For this weeks Q&A, we’ve chatted to @simpleandaseason, aka Kayte! We stumbled upon her account recently and just love the tones and compositions of her photography. An image is not always as simple as it appears, with lots of small details and charming pieces. Whether it is a collected object or a few stems of foliage, there is always a little more than meets the eye.

Enjoy Kayte’s interview below, there’s lots of lovely mottos and inspirational quotes that you will continue to think about for the rest of the day!

Describe your style in 5 words:

Quiet, timeless, rooted, styled, earthy

What are the tools you use to create your feed?

I’m very basic – I use iPhone 6 and  edit and filter on VSCO. Indecision and stock levels have foiled my attempts to buy a camera so far!

Who or what inspires you? 

I’m inspired scrolling through hashtags, getting ideas for new compositions or ways of styling I hadn’t thought of before. I like trying out new things just to see if it works with my aesthetic and to make me think differently. 

More generally I’m inspired by whatever my eyes land on – I think that one of the beautiful things about Instagram is how it opens your eyes and changes the way you look at things. It makes you notice more, whether that’s reflections in puddles or the way light plays across a table. The other day I noticed some flowers floating in the canal from my office window, so when I left I drove around to find and photograph them.

If you had an extra hour in the day what would you do? 

I’d want to catch up on all the photos, blogs, writing and marketing I’m seemingly constantly working on! I heard somewhere that we overestimate what we can achieve in a day but underestimate what we can achieve in a year. I don’t know about the latter but I constantly give myself too much to do in a day. So that’s the sensible answer, but knowing myself as I do, I’m pretty sure that I’d run a boiling hot, bubbly bath and stew with a book. There’s something just so decadent about taking a an afternoon bath.

What is your personal motto? 

I wrote a blog post at the beginning of the year about giving myself a New Year’s mantra rather than a resolution, and my mantra was ‘Commitment to Purpose’. It was all about not giving up on the things I wanted and pushing through when things got hard. I’m not sure I’ve kept to it in the way I thought I would in late December, but I still find it inspirational. I also find myself quoting ‘take the path less travelled by’ when I have a decision to make, or literally two paths to choose from on a walk.

How did you get into the wonderful world of Instagram? 

Like most people I first got Instagram about five years ago just to use the filters on my photos, before it took off as a social network. I picked it up properly around October 2016 – I wanted to use it line with my blog as I was really struggling to get enthused about Twitter. I then, of course, quickly developed an addiction, started to make some friends and just generally became immersed. I’m very grateful for how quickly my account has grown over the last few months and love chatting with the Simple and Season community.

Which hashtag should we been exploring right now? 

I’m not very good at discovering new hashtags – I’m one of those people who tends to stick with what they know, which is not an effective hashtag strategy! I am, however, enjoying #simpleandstill – it has lots of variety but all around a very aesthetic, styled theme (you don’t get the random selfies you can in bigger tags). 

Who else should we follow on Instagram? Who’s your top three? 

Well Sara Tasker @me_and_orla is essentially my Insta idol, she has such a well-photographed, aspirational feed. @sarah_louise_ferg is my fave, such a brilliant mix of lifestyle, flat lay and travel photography, plus she has the world’s most photogenic baby. I also love @alexandra_p_hobson – her captions are so lyrical and she weaves such beautiful stories through her bleak photos. And a cheeky fourth is @ofsimplicity for total Scandi-envy (and the best Instagram Stories)!

Thanks so much for your time and lovely answers, Kayte! Now time to head over to @simpleandseason!