✨ That one time I said yes to a photoshoot without knowing what I was signing up for…
…and ended up on a rooftop, dripping in Versace, staring down the lens of the most visionary photographer I’ve ever met landing on the cover of a magazine for The Landmark Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong.
All because of a text that simply said:
"You free next week?"
When Nic Gaunt called, I never asked questions.
The answer was always yes!
Not because I knew what was coming, but because I trusted him.
Nic and Bex (his creative partner wife) were the kind of artists who made you show up as the boldest, most unapologetic version of yourself on set - because they already saw you that way.
Nic passed away a few years ago, and I still think about the way he created.
The way he saw things.
The way he said yes to his weird, wild, unfiltered ideas - and expected the same from the people he brought into his world.
After his funeral - a line from Les Brown kept playing in my mind:
“Imagine you’re on your deathbed - and the ghosts of all your unrealized ideas are standing around it, angry and disappointed.
‘We came to you,’ they say. ‘And now we must die with you.’”
Nic didn’t leave many ghosts behind. He used his gifts. He moved with his visions. He made shit, constantly.
And lately… I’ve been thinking about how many wild, brilliant, ridiculous things I’ve done in my own life that I’ve just never talked about.
Moments that shaped me
Risks I said yes to
Places where I chose experience > safety.
Things that, looking back now, feel like chapters in a book I haven’t fully opened.
Inspired by
@Jayyanginspires book - “You Can Just Do Things” - this is the first in a series I’m calling:
"That one time ___"
Because sometimes we forget how much we’ve lived.
How bold we’ve been.
How far from the algorithm we’ve already flown.
So this is for the memory keepers
The rule-breakers.
The ones who said yes to the rooftop, not knowing there’d be gold lamé and a hotel cover waiting on the other side.
Here’s to doing the damn thing.
#ThatOneTime
#YouCanJustDoThings