There’s a really lovely trend doing the rounds on social media, inspired by poet Jennae Cecilia, about meeting your younger self for coffee.
You can read about why I didn’t meet mine for coffee over on my brand photography blog, and here’s some insight into the photos that go with that post.
They are all quite quick composites, because when I sat down to write the post I had no idea this was where it would lead me, and it was already fairly late. As I type this it’s ten to one in the morning and given my schedule tomorrow really should think about bed… but this was more fun!
Come with me down memory lane…
#1 – 2008 me with 2024 me
This is made from a photo of me with my fabulous friend Sedge, picnic-ing in Trafalgar Square on a London visit in 2008. We met through model horses and have been friends for a terrifying number of years now, so hopefully she won’t mind being replaced by modern day me in this shot! It’s combined with one from my mini brand shoot in York with Sarah Wayte during our 2024 writing retreat.
Here’s the 2008 original – I also have a very vivid memory of standing in St James’s Park feeding the pigeons in this dress, which I suspect was the same trip, but is really anyone’s guess. I have such fond memories of our model horse meetups, partly because they’re all amazing people, and partly because back in the mid 00s, meeting your online hobby friends was properly weird.
My real life friends & family were all completely convinced something awful was going to happen to me when I announced I was meeting some model horse forum friends in London. But when Sedge, Chloe and I did first meet (several years before this trip), we all appeared at the station, looking for girls roughly our age who were clutching tiny model horses for recognition. None of us were dodgy or dangerous, though we are arguably very, very weird, the connection of friendship was instant and strong – and has lasted decades now through all kinds of life changes.
and the original Sarah took:
#2 – 2011 me with 2025 me
Both these originals are phone photos, the first by the friend I was skating with, the second by me, and my skates are the same pair. The 2011 photo was their first outdoor outing, and I am in the process of customising them again this week, after new wheels & bearings for my birthday. I actually made this photo first and I might at some point go back and tweak it – it feels like the most obvious mismatch of pixel size and photo quality between the two dates! But then, I guess we are both visitors to each other’s world, so maybe that’s ok.
The first one is in London, the first time I took my new skates out with their outdoor wheels and Caroline & I had a blast after work skating round Hyde Park in the September sunshine.
And the second one is from the February 2025 Rollerworld pop up – between these two photos I’ve helped to dismantle Rollerworld from its original location, which was heartbreaking, and am very much hoping it will reopen in Colchester in the not too distant future in a new building. In the meantime, they do pop up events at Charter Hall, and this was my take on the Neon Glow theme.
Not the most glam location but it was the only full length mirror I could find!
#3 – 2024 me with 2007 me
Another fab shot by Sarah Wayte from York in 2024, merged with a somewhat more demure & mild-mannered me from my first boyfriend’s graduation in 2007. I actually chose the others because they’re some of the ones I’m wearing glasses in, but I wore contacts a lot more often from age 15 to 25, so wanted one of the three to be Carla minus the glasses, because it’s more representative of actual younger me.
Here’s Sarah’s shot in full – would you believe we didn’t plan this background and just stumbled across it?!
And here is an oddly elegant but not entirely comfortable 21 year old me, in a dress which co-ordinated with the boy’s graduation colours, but in that 50s halterneck style which I already loved & was making my own. I think photo credit is probably to his lovely Mum!
And there concludes today’s trip into nostalgia. I loved the trend – I don’t often get involved in them, or I find them way too late, but this one appealed, because younger me really is the reason I’m doing what I’m doing now. She refused to give up on a dream even when people suggested she might want to do something more sensible with her life – and now I am a photographer-mermaid-writer-stationer-chocolatier hybrid with a studio of my own, 19 mermaid tails and a real life carousel horse. And more importantly, friends & family who love me for being exactly who I am (a few of them from my younger years, too!). I am very lucky, and this felt like a lovely creative way to celebrate that for a moment.
Pssst… have you heard?
The secret’s out – I started a Substack! After 20 years of blogging and email newsletters, I have created one place where I can talk about everything without worrying about which brand or bucket it fits into – all the Carla magic in one place.
Everything will still have its own mailing list for specific stuff, but Substack, after my initial misgivings, feels like blogging used to, and I’d love for you to follow along for the ride.
You can hop over and read, and/or subscribe for free, here:
https://colourfulmagicalweirdo.substack.com
See you there!
