How this Award-Winning Photographer Styles Scenes in Unexpected Places
Paris meets the old west in Lisa Flood's work and home
Flood with her rescue dogs Scooby (a small chihuahua/ terrier) and Shep (a poodle mix). “They are great companions,” she says. “I just sometimes wish that they could help me schlep my photo gear.” | Photo Lisa Flood
On a day when she doesn’t have an assignment, award-winning photographer Elizabeth (Lisa) Clair Flood is likely to be out riding horses, walking her dogs or skiing backcountry powder, but she always carries her camera. “I like the weight of it,” she says. “It gives me purpose and helps me engage with the world.”
During a remodel in 2020 due to water damage, several small rooms were combined into this large rustic-chic living space. Original wood chinking gives the room an old-fashioned look that is updated by the pink couch, straw lamp shades from Atelier Vime in Provence, and a suzani on the coffee table. | Photo Lisa Flood
More than 25 years ago, Flood’s car broke down near Jackson, Wyoming. She had recently graduated from college and was traveling from California (where her family’s roots go back to the 1849 Gold Rush) to explore “the rest of the West.” Decades later, Flood is still in Wyoming, living with her family in a lovingly restored 1950s log cabin near the base of Teton Pass.
Vintage Westerns (sourced by Christy Smirl of Foxtail Books) and Flood’s grandfather’s spurs; the portrait is a thrift shop find. | Photo Lisa Flood
Her home has a Paris-meets-the-Old-West look. Her influences? A childhood spent riding horses at the family’s Southern California ranch. Her “super-glam grandma, who was totally comfortable driving a ranch pickup.” Her interior designer mother, who worked with Sister Parish, and a stylish-and-eccentric aunt who named her two cats Brunschwig and Fils.
Green bucket on a snowy day (styled by Hillary Munro) from Flood’s Western lifestyle book with Munro, (Fall 2024, Gibbs Smith). | Photo Lisa Flood
Flood, who began her professional career as a writer, recalls her early days in Wyoming. “I landed a job as life-style reporter at the Jackson Hole News, which gave me an excuse to be nosy,” she recalls. She loved finding “distinctly American” stories and interviewing artists, writers, cowboys and “old-timers”—who captivated her with tales of long, cold winters in one-room cabins with hungry wolves howling just outside. On the softer side, she found numerous ranch tales of romance between slim- hipped wranglers and debutantes from the East. “I mean, who doesn’t love a cowboy?” she asks with a smile.
Her unique talent for storytelling resulted in several book contracts, including Cowboy High Style: Thomas Molesworth to the New West and Rocky Mountain Home: Spirited Western Hideaways. She enjoyed collaborating with British photographer Peter Woloszynski.
“Mom’s kitchen in her 200- year-old cabin,” says Flood. | Photo Lisa Flood
“A natural-light photographer, he introduced me to a different—more European—way of shooting interiors,” she says. Eventually she was not only the writer but took on the role of his photo assistant. Flood began taking black-and-white photos with her husband’s old Nikon film camera that she found “abandoned” in a box in the garage. “It was something for me to do while hanging out with my two kids,” she says. Recognizing her talent, Woloszynski introduced her to Joanna Maclennan, co-founder (along with Tim Clinch) of Two Photographers, brilliant online photo mentoring workshops that helped Flood develop her craft.
Model Lela Rose in Wilson, Wyoming, wearing Flood’s grandfather’s wooly chaps. | Photo Lisa Flood
Today, she still writes but is also a much-sought- after photographer whose work has been published in numerous magazines, including Mountain Living, House & Garden, House Beautiful, Country Living, Cowgirl Magazine and Western Art & Architecture.
A photo of Christian von Strasser for his modeling portfolio. | Photo Lisa Flood
Recently, she was “Highly Commended” in the Food for Celebration category of London’s prestigious Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year—essentially, the Oscars of the food photography world. Her winning photo hung alongside those of other finalists from around the world in Britain’s Royal Photographic Society. “Two young friends of mine wore last year’s Easter dresses and their rodeo boots to celebrate the birthday…in my kitchen…of the pony they learned to ride on,” says Flood. “I like to create and style scenes in unexpected places—and I never want to forget that taking pictures is a lot of fun,” she adds.
The exterior of Lela Rose Ranch store in Wilson, Wyoming. “Lela working late and her dog, Bobbin, who she is rarely without, waits outside,” says Flood. | Photo Lisa Flood
“Pony’s Birthday” (photographed in Flood’s kitchen) was selected from among the Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year archive to be included in a series of beautiful short films promoting the award. | Photo Lisa Flood
