Love. Life. Lara.

If you got in a car and drove four hours north of Los Angeles, as Lara Worthington and photographer Darren McDonald did a few months ago, you might find yourself standing at the foot of one of the world’s biggest trees. Giant sequoias are ancient and enormous, towering cinnamon-barked behemoths that can climb up to 83 metres tall. Once upon a time, they grew all over the northern hemisphere. But today they are located almost entirely in a handful of groves scattered across the state of California, including the one that Worthington and McDonald holed up in for two days, creating this marie claire photoshoot.

While McDonald was behind the camera, Worthington was committed to everything else, from styling – which included some of her own clothes – to doing her own hair and makeup. It was her idea to escape the city, away from the tentacles of a global pandemic and her “crazy” home in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband, actor Sam Worthington, and their three young