Wednesday, May 29, 2013

with silver bells and cockleshells







Some film photos from the weekend.

This post seems relevant right now. I'm very into reflections, sky, water, reflections on water, shadows, the suns rays, freckles and bouffant but stray and wispy peroxide blonde hair, clouds in the sky, 'slick' looking editorials with obvious flash or overexposed film and the silver/gold, blue colours that lend themselves to these sorts of photos. I've been scared of colour for a long time and I only started embracing it more this year and last year. Before 2012 I was most comfortable in dark granny florals, charity shop size 20 blouses and skirts that may as well have not had a waistband because I had to wear belts with everything all the time. I used to stick to 'safe' colours because otherwise I couldn't match anything. I am very conscious about matching my clothes. Now I have more clothes I have more than two things of the same colour so I can wear both and match. I hope I grow out of this because it is a really annoying habit and I can't rest until my clothes are cohesive. I think I have a happier medium now though, and colour allows me to be more creative. I started using the lookbook I signed up for in February 2011 the other day because it felt time to. I had always wanted to upload outfits but knew I wasn't totally ready, I was still striving to be better. I'm very tenacious and find myself rewriting essays because I make one mistake or lines overlap themselves. I redid pages of my textiles coursework 10+ times all the while knowing I wouldn't gain any marks for it, I just couldn't leave it alone. This means that sometimes I can't bring myself to even begin writing notes in lessons in case they aren't neat. I am a perfectionist and people see it as laziness (my physics teacher sees it as laziness) but the amount of discarded a4 sheets of paper at the bottom of my bag with a slightly slanted title or smudged ink (the bane of being left handed doesn't help either) are testament to a weird mentality I have about faultlessness. My instagram grid is another archetype of it, and it's biggest manifestation is in my clothes. I have been blogging for roughly 3 years now (not on this blog, the first two years were on my old blogspot, the reason I started a new one being that I felt I had changed too much to continue my old one) which seems like a long time to be documenting. I see it as a feat in itself because I spend a long time meticulously arranging things on here and clicking preview to see what it looks like, so publishing anything at all is like, a big deal. I also feel like people actually read this now, which I've never really had before. Sharing things online now isn't just documenting it for myself, which is what it was for a long time, but it now entails the possibility of people from school reading it, strangers, friends, even family. I'm not even saying what I put here is at all good, I just have to feel comfortable with it myself, which seems to be becoming ever more difficult as I become more aware of myself with age and the fact more people are going to react to it, which is awesome, but daunting. By the way, I'm only being really introspective because I turned 16 on Saturday and I've been apprehensive about it for a long time. Suddenly becoming a 'new' age after 365 days of being a different one, i felt, seems to feel like it should signify a 'change'. When you tell people you are an older age they expect different things of you. Things you achieve at 25 would have been more impressive if you had done them at 11 years of age. But really, you've been growing up a little bit over the span of those 365 days, there's just no milestone. People have asked me 'what does it feel like being 16?'. Well, it kinda feels exactly the same as I felt last week when I was 15 but for some reason I'm suddenly considered more mature and in the eyes of the law am now able to buy a lottery ticket, so yeah, I feel like a completely different person. I know I'm thinking about it too much and we need to have ages to gage how old people are, obviously, a 4 year old rarely has the same level of maturity as a 9 year old, and we can only see changes in people in retrospect, after enough time has lapsed to notice a difference. The fact this is signified by a specific date seems odd, but necessary, and I've been struggling with how I should be a better version of myself now I'm 16. In starting A Levels next year I need to really start working efficiently and dressing with less regiment, because I won't have a uniform to rely on anymore. I applaud you if you read all of that because it was effort to spell check.

Some photos (film) I took in London last weekend. I think they fit with the few lines above I wrote outlining inspirations and things that I've found interesting.




I love the reflections in this, and I feel like I couldn't have captured them on a digital camera. I feel empty without my ae-1 now despite having only used what, 4 rolls of film on it. It's a big step up from using the occasional disposable camera and it's costing me a fortune in film/processing but it's really cool to be able to take photos more manually, with less influence of automatic settings on a digital platform.


Marilyn Monroe, Me in Malta, Source unknown, Petra Collin, Petra Collins, Photo from tumblr captioned 'By Acidill'.


“Agricola Agricolam Agricolae”, The Face UK, October 1997, Rookie mag, Little House on the Prairie, Chanel, Little House on the Prairie, Unknown.


Britt Ekland, by Cleo Sullivan for Show 1999, I think this photo is a scan of mine from a book but it was saved on my computer and I don't know, Unknown, Petra Collins (by Maya Fuhr?), by Rosalind Duguid, an old disposable I took in 2011.

These are some music videos that are very visually enticing. If I haven't mentioned MS MR enough across my sprawl of social media sights recently, I'm going to do it again anyway. I discovered them through watching an online show called The Fox Problem (with Gemma Cairney) about a month ago; they were video calling to be on it and they played an excerpt of 'Hurricane'. They only have two music videos but both are divine. I probably prefer Fantasy though. I realise you may not want to watch the video itself so I screencapped them. It was hard to resist screencapping every frame.









The colours in this Noah and The Whale video are similar to the ones in Fantasy. The same cheerleader theme runs through both, and the added fact that Autumn de Wilde directed and filmed this makes it all the more excellent. As well as Charlie Fink's hair. The model, Megan Nison, has a Lara Stone/Emma Stone (maybe she is a long lost stone) likeness and she also looks exactly like a girl in my geography class, but she is ginger, not a dreamy peroxide blonde (have you grasped that I really want to be blonde for summer yet). I sort of want a goofy tooth gap but my teeth are already bucked so I'd only look alien, not like Lara Stone.

- Hollie

Sunday, May 26, 2013

bookworm



Pink tweed suit from eBay (I had to alter this from a size 18 to an 8 which was a feat), top from Etsy, dagger collar shirt from Ebay, Tan bowling bag from Rokit in Covent garden - it used to be my school bag in year 8 -, cream converse, topshop socks, button barrette I found that I glued last summer.

Last Saturday was me living out many Harry Potter/fangirl dreams in one go. I dressed vicariously through Dolores Umbridge (I found myself searching vintage tweed suit on eBay a month ago and found a garish pink one for £12(it was by accident but everyone has been telling me it's in her vein) and saw Jessie Cave's comedy show Bookworm at the Soho Theatre. (Jessie Cave played Lavender Brown in Harry Potter.) I discovered her website pindippy pretty much exactly a year ago and have followed her twitter/videos/instagrams ever since. I wrote a typical fangirl email to her last June/July but never sent it and once she favourited my tweet at about 1am and it was the highlight of my day/biology lesson being able to tell fellow fandom obsessee Abi the next morning. I went with my mum for my birthday because London is like, 2 hours away so it was a bit of a trek to get there. The show itself was amazing and exceeded expectations. I would definitely recommend it and do sit in the front row because her sister Bebe will give you gingerbread. If you want a more accurate less contained version of events see here. I think I may be going again this month but then again maybe not - It depends on travel arrangements and stuff, but do go! I may meet you! We can discuss Jessie Cave over the internet together afterwards!


Me, cakes in Soho.


My feet on the floor of a bookshop in Soho.




Ed's Diner.


Some film photos from last weekend. The top one at Baker Street station was going to be the outfit photo part of this post but I opened the back of the camera by accident while I was absent mindedly fiddling with stuff so it has a light leak. I had bjork buns last Saturday because my hair was too long and dead and horrible. I had it cut yesterday though so I took some photos today, hence why my hair is down in them.

I think Dolores Umbridge's office is severely underrated.


The cat plates, desk, balloon lamp, curtains, carpet.



See mohair, lace and chaise lounge. 


Note tea cup.


Notice boucle cape and brooch.

It's half term now so I'm catching up with outfit posts. I've done over half of my exams and they have been ok to good with the exception of Physics. God help me with physics. After June 17th I am free for the summer so I'm counting down already.

- Hollie

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

melancholy saturation


Photos from my leavers day last Thursday. There are others but they're mainly of people so I don't think they'd appreciate them being here! They were taken on my canon ae-1 if you wondered. Year 11 leavers day is a sort of pranks/dressing up thing, hence the pictures of people covered in foam with water guns below. The two converse ones below weren't posed, which I thought was cool. The one above is my converse with my wayfarer bike.











I will get back to outfit posts after exams!

- Hollie



Sunday, May 12, 2013

Prairie Girl


All of this stuff is things I've bought from the SA over the past two visits/two weeks. I used to go to where the Salvation Army shop is a lot because Winton was a sort of central meeting place for some people in my class last summer (all the people who cycle everywhere). Then I volunteered there for 6 months and obviously had the chance to buy a lot but then winter came and I stopped going because cycling in the cold is equivalent to torture. Summer is returning and I'm starting to go outside/to charity shops most weekends again instead of being a hermit and only buying things online. All these objects have a sort of yearning/melancholy aura, the warm weather/adventures sort of thing I've been wishing for this weekend while I've been sat in my room revising.  I matched my playlist to this sort of vibe by accident. The only sort of interesting/recreational activity I engaged in was redecorating my wall and trying on my prom dress with my shoes, though.


Everything was off the 20p table but he gave me a discount off of all of it I think because he knows me from volunteering.


I smashed the glass bowl around the yellow candle and discreetly picked it all up and shoved it in my bag. I was too shy to ask for help. I walked out of the SA with hundreds of shards of glass in my bag acting like nothing had happened but really I had spent 5 minutes half kneeling as to act casual yet still be hastily clearing it while my friend Lizzie just laughed.












Monday, May 06, 2013

transient

This post could probably be dedicated to hating the temperamentality of film photography but I will limit myself because it's not very interesting! Basically I went to develop film yesterday and tried rewinding it but couldn't feel anything moving, so I opened the camera up in the dark and all the film was back in the canister already despite not having rewound it. I know for a fact that half way through the roll it was shooting properly because I could hear the film advancing (I am always super paranoid so listen closely to ensure it is properly inserted/working blah) but somewhere between it being in school and taking it to be developed someone has exposed the film (pulled it all out I guess) and I guess shoved it back into the canister  This is the only scenario I can come up with. I shall not leave my camera unguarded in future. Anyways these photos are more from ones I am unsure about - I only went out to revise so my outfit is boring. The top half didn't make me want to puke because I wore a lurex mesh top underneath my cardigan that matched the monochrome colour scheme to match my mood #hashtagstillangry (revision contributes to current  omnipresent mood) but the skirt is irritating because it is kinda green and yellow plaid not black and white. I think I have some sort of illness because I feel uncomfortable all day if the colours/pattern of what I'm wearing isn't cohesive.


These plastic hoop earrings are my new favourite thing. They were £1.99 from eBay for a set of 3 of varying sizes. The collar is one I ordered from eBay in November but it arrived like, last week. The cardigan is from eBay too (what a surprise(i have problems)).


THIS PHOTO IS VERY RELEVANT. I went down to the river to take some photos for my forever promised non -reality-zine that is waning in production ages ago. This episode was the first time my film didn't work. I won't go into details because it will only anger me because the photos would have been SO good. This is one of the only digital ones I have.



This was also going to be in the zine that may or may not be happening eventually or not maybe not if I can't muster the motivation to finish it. It's just a double exposure of a photo of me from last summer but it's the same place we revisited to take new photos.

Again my absence has been due to exams/feeling guilty planning doing anything but revision then procrastinating because I haven't allowed myself to go out but then not actually revising or getting anyThing done. After exams I really really really want to blog more often. I have more urge to but I can't exercise it because of the studying lark.

- Hollie