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!

Thoughts Like Flowers

Spring has sprung,
the grass is riz,
I wonder where the flowers is?

I seriously did wonder 'where the flowers is’; after all, it is spring. This morning I wandered down to the garden in pursuit of finding some, the result being a bunch of different and colourful flowers.
As is regularity with me, I started thinking. About everything - the thoughts going through my head were as random as weeds and as variously shaped and coloured as my collection of flowers.
Sometimes I feel as if my mind is a garden. How an idea can be like coming across a fruit on a tree - you might want to leave it for some time to grow and ripen, so it may become richer and sweeter. Thoughts may be scanned like a patch of flowers for one of interest to be picked. Or the way unwanted ones pop up like weeds and even if you get rid of them, they come back.

I guess I was wandering through two gardens, browsing both thoughts and flowers. The real garden is lacking in maintenance, overgrown, and taken over by weeds (which can resemble my mind sometimes.) It's not beautiful, but since I've become a lover of photography, I've been able to admire a place for just a small part of it, because that part - even if it’s only small - can fill the frame of a camera. I could have a subject in front of a patch of flowers, and no one else would see the surrounding weeds outside of the frame. This lead to a few thoughts about appearance and gave me a different perspective on beauty - that nothing has to be completely perfect, because everything has imperfections, and you must admire the features that are beautiful. This is something that has helped me on how I view my own appearance.

It's so easy to find things in ourselves that we don't like. While I'm very insecure that I have permanent scarring under my lip from an accident when I was younger, most people don't notice. I'm constantly looking at how one of my hips is higher than the other, a collarbone more prominent, a slightly twisted ribcage and misshapen back (all of that being a result of slouching all the time, causing my back to curve as I grew), but I'm told it's not as noticeable as I think. What I’m saying is that we often judge ourselves (particularly our abilities and appearance) too harshly, scrutinizing every imperfection until we make ourselves feel terrible, instead of focusing on some of the things we like about ourselves.

Its times like these that I step back and can see how my thoughts can truly affect how I see myself and thus how others see me as well. This makes me realise that I need to endeavour to look at what I like about myself rather than every little imperfection. A goal I will continue to strive towards on a daily basis.

My lovely mum took these photos on an afternoon walk.
The Floral dress was bought second hand at a market stall a long time ago, I bought the orange dress on sale at JayJays (also some time ago), and it's a bit too small for me now. My mum bought me the vintage 60's pin, the memory-wire bracelet is one that I made when I was eleven. Green Colorado leather bag, vintage 70's leather boots, and belt - all from charity shops. The ring was my Grandma's.

Oh, and sorry if this post was little long!

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.