Summer Garden

 Photos of me taken by my mum mid-December last year in our garden. My silk dress is Victoria's Secret that I got for $4 from a charity shop and dyed (it was originally a light blue). Sorry it's a bit crinkly, but ironing is weird...

Also, Happy Sort-of-New Year!

Perdita

First and last two images were taken with a Pentax k-x and the rest were taken with a Nikon L120
All images (except the black & white photo) are unretouched
Model is my sister, Ireland
Photos taken by me

I really enjoyed taking these photos of my lovely, elegant, semi-willing photography subject, Ireland (although she would call herself my "photography victim"). It takes quite a bit of begging before my sister agrees to do a photo session with me, although I can understand why: I'm very bossy when I'm behind the camera, I get her to lie down in uncomfortable patches of itchy flowers, it means she has to change out of her 'comfy clothes', and I put her in summer dresses whilst forgetting that it's almost winter.It was a surprisingly warm day today, so I didn't think the light dressing would be an issue, but towards the end of the photo shoot Ireland was getting cold and annoyed as I pleaded "Just one more...here, just look over there...no, that didn't work, again....wait, wait, wait, do this". So, big thanks to Ireland for these photos (and for putting up with me).

With the dress, flowers and garland, this shoot felt a little 'Grecian Goddess meets Perdita' although the garland was something I quickly made as an afterthought and the charity shopped silk dress (which in reality is greener than it looks in the photos) was haphazardly plucked from Ireland's wardrobe. 

A Galaxy Of Poems & A Bed Of Vines

I was at a small local secondhand bookshop when the lovely 60's print of this wonderful book of poems caught my eye. I grabbed it excitedly and added to my haul of books. It's the perfect book for reading on a relaxed afternoon in the garden, enjoying poems and poets both familiar and unfamiliar. It has work from poets and writers such as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Keats, Thomas Hardy, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Lord Byron, to others less heard of. To me it has similar qualities to charity shops. I love that charity shops have a range of things, old and new, to search through until you find something to treasure. You don't have to look for anything in particular, just search until something catches your eye (perhaps something that you're surprised you like, either because it's not what would be your usual style or because it's by a creator that you don't usually like). The same goes for this book. I find myself enjoying a variety of different poems and poets. From dark, morbid poems to seasonal poems with autumnal descriptions of golden pears, crisp light and overripe fruits, spring and summer poems telling of babbling brooks, blooming daffodils and faerie feasts.

I have only recently taken an interest in poetry and this book was an excellent place to start. I have taken a particular liking to Byron and Keats and I keep going back to Keats' poem 'To Autumn' every time I open the book. The lines in this beautiful poem are to be savoured, I particularly loved: "With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees" and "While barréd clouds bloom the soft-dying day...".
Anyway, I just wanted to share my love of this book with you. The photos were taken by my mum this afternoon, we sat amongst the green vines that cover a large part of our garden, laughed and took pictures of each other. The vines are not as comfortable as they look.
Oh, and while we were on the subject of poetry, has anyone read this rather brilliant poem 'Our Generation' by a fourteen year old named Jordan Nichols?

In other news, I have just joined Pip Lincolne of Meet Me At Mike's and many other bloggers in Pip's A Year Of Ethical Fashion. I am taking the pledge to only wear ethically. "If I'm looking for things to wear I will only:

a) Buy from ethical makers or

b) Buy second-hand or

c) Make it myself  or

d) Wear things I already own or

e) Borrow or swap garments with friends" - The A Year Of Ethical Fashion pledge.  

You can join in here or on the YOEF Facebook group. I took the pledge in April last year after the tragic Bangladesh factory collapse that killed over one thousand workers. This year I'm continuing to wear ethically and have been introduced to some excellent labels thanks to what's been shared in the facebook group. 

On that note, I should tell you about my the clothes I'm wearing. The shorts (which are actually a darker emerald green) are vintage and were a present from my mum. The silk top is Little Green Dress and was borrowed from my sister. Little Green Dress is a 'slow fashion' label, the clothes are made from sustainable end of run fabrics and are Australian made. I'm even being ethical with my underwear choices: my bra underneath was bought a year or two ago (thankfully still fits well) and my knickers are from Who Made Your Pants? which is a company in the UK that gives fair wage jobs to women who need them to make underwear from end of run fabrics. They also tell you exactly who made them (my very comfortable Cecilia pants were made by Batol & Friends). I was also meant to have a hand-me-down black cardigan with that (so I could match the print of the book) but it was forgotten during the shoot.

A photo summary of spring

                     

Once again I have been a neglectful blogger and haven't posted in almost three months. I almost missed posting during spring entirely, so I wanted to quickly share some spring photos I took.
All the photos of flowers are unedited, the other shots where taken while visiting my beautiful godsister, Jazz, at her new house. We just managed to snap the photos before it rained, so due to the gloomy light some of the photos needed a little editing.
She's wearing a gorgeous silky rayon Tree of Life dress which my mum picked up at a charity shop. The dress was also worn by my other sister, Ireland, in this post.

Jazz is such a brilliant photography subject and has appeared in many other posts: wearing an Alice in Wonderland-esque dress of my mum's here, posing in gorgeous silk layers here, donning a vintage summer dress and flower wreath here, enjoying a tea party in the afternoon light with me here and modelling a gorgeous sixties dress on a grey day here.

Hope to post more this summer!

Green after the rain

These photos were taken yesterday morning when my sister and I put a pile of clothes in a garbage bag and dragged into a now very green paddock. The clothes I wore ended up looking a little bit more "faerie princess" then I thought, which made me feel a little too "girly" which isn't my usual style. But I'm still very happy with the resulting photos (I especially love some of the ones I got of Ireland, doesn't she have the most glorious, heavenly smile?)
Anyway, here's the outfit details:

In the first and last photos Ireland is wearing a handmade sixties style dress I found at a charity shop. In her second ensemble she is wearing a JayJay's hat, the silk top and suede skirt are charity shopped, and my 70's boots (luckily we have similar foot sizes) which I bought from this etsy shop. She is also wearing a pair of green sixties cat-eye glasses in one shot, and vintage charity shopped sunglasses in some others.

As for me, the green suede shoes (worn throughout) were bought at a charity shop early last year (they only fit now.) In the first photos I'm wearing a vintage silk Christian Dior slip, and 40's tap pants (a Christmas present from my mum) and the bracelets and cuff were also gifted. In the second outfit I added a white lace dress and silk sash over the top with a necklace made by my mum, and in the third I'm wearing a seventies silk skirt that used to belong to my grandma, which I hitched up with a charity shopped belt so I could wear it as a dress. Hope you like the photos!

Thinking Summer Thoughts

As soon as summer came, frivolous stick battles with my sister were replaced with merciless water fights, and umbrellas were used to shield oneself from the sun rather than the rain. As well as the fact that suddenly everything I think about is summery. While I'm still wishing it was winter, the things I'm pulling from my wardrobe are seventies cotton sundresses, summer shorts, vintage lightweight skirts, translucent silks, boater hats, and long flowing dresses.
I often tend to romanticise the opposite season to the one I'm in. When it’s winter, I only remember the best of summer, and vice versa. In winter I would wish for summer’s longer days, thinking about how the sun comes up at 4:30 AM and goes down at 7:00 PM - though choosing to ignore the fact that the sun is already burning by six in the morning.Instead, I would remember days when my sister, a friend and I would go riding around on our horses bareback, picking mangoes, mistletoe berries and lychees from trees. We would go swimming with the horses, jumping into the water, splashing and picking waterlilies. Then we’d dry off in the sun, watching the horses and laughing as they played and rolled in the grass. Although now, as it’s summer, I’m often thinking of the times in winter when I can wrap myself in shawls and curl up with hot tea or coffee and a book. Or how nice it is to go to sleep because my doona seems to be extra cosy in winter, or the feeling of going to sleep when it’s pouring down with rain outside. I can easily forget about the sluggishness one can often feel in winter, as well as the fact that winter’s weather gives awful grey light (which is not so great when you want to go outside and take photos!)

A couple of posts back, in this post, a few people in the northern hemisphere commented on it about longing for warm weather (while I had been talking about wishing for the cold!) it seems that it's not just me that's craving for the opposite seasons.
But while I don't cope well with the heat, I feel a little anxiety as Summer nears to an end. I want to get some more summery shoots done (and possibly a few more water fights.) And basically just embrace Summer while it's here, because when it's gone I'll be missing it.

So, above is a couple of photos from a very brief shoot last week. My sister's wearing a charity shopped rayon Tree Of Life dress. My dress (which has already been worn over a Christian Dior slip in a shoot here) I got from a local charity shop for $4, it's a Victoria's Secret silk dress that still had it's tags (showing it was $57). It was originally light blue but I dyed it teal (though of course you can't see the colour in the black and white photo.)
And below is some more summery pictures to fit the theme of this post which were taken last year in late spring.