Kirsty, Saffy And Indy Lamour

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CulturallyOurs Kirsty Lamour Indy Lamour Saffy Lamour Podcast Interview

Season 03
Season 03
Kirsty, Saffy And Indy Lamour
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Show Details

In this episode, we explore Travel and Lifestyle as I chat with Kirsty Lamour and her teen daughters Saffron and Indigo. Kirsty, Saffy and Indy are avid travelers and nomads having lived all over the world since they were babies. Kirsty jokes that each of them was born in a different country and now live a very nomadic life exploring a particular country, community and culture for months on end. 

The Lamour girls shared how important culture and diversity is to them – a way to learn about how all of us around the world are actually quite similar instead of focusing on our differences. Kirsty, Saffy and Indy are currently on a year long overland adventure as they take an epic road trip in a van they lovingly call Vera. 

Show Notes

Karthika interviews Kirsty Lamour and her daughters Saffron Lamour who is 13 and Indy Lamour who is 11. The Lamour family are a jet setting, adventure loving family having lived in Hong Kong, Abu Dabi, China and India among others. Kirsty is a documentary photographer and both Indy and Saff are equally creative in their own way. They shared what life in other countries is like, how culture and diversity are a huge part of their everyday and how life on the road for them is one grand adventure. 

Both Saffy and Indy are also huge proponents against climate change and have organized and participated in many rallies wherever they have lived – either as part of the community or through school. The Lamour girls also shared their plans for their latest adventure – a year long overland trip exploring the Indian subcontinent.

The Transcript

Karthika: Welcome Kirsty Saffy and Indy, thank you so much for joining me on CulturallyOurs. I am really excited to have all three of you on the podcast and I cannot wait to chat with you and get to know you guys a little bit better.

Kirsty: Thank you for having us.

Karthika: Absolutely. So before we begin, could you guys tell us a little bit about who you are, where you’re from, just to help set the stage for this conversation?

Kirsty: Absolutely. I am Kirsty, I’m British, I’m a photographer and I met my Irish husband in Hong Kong. We then moved to China, which is where Saffy, our oldest daughter who’s currently 13 was born. And then we live there for three years, although she was almost two when we left and we moved to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. That’s where Indy was born and she’s now 11. We lived in the UAE for seven years where I run my photography business and my husband was an engineer cause there’s a massive building boom in the middle East. Then we left for a year and went on a big overlanding trip where we drove from the UAE back to Europe and then again to the UAE. We were based there for another couple of years. And then we left 18 months ago and moved to India, which is where we’ve been based ever since.

Karthika: Oh my gosh. You guys have been on the move. You guys as a family are hugely creative. Kirsty, I know you are a photographer and I see a lot of stuff from the kids as well. How did that all come about and what are your creative interests, for each of you?

Indy: Well! Mom’s a photographer so that has kind of become a huge part of our lives as she is always taking photos. So I kind of take after her. My main creative interests are photography and dance.

Saffy: I actually prefer to write rather than take photos. I’m quite into writing fiction rather than real life situations. Although I do like to take stuff from real life and base my stories on it.

Kirsty: So both of the girls are quite creative in different ways, which we’ve tried to really foster. I have always been quite creative as a kid and then I became an environmental engineer in Hong Kong, which I always used to say was the perfect mix of creative and technical. I used to travel an awful lot for my work, which is how I got into travel photography. I took a lot of photos for work and then eventually, as with many parents, you know, when the babies come along, suddenly you’ve got a subject to photograph. I found the photography was also a really amazing mix of creative and technical for me or really now I think it’s where most of my creative side that’s taken over. I used to get flustered about the technical stuff in photography. But now I focus on the creative side and document our travels as we go. And I have had a business in Abu Dhabi doing family and commercial photography, which I am very lucky to have. I’ve had amazing clients over the last decade or so. We really encourage our girls to explore their creativity.

Karthika: Oh! I love it. Especially with kids, when you see them express and explore their own sort of likes and desires and creatively, it becomes very satisfying as a parent.

Kirsty: Yes. it really truly is. And we’ve had periods of our travels where we’ve homeschooled the girls and I really loved seeing them being create out in nature, making things out of sticks and leaves or drawing on the sand on the beach. And on our last big set of travels, they painted on stones an awful lot and then would leave little messages in places. I just think it’s so lovely to see kids being creative and interacting with nature at the same time.

Karthika: Absolutely. And your work is amazing. What really draws me into it is the role emotions play in your work. You seem to capture the scene as if I was standing right there with you and I too am experiencing all those things. Not too many photographers do that. So I’m curious from your standpoint, what does the creative process look like for you? I mean, what do you look for when you see something and say ‘oh! I want to take a picture of that.’

Kirsty: I’m often looking for moments and connections. I love showing that the world is a small place and we’re all interconnected. I love to find the commonality and an environment between people. I’m often looking for that. Parents are my number one since my kids are in my photos. But I would love to think that other people could imagine themselves in a place that they might have otherwise thought was foreign to them. One of my children were recently in a mosque. Many people haven’t been to a mosque. But my kids have been brought up going to mosques because so many of their friends were Muslim and it’s completely normal. But for other people, I know that’s not the case, and that they might then look at that and say, wow, you know, I think it would be really interesting. The architecture looks fascinating, or the people look so friendly and welcoming, things like that. So finding little pieces of common beauty and shared interest as we travel around the world is my creative starting point. And then obviously like every photographer, I’m looking for the pretty light. I’m looking for the good conversations. I’m looking for that interesting anchor that will pull someone into my images and make them think twice about somewhere in a good way.

Karthika: Yes for sure. There is so much negativity, there’s so much wrong happening around the world. But when you see images like yours hopefully others can see themselves doing similar things or having similar experiences. They are learning something positive as opposed to something negative. Having your kids in there and showing that human element is so needed in today’s world.

Kirsty: Yes, absolutely. I took a picture recently of Indy in the flower market in Delhi and there was litter all around her feet. She was taking a picture and there was such beautiful light in front of me and a subject who was taking a beautiful picture of marigolds. For me that was a beautiful moment. Others might see the litter on the floor. But I chose to see the beauty around me. I hope that it does make people think twice and go, wow, they’re all really beautiful little places and there are beautiful moments everywhere that you go.

Karthika: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Now this one is for the girls, but you know, Kirsty, you can answer it too. As a family, you guys lead very nomadic lives. Like you’ve mentioned earlier, you have lived all over the world. I want to know what it’s like for you and I want to know how you guys adjust to travel to cultures and people who perhaps are different from you guys.

Kirsty: One of the things that I’ve always hoped for the children is that it would make them quite open to meeting different people and experiencing different things and also make them very adaptable. I think that’s going to be something that’s increasingly important, as they grow up that they need to be adaptable to change, to new technology, to new experiences. And I always hope it will help hold them in good stead for their own futures. That we do have all these varying experiences.

Indy: I think when we travel meeting people and their cultures really interests me because there is a difference in the way they live. But there are also some similarities. The common connection is that kindness. One day we were on a train and we were talking with people and she said oh my son works in Manchester. And that is where my mum grew up for part of her life. People are always looking for the common threads amongst us to show that we’re actually more similar than different.

Saffy: It is very important and we’re very lucky that we’ve been traveling around since we were so young because that means that we are well used to change, which is good and as Indy said, people are always just looking for the similarities instead of the differences and I think that’s actually something that we should all try and do.

Karthika: I couldn’t agree more. Now I’m going to ask you this. Is it hard being on the road? We tend to see the glamorous aspect of things. Oh look at them traveling to all these cool places and having all these experiences. Did you guys find it slightly hard?

Saffy: Yes, often it’s quite difficult after a few weeks on the road. Being cramped with your family. Maybe you are in the middle of nowhere, there is no wifi and perhaps you just need some space.

Indy: Learning to get some head spaces, meditating, learning to go out in the outdoors and just breathing. And it also helps prevent arguments. I do think that actually traveling, although it can have its ups and downs because you are cramped together also strengthens your relationships because you are so close. Its not like you are in separate rooms doing your own thing. You have to do an awful lot of preparation and figure out how to work together, listen to each other’s opinions and how to go forward with each day.

Karthika: Yes for sure. Now can each of you perhaps share some experiences or people how have maybe made an impact on your life and more importantly on your mindset as you travel around the world.

Saffy: I think that some thing for me was when we went to Tibet a few years ago, we went into different monasteries and it brought meditation into our lives, which has been good for helping us stay calm, finding headspace, as Indy said earlier. And I think that I’m very glad that we took that trip because it’s brought something so brilliant into my life.

Indy: I also think the, the kindness of people again is amazing and it changes you. For example, when people let us park our van on their land and bring us fruits and gifts constantly.

Kirsty: Yeah. You could have eaten your way free. I have had people give us so much nice food many times. Like the girls said rather than a specific person who influenced us, it is more like a lot of people. And I think the same applied when I was growing up. I was fortunate enough to travel quite a bit, mostly in Europe as a kid. And it was the kindness and the people that you.  That opens your mind in a very different way to different experiences to seeing things in a slightly different way. For example, most countries that we go to, we always want to do a cooking class because we want to know a little bit more about how people live. So therefore how they eat, how they shop. Do they have supermarkets or do they go to the market and all those kinds of things. Those become a lot more normal to us. And then we don’t take our big supermarkets for granted.  Especially in places like India where a fresh market is essentially just a guy with fruits and vegetables trolley.

Karthika: Now Kirsty, how do you balance all these things in your life? You have a career, you have a family and you guys travel. You also have your own aspirations and business. How do you balance all these things?

Kirsty: Oh my gosh. I think like most working moms, it is a bit of a struggle and I often feel like I’m not doing any of the jobs particularly well. It’s always a juggling job I think for working moms. Kids have school or they’re homeschooled or they have afterschool activities and you’re trying to fit your work into the cracks and time. When we were in Abu Dhabi and my husband works out of town a lot, so I was the one that did the running around. It’s tough. It’s really tough and I think it’s no different wherever you are. We travel a lot. But laundry still needs to be done. The kids still need feeding. All the same things happen and you go to bed at the end of the day exhausted. Maybe when you’re typically on a holiday, you’re able to slow them down, travel slowly, really soak them, spend some time, get to learn a little more. So I find that the travel makes me feel content in that I have different experiences, but the pressures are the same. I’ve been on mountains where I’ve been desperately trying to find a wifi so I can send files off to a client. We moms, we are caregivers. So even when we’ve got a supportive partner, we just tend to take on too much. I know that I probably don’t delegate enough. I’ve been very lucky because since we’ve lived in India, my husband stopped working when we moved there, so he became the school dad. And he did all the school runs and the grocery shopping and the laundry. And I was the one that was working full time. So I was able to pass over some of that on to him a little bit more for the last 18 months. I think maybe it was a revelation to him as well. I still feel like I perhaps carried a little too much because some of it was stuff that I just knew how to do cause I’d had 12 years of being mom and doing all of those things.

Kirsty: So the balance is hard. The one thing that I’m really grateful for is that I have a job that is flexible that I can take on the road. There are people who live in different parts of the world. They might see us traveling and say oh Kirsty, you are going to be in my part of the world. Can we do a photoshoot? So I’ve ended up doing photo shoots in different countries that I never expected to do with all my past clients moved somewhere else and things like that. So that’s been a real delight. And you know, having my own business has given me an awful lot of flexibility. But yes, being a working mom is never easy.

Karthika: I agree. Like you said sometimes you know you can do it better because you have done it for so long. So delegating is so hard. Then you realize that perhaps that was your time to take a break and relax but you just missed that chance. I also think sometimes we are hard on ourselves too. Now if you guys are open to sharing and it’s just because I feel like people really can connect to personal stories and narratives. What has been some of your most beautiful experiences and perhaps on the flip side some of the hardest experiences.

Indy: So for me the hardest, I would say is leaving your friends behind. It was really hard for Saffy and for me too to leave Abu Dhabi. You make friends and then you are saying goodbye.

Kirsty: But friends move too and sometimes you are the one staying back and that is hard too. When I was in my twenties, I lost a loved one under very tragic circumstances while he was traveling. I think that going through that at that age was really hard. I think it shaped me in a lot of ways though. In times of beautiful times. I look back on the year that we spent traveling with just most incredible memories. We always planned when we had children that we would take a year out at some point and travel with them. And you know, as the plans evolved and changed and went from getting around the world tickets and visiting different places to staying somewhere and doing a language school. We just had this period of time where our lease was up on our apartment and one of my husband’s big projects was coming to an end and we needed to go overseas. We were perhaps a little bit recklessly and said to ourselves, Oh, let’s do it. Saffy was finishing primary. It was a few years earlier than we anticipated. So we bought a 17 year old four wheel drive overland vehicle for not an awful lot of money and we threw a tent, some chairs, camera and some clothes in the back and we left. We planned only for a couple of months. We told people we were going to go traveling, but we didn’t tell them where. Obviously we didn’t want our families to think we were putting ourselves in an unsafe situation. We kept traveling and meeting all these amazing people and like the girls said, it was just such an amazing experience. We just kept doing it.

Kirsty: So we made it to my parents’ house in England for Christmas and then decided that we would carry on for another six months. We drove down to Morocco where we spent a couple of months and then drove back across Europe into Russia through central Asia. I feel so emotional when I think back on it. It was everything that I had hoped, but more. We proved to ourselves that we just totally could do something like this. I have the most incredible fond memories of this crazy year where we threw the kids in the tent in the back of the car and drove.

Karthika: That sounds absolutely amazing. And you said something which I want to bring back. You really understand what you are capable of. So often we put these safety filters around us. The timing has to be right, all these cards have to all line up. But sometimes you just have to find a way to do it. You will realize what all the stuff that you thought was important is not, and the strength that you get and the experiences that you have. Sounds like you had an incredible journey.

Kirsty: Yeah, it really was. It was so much fun.

Karthika: Now kids, you both follow along your mom’s footsteps in some way. And you guys are both quite vocal about climate change and the environment. So kudos to both of you for doing something at such a young age. I want to talk a little bit about how that came about and I want to hear from you what sort of your hopes and aspirations are for the future.

Saffy: Our dad is an environmental manager consultant and he is always teaching us not to use plastic bags and ideas like that. Simple things that may make a big difference in the world. And in the last 18 months we have been in India we haven’t taken a single domestic flight. We always travel by road or by train. I think for me, when I realized how much we needed to fight for climate change and where I started taking more action was we did this film projection school about the environment and I started realizing how devastating the effects would be on our planet. And that’s when I found out about kids striking from school to demand action on climate change. And I thought if they can do or why can’t we.  We started with friends.

Karthika: That’s amazing. And you know what, you guys are on the right track. It’s kids like you guys that are ultimately going to be the change makers. So hats off to you guys. Now, what advice would you give other families or people who want to lead this sort of nomadic life? How can they make the transition for themselves effectively? And I think more importantly, honestly and authentically so that they get experience.

Saffy: I think I, I told you earlier about getting Headspace. Especially for kids like me it may seem like you are cooped up with your family for too long especially if you are traveling with these people in a vehicle. I told you earlier about meditation too and that just helps or try getting outside the whole world out there. Another thing that helps is to really embrace people’s cultures.

Kirsty: Also I think understanding the individual personalities of the people in the family is important. For Saffy, having that down time or that me space whether it is out in nature or in the garden is important. She just take off into her little imagination and her little world where she can make up stories. The girls have always shared a bedroom. So I’ve always encouraged them that they have to find their own ways of finding what they need without fighting. But they have both been very good about learning different techniques. So Saffy might decide that she just wants to go and sit under a tree and type away on her iPad, whereas Indy might decide that she wants to take up her camera and she will go off to take photos of flowers or grasshoppers. Finding those different ways of embracing what you’ve got and getting your own space is really good. In terms of you are asking about how to transition to life on the road. I think giving the kids some responsibility helps as well. So we tend to give them the treats like sitting in the front seat, but they have to navigate when they’re in the front seat. We have a kitty and that person is in charge of the bread and whatever for lunch that day and that. They are learning to manage their money and so they’re learning other life skills as well, which I think are really valuable. And sometimes kids don’t get those same opportunities to learn. So I think that also gives them the opportunity to interact with people.

Karthika: Let’s do a quick rapid fire round so we can get to know you guys a little better. And I’ll just ask a series of questions and just tell me the first thing that comes to mind. Don’t overthink it.

  • Coffee, tea or something stronger – Coffee for me
  • Favorite flavor of ice cream – Chocolate
  • A quote that you get inspired by – Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited and imagination circles the world.
  • Horror movie, action adventure or drama – Drama and comedy
  • Favorite Season Spring. Summer, fall or winter?  – Winter but also spring because of the flowers. Winter for me so I can skate (Saffy) and Spring because of the flowers.
  • What was your childhood dream job – I actually wanted to be a ski instructor
  • Beach or mountains – mountains
  • Favorite food – Masala dosa
  • Marvel or DC comics –I am not really into them that much.
  • What are the three must haves that you take with on any trip? – camera, socks and some kind of protection like a scarf or something
  • What has been your favorite country? – So many countries that I’ve traveled are my favorite. At the moment it is India. It has been amazing living here for the past year and a half. And the people are amazing. UAE has special memories. China has been amazing too. I love Iran because of the people.

Karthika: Now, if you could give advice or life lessons to younger Kirsty what would that be?

Kirsty: Listen to people’s advice but care less about that. When I was younger, I spent way too much time caring about what other people thought about what I was doing and what I was going to do. I was told at 16 to give up all this because I would never be able to make a living out of it. And so I did, which was maybe a good thing because then I had an engineering degree, which taught me project management and financial management and things I was able to bring into my business when I did come back round to the artistic career. But I wish I have more fulfillment from it as I went along. I listened to other people probably just a bit too much and didn’t learn to trust my own gut feelings at a young enough age. So that’s my advice to my girls too, to discuss and to listen to people’s advice. But to know yourself well enough to know what was right for you.

Karthika: Absolutely. Now, each of you can answer this what has been your biggest aha?

Indy: My probably biggest aha was when I realized my love for photography. I won a photo competition and then I got to go to a conference that my mom was speaking at where it was displayed and I met some amazing photographers like Paul Nikleson and Christina Mittermyer who really inspired me. And I’ve grown from that. I thought that I could show some environmentalism in my picture.

Saffy: For me realizing that I am not too small to make a difference. When we talked earlier about the climate change and I said that doing something about it was important for me. I think maybe when I realized the other children were standing up and I could choose to as well. And I can make a difference on the world even if it was just small.

Karthika: I absolutely agree. No voice is too little, too weak. Everyone can make a difference and that’s an amazing feeling to kind of get right cause the whole world is ahead of you and now you’re empowered.

Karthika: Now what lies ahead for you guys? I know you’re sort of living your dream or at least the dream as with yet, but what’s ahead for you? What does your future look like if you don’t mind sharing with us?

Kirsty: We have just packed up our house and put stuff in storage. We are hoping to pick up our overland van in Mumbai in a few weeks and travel all over India for the next siz month or so. We are going to travel in the Himalayas, which is an area that we’ve not managed to explore very much yet. So I’m super excited. Then we maybe intend to drive the van back somewhere in Europe, we are not quite sure where. We are hoping that we’ll figure it out on the way. Find somewhere that we love that we can earn money cause we have to, right. And we can settle for a bit and then the girls will be able to finish that final years of school and then they go by themselves into the world.

Karthika: I’m sure you guys will have an incredible time no matter where you are. You guys have such positive attitudes. Its not too often that you hear a 13 year old and an 11 year old who are so mature. So I know you guys are going to have an amazing. Thank you so much. I really appreciate all three of you coming on and sharing so candidly. I cannot wait to follow your journey.

Kirsty, Indy and Saffy: Thank you so much for having us.

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