Grey Skies

The photos were taken by my sister today - which was actually mostly sunny, but at the first signs of a rather brief shower of rain, we grabbed umbrellas and pulled on our gumboots, mine paired with a charity shopped red hoodie, black tights, and shorts bought from Supré (back when their clothes weren't made in China.) Also, sorry for yet another post with a title that lacks creativity.

I was trying to think of a start to this post that wasn't about me once again being a neglectful blogger (sorry!) or the weather, but with it being more than three weeks since I last posted and with having some major weather recently, this start to the post is only one that didn't end up getting deleted.

So, to the weather, something that has been constantly showing up on my facebook news feed - people posting how much rain they've had, some sharing photos of flooded buildings and streets, constant warnings and updates. While where I am, all that we got was some wonderful rain and strong winds on Saturday (woke up the next morning to some broken off branches and the outside of my house being peppered with leaves). People nearby have had to evacuate their homes due to serious flooding, others were also affected by tornadoes the other day. My heart goes out to everyone, especially those who have been injured and the loved ones of those who have died. The destruction to people's homes and shops is devastating, and I can only imagine how awful it must be.

So for now I'm just hoping to see a little bit better news when I check the updates tomorrow.

And for something a little more cheerful, here's an un-edited photo I took this afternoon of a rainbow at sunset.

Portrait Photography and Writing

An extra photo from my Alice in Wonderland shoot with Jazz.
Photo by me

Felt & Velvet hat - vintage, Jacket - vintage, Dress - Charity/Op-shop
Photo by my sister

Ireland is wearing a fedora from a vintage market stall, not sure about the sunglasses.
Photo by me

Same vintage hat, brown velvet gloves - vintage, top - charity/op-shop
Photo by me

Is this eye-shot still considered a portrait or not?
Photo by me

It has been perfect writing, reading and hot chocolate weather recently (yes, I’m talking about the weather again.) All grey skies and endless days of cold and rain, with no opportunity for a shoot. But I’m perfectly content with lounging about and reading classic literature (finished Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and I’m onto Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.) I’m really enjoying Sherlock Holmes, the writing style took a bit of getting used to, but it’s a wonderful read, has anyone else read it? 
Recently I haven’t been very comfortable with my writing, if I’m in the right mood I can write an alright post, but when I’m not I mostly try to lengthen them and often seem like I’m just listing things. I forget that it’s okay to just post some photos and write a quick bit of text. There’s a lot of self expectancy in the way I write – trying to write a hundred times better than I actually can, which leads to less relaxed posts. (So I’m going to delete my last post, as it was an example of this.)

I’ve only been writing a blog for a short time, but I’m hoping that this will help in improving my writing, because it’s something that I love so much. This blog has been really self beneficial and I’m really enjoying doing the photo-shoots for it as well, it’s also been really lovely getting comments (to me a new comment is a bit like getting a letter in the mail.)

Last year the idea of writing a blog would never have even occurred to me, but after seeing my sister’s blog and knowing how much she enjoyed blogging, I decided to give it a go. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it, as the previous writing I did was the occasional short stories and several long ones that never get even close to finishing (all fantasy of course.) And this kind of writing has really gotten me interested in the idea of journalism, it has also, in a way, been helping me with my fictional story writing.

Blended into the Background

Uncertain if it should be blue skies and warm sun, or very much ‘cold grey days’ that call for the need of warm clothes, the weather has been fairly unpredictable. These photos were taken in a shoot with my sister only a couple of days ago on a warm, sunny afternoon. Now as I write, the grass heads that were a gold rust colour, are slowly dripping with this morning's collected rain.

I chose this vintage dress because the colours tied so well with the background and that lovely light! I think the print of the dress looks very much like a rich coloured painting of a garden.

You can usually count on my sister being the person that takes the photos of me for this blog, and I'm often the photographer for the photos on her blog - although sometimes my mum is the photographer. But I still always enjoy a photo-shoot, whether it's me behind the camera, me in front of the camera, or taking turns in both posing and clicking the camera button. In a shoot with my sister, the styling is our own, while often I'm constantly demanding Ireland to do certain poses - and sometimes very challenging ones. But in this shoot, though there was still a lot of me trying to get Ireland to keep a pose while I try to photograph it at different angles, there was also a lot of Ireland's demands for me to jump. Though unfortunately the pictures of me doing so, have all been taken in sports mode (as well as a lot of other photos) so they were unusable. 

This shoot took part in one of our horse paddocks, which to get to was only a simple walk from our house, with me collecting pink and orange flowers as we went, avoiding getting weeds and seed heads stuck in our clothes - which has become something of a talent. This was in the place that yesterday I ran around in after discovering a technique that gave my horse (and me) a bit of a workout: I gave him some food, kept some, and ran for it - very successful (if of course you have a horse that loves food - and I've never met a horse that doesn't!)

I found this vintage dress under a red silk maxi and a dusty pink nightgown in a small pile of my mum's hoards of vintage and second hand clothes from charity shops. It's flattering shape and busy print suggested for the rest of the clothes to be simple, and behold - a floppy wool felted hat ($5 on sale from JayJays), and a vintage silk sash.

If you're someone that does fashion/photography shoots, I'd love it if you left a comment on what goes on during them. Are you positioned by the photographer, or as a photographer, do you like to get the model to do certain poses? Is there often a lot of talking and fun while you're in the middle of a photo-shoot? And who takes your photos? I'd be interested to know.

Just a little update

It's been quite a while since I last updated my blog, so here I am. My sister, Ireland is currently in Melbourne with our dad to see a Scottish Motorbike Trials...err...thing. So my gorgeous godsister, Jazz, is staying over for a few days - which means lots of fun, craziness and photoshoots...which will probably show up here after I get round to posting the photos from our previous shoot together (which was when I took the photo above.)

The weather recently has been rather grey, but I'm sure it will go back to cerulean blue skies in no time - that's the weather lately, either not a cloud in the sky or so many clouds you can't see the sky. But I've always been more of a "grey day" kind of girl, as I love cold weather and rugging up, and it was the perfect time to cuddle up and read when I had several new books to do just that (the reading involving barely ever coming out of my room until the book was done, and then moving on to the next.)

I recently got an album from a new favourite musician Florence + the Machine and have been loving the songs from the album Between two lungs. Not sure if that would be an interest to anyone, but she certainly has a very distinct and lovely voice, and the songs in her albums never all sound the same.

Anyway, hopefully the next post won't have too much distance in between.