Big Words and Muffled Footsteps

This has been a good week. School has laid off a bit for the present--enough to allow me to think and to get back into my normal routine, including taking outfit pictures. What I've realized in not taking outfit pictures as much lately is that it's grown to be something that's really important to me. For starters, it forces me to think critically about how I dress and makes me dress well. It also creates a record of what I've worn that's interesting to return to later. These are the reasons I started taking outfit pictures in the first place. Lately, though, it's become more to me than that. When I first started taking outfit pictures, I was only documenting the outfits. Now, in documenting my outfits, I am also documenting myself. And that act of regularly recording myself  through photography has become central to my being (okay, maybe that's a little dramatic, but it's sort of true). It's more the process of taking the pictures that's important to me, rather than the final product. I know myself through the process of photographing myself. I understand myself.  I come to terms with myself. Maybe it's narcissistic, but I think photographing myself is a really important part of my process of self-awareness.





Sweater- Target, shirt- H&M, skirt- UO, tights- Nordstrom, socks- Target, shoes- Target.

PS I think I have a thing for old cars.

Fake Empire

“Fashion photography is based on the fact that something can be more beautiful in a photograph than in real life”
~Susan Sontag

Lately, I've been thinking about what I love so much about fashion photography. Of course, the clothes are nice, but that's not all. My photography program at school is very fine art based and it's not that fashion photography is explicitly looked down upon, but hearing "this looks straight out of a magazine" or "this looks very commercial" is not necessarily a compliment in critique. There's an assumption, I think, that fashion photographers are selling out. And I suppose they have to to a certain extent. But all good fashion photographers maintain their own vision. And that's what interests me. In their images, they physically realize their imaginings, selecting aspects of the real world and constructing them into a new one, fantastical or not. I like photographs that, down to the very last detail, create a world to get lost in. And the truth is I like any medium of expression that can do that--I think there are books and songs that function in the same way--but for me, photography does it best. And yes, all sorts of photography function in this way, but the whole point of fashion photography and any product photography is to create a world in which the product would fit and function beautifully. So maybe it lacks some of the depth and compexity of "fine art" (arguable, of course) and maybe it distorts the truth, but there is value to it. To me, anyway. I guess I've always liked getting lost in other worlds...

(Right now, I'm really digging this editorial--Dream Sequence--from W October 2009 by Paolo Roversi via Fashion Gone Rogue)

PS Sorry about the delay on my massive film post. I've been waiting until I get my current roll developed, but it's taking me forever. I only have one exposure left, but I can't take any old photo just to finish it off. I can't waste it.

Good Day Sunshine

I've definitely been functioning on one-day-at-a-time mode for the last week or so. There's just so much to do that I can only do whatever is absolutely necessary for the next day. I guess this is subsistence living, barely scraping by. I'm hoping I can catch up and get ahead a little this weekend so that I can start thinking ahead again (and maybe have more time to take pictures and blog them). Not being able to see forward beyond a couple days is wearing me down.

These pictures, however, make me very happy. We had a long grey, rainy stretch that was not so conducive to picture-taking, but much to my pleasure, the sun finally made an appearance. I'd say this outfit has become my typical lazy day outfit. I believe the first and last time that I posted an outfit with pants was back in May of last year (here, in fact). I finally found some pants that I approve of (enough, anyway), so I got them in both green and black. I've also been wearing these shoes basically non-stop, so I'm surprised they hadn't found their way into any outfit pictures yet. I'm glad to finally have the components necessary to make a lazy outfit that doesn't make me feel like complete crap. Because, let's face it, some days you just don't want to deal with tights and skirts that like to blow around and shoes that do nothing to protect your feet from the elements. Or maybe that's just me...








Jacket- thrifted, shirt- Forever 21, pants- Land's End (of all places), shoes- Jeffrey Campbell.

Also, I recently indulged in a Moleskine. I'd never bought one before (they are a tad expensive), but it's proved to be all that I needed and so much more. Also, it seems to help me fit in with my art major classmates as they seem to all have them as well (it is the "legendary notebook of Picasso" after all). Anyway, these pictures are just silly ones that I took to act as a visual love note to mine...

Waiting for Life to Start

I keep going longer and longer between blog posts. I think this might be the longest I've ever gone. Partly I'm really busy. Partly I'm really tired. And partly, I'm just not that excited about blogging anymore. For a long time, blogging was the center of my life and not just something that I wanted to do, but something that I needed to do. Now, I don't need to blog. All the things that I used to do for the blog--taking pictures, researching photographers, etc.--I'm perfectly happy just to do for myself. I used to feel like what's the point of doing all this work if no one's ever going to see it, but now I know. I would not be the person that I am if not for everything that I've done through blogging. But the person that I've become through blogging doesn't really need to blog, if that makes any sense.

This doesn't mean at all that I'm going to stop blogging. It just means that I'm going to change my focus. Blogging has become a bit of a chore lately and I don't want it to be that, so I'm really only going to blog when I want to. And maybe this will be liberating and actually mean that I'll blog more. We'll see. I'm in this crazy state of transition right now where I've become completely uprooted and everything I've ever planned for and wanted has been thrown aside. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do both artistically and generally as a person. So I think that's what this blog is going to be about: figuring things out. From your perspective, what I post might not be that different from what I have posted in the past, but it will be different for me.

This weekend the youth symphony I play with had a retreat. We rode buses up the freeway, away from the city and through the fog towards the fields and forests. In addition to the ordeal of 15 hours of rehearsals, it was strange to spend a couple days in such close quarters with people my own age. Never have I seen so much texting in my life (so I guess this is what I missed in skipping high school). What struck me, though, was how they looked when they weren't prepared to be seen. How they looked first thing after wake-up call, straggling into the bathroom, make-up not yet applied, hair still mussed from sleep. I love how faces look first thing in the morning, slightly swollen, puffy and rosy. They look vulnerable. They look human. There's a beauty to it that's lost the moment we begin to prepare for the day, fixing ourselves up. I'm not saying we shouldn't care for our appearances, I'm merely saying that maybe we should take a moment longer to appreciate the humanity and vulnerability before we begin to disguise it.

These photos by Claire Sloan seem to capture that vulnerability perfectly. As she says on her website, "these photographs are 6-8 hour exposures of myself sleeping, each one capturing the dreaming, the subtle movements and the peacefulness found in the course of one sleep cycle." I just love how simple and authentic they are.

PS I took a roll of film over the weekend and I actually have a bunch of other rolls to be scanned, too, so I might do a massive film post soon.

Blue-Blazered

It's been a bit of a whirl-wind of a week. After registering for, attending and subsequently dropping 3 different classes in an attempt to fill a hole in my schedule, I somewhat by chance ended up in a class about the history of fashion, centered around its development in Italy and its relation to nationalism and culture. I'm not going to lie--I'm fairly excited for this course, which probably isn't a surprise to you, my blog readers (this being a fashion-ish blog after all). However, every single person I have told about this class has told me "Oh well, if that's all you can get, I guess you'll just have to make the best of it." They assume that this will be a fluff course, filler. No one can even fathom that this class could possibly be academically rigorous. And that really bothers me. Why? Because they're trivializing fashion. Because fashion is so strongly related to capitalism and consumerism, to excess and indulgence, people don't take it seriously. People often trivialize photography, as well, due to the ridiculously prevalent idea that, unlike other art forms, photography doesn't take any particular skill and anyone can do it. People are always looking for excuses to not take seriously things they don't understand. And they usually succeed. Why not take the time to understand instead? But that's the way of the world.



(^This is me trying to be artsy with puddles, haha.)



(^This is me demonstrating what one ought to do when one encounters a puddle while walking, rather than undertaking the arduous task of walking around it.)


Blazer- thrifted, shirt- thrifted, skirt- thrifted, tights- Target, shoes- Payless. (For some reason, I always end up pairing thrifted things with other thrifted things. It's like all or nothing, I guess.)

When There's Nowhere Else To Run

I'd pretty much given up on runway shows as a source of inspiration recently, because I had decided that it is just too much work to weed through all of them when they don't have much relation to the real world anyway. But then I was going through the extraordinarily large folder entitled "Runway" on my computer and I kept coming across perfect looks that I would love to try to recreate, so I changed my mind again. You just have to know what to look for in runway pictures. Yes, the clothes are probably more expensive than you can ever afford and yes, they are mostly just as impractical, but that doesn't mean you can't catch onto something from the silhouette, or from the combination of patterns, colors and textures, or even just from the overall vibe of it. Looking through all of my old favorite runway shows (regardless of season), I caught a small glimmer of an idea of how I want to dress this year and hopefully with a little more thinking, I'll be able to flesh it out (err, somewhat literally). So I put together a little collection of inspirations for how to wear my new brocade skirt, ranging (roughly) from evening glam to daytime grunge. I'm loving the dressed up details of the first pictures, but honestly I don't think you can beat the effortless cool of those last 3 Proenza Schouler looks.
(D&G Fall 09, 3.1 Phillip Lim Fall 08, Abaete Fall 09, DKNY Fall 08, Christian Lacroix Fall 09 x2, Thakoon Resort 09, Proenza Schouler Pre-Fall 09 x3--All photos from Style.com)

I'm Not the Way You Found Me

Hello 2010.

(^This is me looking into the future. It's very bright. So bright that I couldn't see anything at all. Yeah, I like to be cheesy sometimes.)

2009 was almost certainly the most surprising and unexpected year of my life so far. If someone had told me a year ago that I would be a photo major in under a year, I definitely would have been like "yeah, right." I had never even used an SLR camera at that point. And here I am. A lot of amazing things happened to me last year and I got a lot more opportunities than I ever would have imagined. And I'm thankful for that. I really am. But it's not enough. Honestly, I think 2009 was the most frustrating, unsatisfying, disappointing, exhausting, unhappy year of my life so far. What 2009 made me realize is that the more change happens, the more change needs to happen. My life changed a lot last year, but it's not enough. The more things change, the more unsatisfied I am with the things that haven't changed. I haven't made any resolutions for 2010. I just can't quite verbalize what it is that I want--and, more importantly, what it is that I need. Yet. So we'll just have to see what 2010 has in store for me. I'm ready.







Shirt- thrifted, cardigan- Old Navy, skirt- H&M, tights- gift, shoes- Target, bag- Nine West (via TJ Maxx).

PS Thank you so much to all my readers who supported me through 2009, through the good times and the bad. I really and truly appreciate all of you. Happy New Year!