyone arrives, and this one found its feet quickly. Hayley moved through the house styling as she went, tucking gathered blooms beside a stack of cushions, letting the morning light fall just so across the window seat, always adjusting, always finding the small detail that made a scene feel truly lived in rather than arranged. Directing every single shot and ensuring no product is missed, referring to her extremely detailed run sheet.

Behind the camera, Mindi Cooke worked with a real gift for lighting and colour, something I've come to rely on completely, given how much our products live and breathe through their palette.

Emma moved quietly between everyone, holding reflectors, steaming a hem at just the right moment, keeping the whole day moving without ever seeming to rush. 

And through it all, in the background of almost every frame you don't see, was Mum. Well over one hundred pieces needed pressing across those two days, and she took that entire job on as her own, steaming and ironing between takes so that every cushion, sheet and duvet arrived in front of the camera looking effortlessly perfect.

By the second day we'd found our stride, chasing the light from room to room and slowing down for the quieter, more detailed shots I always love most, the ones that catch a stitch, a trim, the exact texture of a fabric in the hand. They were long days, up early and still moving well into the afternoon, but there was a lightness to them that made the hours pass differently. 

The moment we weren't locked in on a shot, someone would say something and the whole room would be laughing, swapping stories, finding out just how much we all had in common. It's a strange kind of gift, meeting people through work and walking away feeling like you've known them for years. 

By the time we packed the car back up that Tuesday afternoon, it was with the particular kind of tiredness that only comes from having given two full days entirely over to something you care about, alongside people who made every hour of it feel easy.

The Long Way Home, and the Quiet Work After

The drive home is always a little quieter than the drive up. I dropped Mum back in Kirra before continuing on down to Coffs Harbour, tired in that particular way that only two full days of creating can leave you, the kind of tired that sits alongside a real sense of fulfilment. There's a quiet satisfaction that comes from pouring so much care into something and watching it come together exactly as you'd hoped, a feeling I don't think I'll ever tire of.

But the story doesn't end when the car and boxes are unpacked. Post shoot, Mindi began the long, careful work of editing, sitting with hundreds of images, correcting colour until it sat exactly true, making small revisions until each shot felt right. It's a far quieter part of the process than the shoot itself, but no less important to the finished picture.

Once the final images were ready, I set to work choosing the ones that told the story best, weaving them into the website, and readying every single product for the collection to finally go live. There's something rather lovely about that full circle moment, watching an idea that began as a handful of fabric swatches on my desk become something you can now bring home to your own.

And just like that, home for a whole new colourful chapter.

All those early mornings, hours of steaming, and quiet, careful hands, so that one day you might bring a little of that same colour and warmth into your own home. Thank you for being here for it.
Jacinta x