Horseback

Though blurry, I love this photo - and my sister's gorgeous smile.

My sister and I don’t often plan our shoots - and on the not-so-common occasion that the desire to have a photo shoot is mutual, we often sit and contemplate a theme - and what on earth we’re going to wear.
However, with this shoot Ireland had an idea that she introduced to me by saying: ‘well, I have this nice flowy dress, and a currently (reasonably) clean horse….’

We hadn’t done a photo shoot in about two weeks (hence me not posting for a while – that and slow Internet.) So barefoot, with long dresses and a sweet horse on a warm afternoon: perfect.
I am so happy with the photos I got of my sister, and am glad I got her to flip her hair in that first photo - it turned out to be brilliant (and some great posing on the horse's part, too.) The horse (Crystal) was nice and calm throughout the whole shoot, while we snapped shots, posed, and got covered in lovely brown and white horse hairs.

I've known Crystal since she was born (bred by my paternal grandfather) and we inherited her after he passed away. We can inherit some wonderful things from family members (also a lot of things I hear fondly talked about and wish that my grandma had have kept them) but Crystal was the best thing.

The white nightgown Ireland is wearing is from my grandma, and the dress I'm wearing is also from my grandma (although it was given to my mum to up-cycle, I just borrowed it.)

Tape, Paper, Scissors

 When you say to someone "I'm bored, there's nothing to do" the answer favoured by parents is "there's always something to do." But I doubt they'd expect that something to be ripping and cutting up old newspapers and taping it onto your older sister (whom after about ten minutes was regretful she ever agreed to such a thing.) Making the dress took about half an hour (though I'm sure Ireland thought it a lot longer) and although I lost my patience a bit with Ireland when she kept moving, it was actually quite fun. Though the best part was taking photos, and then ripping it off:

I made the flower in her hair the day before (out of newspaper too) to match a newspaper dress currently still on a dressmaker's dummy (this newspaper dress can be removed and undamaged, unlike the one I made onto my sister.) But my dress is still a work in progress - though I'm hoping to finish it soon!

Model: Ireland
Photos by Me
Newspaper Dress
& Flower by me.

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.

Rest Stop Photo-Shoots

All photos taken by me
Model: Ireland

One of the best things about having my own camera is being able to take it with me anywhere, so if I come across a beautiful place - I can just turn it on and take some photos of my sister (who is always a lovely and willing model.) Like yesterday, when I jumped at the opportunity to take photos of my sister under a tree that was dropping gorgeous pink flowers and yellow leaves (pink and yellow is not normally a colour combination that I like – but this was lovely.)
Unfortunately the ground was a bit wet, which lead to a bit of complaining on my sister’s part when I asked her to lie down amongst these fallen leaves and flowers - so I could fill the frame with just the colourful vegetation and her (as well as the fact that it gave me the ability to sprinkle some of the flowers in her hair.)
All these photos of my stunning sister were taken at rest stops we pulled into during a six hour all round car drive to see family members, which involved lots of talking and listening to Florence + the Machine.

Though we only stayed overnight, it was great to see my relatives again and celebrate my grandfather's birthday, as well as seeing cousins and an uncle awesome uncle - big thank you to that awesome uncle, who bought my sister and me some high top converse. I got the classic black and white converse, but if I had the money, I'd own green, red, blue and hand painted ones with the tardis and Doctor Who quotes.
I think these converse are going to be showing up on this blog often, as they can work in so many different outfits (as well as the fact that they are some really good looking shoes.)

Also, thank you to those who commented on my last post, although so far it was only two, it was very interesting to read about what goes on in your fashion/photography shoots.

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.

Ever Changing Taste

 Do you ever wonder what your much younger self would think of your style? Do you think the former you would approve? I think the smaller me would definitely approve of the fact that this sparkly knit jumper was taken from my sister's wardrobe, or that I wore an outfit made with pyjama shorts (made by a friend). But I think what my younger self would mostly approve of, is that as I write, I'm eating chocolate. 

My taste has changed a lot over the years, such as becoming a vegetarian at the age of six,  completely going off certain foods or hating any shoes that were wedges, to then be dreaming about the outfits I’d put with a pair of red suede ones I saw on eBay.

At about the age of five, I would wear rainbow striped T-shirts I accidentally put on backwards, and a pair of bright red three quarter pants with a tie-up belt that I kept double knotting (a nightmare to undo.) Though the bright colours I wore, at that age I loved the dark tulle skirts, knee high lace up boots and ripped tights I saw donned by Goths - though not the white faces and panda eye make-up, that kind of scared me.
And while an eight year old with a sort of tomboy style, I fancied sixties velvet mini dresses, mushroom pinks, and fur pillbox hats – some things that I actually really love now.
I'm not entirely sure if I would’ve liked my current style choices, and I look back on some of the designs that I drew a couple years ago and am definitely not a fan of the metallic green ruched strapless dress, or the aqua blue maxi I designed.
But your style will always change and be influenced, but I don't think I’m ever going to like fluoro bubble skirts or mint green polyester shirt dresses. 

I did this shoot a couple of months ago with my sister, and was quite happy with how the photos turned out.
The theme was very much inspired by our childhood style - though with much less layers, as our former selves would wear puff sleeved vintage fuchsia formal dresses and sheer second hand scarves, only to be hidden under more layers of blue chequered sheets belted with colourful sashes. 

Adding to the jumper and pyjama shorts, I borrowed a pair of my sister's knee high stripy socks,  some stripy mary jane flats from a charity shop, my grandma bought the heart horse necklace and the pearl pendant was from a market. The watch is vintage from a charity shop and the Pandora bracelet holds a few of my mum's handmade glass beads, and because it was something I loved to do when I was younger, I put Christmas decorations in my hair.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

 During the time my sister was in Melbourne for a few days and my darling godsister - Jazz, was staying over, I had found that my sister had bought Lewis Carroll's 1920s Miniature Edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. When my Mum told us this, it had seemed so very funny at the time, given that the shoot we'd done that afternoon was Alice in Wonderland themed.

As I read this beautiful book, I feel immersed not only by the story but by the care one must take with the the fragile pages and delicate binding, and I was glad to discover that I wasn't the only one who loved the scent of old books and enjoyed that sweet smell that invades your senses as you read. I love old books, especially ones that need to be handled with extra care because they threaten to fall apart in your hands, recently my Mum and I visited a Book Trader's store, where I found myself instantly darting to the back of the shop where the old classics were. My eyes had scanned for A tale of two cities and Pride & Prejudice but settled on The Bronte Sisters and I found myself picking up Wuthering Heights. I also spotted many other classics I'd heard of, and then I started just stroking the spines of the books and picking out books not for their names but their covers - Beautifully bound with leather, pages so ancient they look as if they're about to crumble, pages that actually are about to crumble, or their size that have a satisfactory weight in your hands.

It was a different and wonderful experience, too, when I found myself in the penguin section, I've always loved the orange and white covers of penguin books. After leaving, I realised how much I missed old book stores.

This beautiful vintage ball gown was bought by my mum in the 80s (I'm pretty sure anyway) and was shortened a bit due to my mum's height. The vintage T-bars were a charity shop find for my mum to sell on Etsy, and having a small foot size, Jazz managed to fit into them. Other than the fluffy second-hand top hat in one photo, the only other thing added was the lace sash - as the beautiful colours and pattern of the dress are enough. The addition of orange lipstick went well with the orange colour in the pattern, as well as the beautiful blue sky that showed the weather was on our side for a shoot that day.

 Something that has always been a part of my love of old and vintage things, is the history of it, the mysterious life it had before it was worn wandering about fields for photoshoots or part of an outfit for going out. Whilst reading this Miniature Edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, I would wonder about previous owners, maybe if it was read aloud outside under the shade of a tree, while the listener made a daisy chain, like Alice herself.