Susan Heslington is a photographer, designer and publisher producing books, stationery and prints of her images captured around the hill villages of Tuscany.
Originally from the North east of England, Susan’s journey to Tuscany began in a very different place, Saudi Arabia, where she worked for nine years as an administrator in the oil industry.
Coming from the leafy countryside of northern England, the drab, desert colours, not to mention the encapsulated life of a foreign work and living compound, left her aching for an oasis of greenery and something of the ‘dolce vita’ for which Italy is rightly famous. She began to take in the websites of Tuscany, initially to soak up its beauty and eventually to sustain a fantasy of living there. With time and commitment she realised her dream and transferred herself and the four-poster bed in which she slept, plus, in her own words, “Dozens of high heels in which to break my neck on the steep cobbles!” from the arid heat of the middle east to the fertile rolling hills of old Etrusca.
Of course, there were a few hitches along the way. Susan is a great one for ideas, creativity and the eventual realisation of all things to which she devotes herself.
However, time and patience are required for any undertaking in Italy, where one must learn to pace one’s quick brain with the piano-piano (slowly slowly) approach of the Italians. Easier said than done.
She bought a shell of a house, perched at the top of a medieval village in the Valdievole, overlooking the magnificent valley and beyond. This was love.
After the inevitable months of hardship starting life over again she was overjoyed to find herself with a finished home, and the prospect of a new livelihood by which to look after the young life now growing inside her. While pouring over the internet in Arabia and taking many photos and videos whilst on holiday in Italy, she had become impassioned by photography and publishing and its endless possibilities for sharing her Tuscan adventure with the world.