What This Looks Like in Practice

In practice, my work focuses on styling, refreshing, refining, and elevating existing safari lodge spaces — including rooms, suites, shared areas, and surrounding outdoor environments. This is achieved through thoughtful interior adjustments, curated objects, artisan pieces, and atmosphere-driven details that enhance what already exists.   

Much of my work is project-based, and light-touch-often at a micro-project scale- designed to support lodges where thoughtful refinement is needed without a large-scale redesign. This can include curated sourcing and on-site shopping, alongside styling, editing, and atmosphere-building.

My approach is quiet luxury: natural, intentional, and deeply connected to the landscape, with an emphasis on conservation-minded decisions that consider wildlife, land, and surrounding communities.

This includes considered layout shifts, careful editing of existing objects, the introduction of artisan and locally sourced elements, and subtle visual moments created on site. Each decision supports mood — the sensory details that shape how a guest feels in a space.

This is refinement, not redesign. Whether preparing a suite for a new season or rebalancing key gathering areas, I work within a lodge’s existing design sensibility to reveal its relationship to land, wildlife, and the communities that sustain it.

The goal is always the same: to create environments that feel balanced, authentic, and rooted in place — helping guests feel part of the world around them while honoring the ecosystems and people that make these places possible.

What This Can Include

Lodge Spaces & Guest Experiences

• Rooms and suites styled for photography and social media, creating strong visual moments
• Arrival and welcome scenes that establish tone, mood, and sense of place
• Table settings and dining moments-from everyday service to special evenings-styled with warmth, intimacy, and authenticity
• Bush dinners, fireside evenings, and private deck dining styled for warmth, intimacy, and authenticity

Refinement & Micro-Projects

• Micro-projects refreshing specific rooms, corners, or communal spaces at lodges or conservation centers
• Editing and rebalancing of existing décor and layout
• Elevated styling and curated refinement — from introducing a single sculptural chair to shifting lighting, updating textiles, or layering tactile accents

Conservation & Community Alignment

• Donor visits and conservation events, including storytelling moments, and interpretive displays
• Thoughtful styling that reflects wildlife, land, and community narratives
• Artisan-led details and object sourcing from local communities, ensuring craft, culture, and conservation are reflected in the details

Furniture, Lighting, Art & Object Sourcing

I’m able to source key design elements — from furniture and lighting to art, accessories, and crafted objects — drawing on decades of global sourcing experience through my work in film set decoration. I curate a mix of locally grounded and globally refined pieces that bring depth, character, and authenticity to a lodge.

Whenever possible, I work directly with community groups and independent artisans, ensuring the design reflects — and supports — the surrounding landscape and the people who protect it. When international pieces are needed, they are selected thoughtfully to maintain balance, purpose, and a clear sense of place.

This is the kind of décor I specialize in: pieces and palettes that connect to wildlife and conservation in a refined, understated way — pangolin-inspired textures, elephant-toned linens, natural palettes, and woven work from artisan cooperatives. Conservation becomes visible, emotional, and elegant without feeling literal.

This can include:

• Artisan-made objects
• Local and international furniture, accessories, and crafted pieces
• Vintage and one-of-a-kind finds
• Sustainable, natural, and low-impact materials
• Baskets, ceramics, throws, bedding, sculptural elements, wall art, clay vessels, lighting, and tactile accents.

The layouts below offer a glimpse into my aesthetic and stylistic approach, with sourcing that emphasizes sustainable materials, respect for local culture and craft, and their evolution within a modern context. (For a more in-depth view, see the Tanzanian presentation at the bottom on this page)

Conservation-Based Styling

Conservation work happens in real, working environments- and those spaces matter. Ranger bases, field stations, and staff accommodation within lodges and reserves are places where people rest, plan, recover, and prepare for demanding work in the field.

Curating Wild Spaces is designed to collaborate with lodges and conservation partners to improve the function, atmosphere, and visual coherence of these boots-on-the-ground spaces, while fully respecting their purpose and constraints. Through thoughtful styling, editing, and practical refinement, these environments can feel more considered, supportive, and aligned with the values they represent.

This work can include the styling and refinement of:

• Ranger bases and staff accommodations
• Veterinary clinics and mobile field units
• Conservation offices and research camps
• Guest education and interpretation areas
• Donor briefing and orientation spaces

Styling in these contexts is about care—supporting the people doing the work, reinforcing pride and morale, and helping guests and partners better understand the mission through the spaces they experience.

This is styling with purpose—creating environments that quietly reflect the land, wildlife, and communities being protected.



Cinematic Wildlife & Lodge Storytelling

Visual Documentation & Short-Form Storytelling

I capture quiet, unposed moments of animals, people, landscape, and daily life — the scenes that reveal a lodge’s true connection to nature, conservation, community, design, and place.

Working discreetly and respectfully, I document these moments as they naturally unfold, allowing them to become part of a lodge’s immersive visual narrative.

My over 30- year film career, combined with hands-on experience in wildlife operations, allows me to capture simple, meaningful visual  moments when needed.  My focus isn’t documentary filmmaking but rather visual documentation-using a film-informed eye to support a lodge's story in an honest, natural, compelling way.

This documentation can take place at the lodge and in the field, and may include:

• Staff preparing for the day
• Breakfast prepared for the bush
• Sundowners packed for the evening light
• Light shifting across a thoughtfully styled space
• Products thoughtfully styled
• A lion drifting through dusk
• Elephants feeding just beyond camp
• Morning light spilling across a suite
• A woven basket taking shape in skilled hands
• A ranger preparing for patrol
• Behind-the-scenes conservation work
• Documenting responsible, on the ground wildlife operations
  

Questions that Often Start the Conversation