Leaving their mark

Trinity Today 2025

Robyn Lea (TC 1989) is an acclaimed photographer, author and director who began her career in Milan. Over the last 30 years she has built a reputation for capturing creatives in their homes, often among unique belongings that form part of their identities. She discusses three photographs of hers taken in Italy and Australia.

Above: Capturing Barnaba Fornasetti in his music room in Milan, surrounded by objects that he and his father Piero created, felt for a moment like time had stopped. As he adjusted his position, centring himself between a convex mirror and a series of framed drawings, his eyes locked in a direct gaze with the camera. For a moment, father and son were one. Barnaba’s bold and fearless expression is identical to his father’s, captured in a portrait at Lake Como 90 years before. Image taken from Bohemian Living: Creative Homes Around the World (Thames & Hudson 2018).

Below: Artist Fiona Corsini walks through the walled Arabian garden on the grounds of her Sicilian home, Castello di San Guiliano. Beyond the garden gates, a vast citrus plantation comes into view, which produces mandarins, tangelos and other citrus. Some of the fruit is used to make prized organic marmalades created from a family recipe said to be over 800 years old. Image taken from A Room of Her Own: Inside the Homes and Lives of Creative Women (Thames & Hudson 2021).

Below: A jumble of memories, treasures, vintage photos and garden detritus, from interior stylist and decorator Lynda Gardener’s home in Melbourne. Each object, like pages from a diary, provided us with a visual clue to the inner workings of the owner’s heart and mind. I took this photo for A Room of Her Own, but it was never published, as she later signed a book deal of her own. That book, Curate: Inspiration for an Individual Home, became a best seller, providing readers with a comprehensive exploration of Lynda’s gorgeous aesthetic.