Blue

Something that takes me by surprise countless times is the use of blue in punk clothing and outfits and how well it works as a constituent shade of darkness. Once I at least sort out my funds of what will be spent on fun things and what must be saved, I will either buy a wonderful handbag that will serve me for years to come or I will be in the mood to finally buy a pair of creepers. I would probably be a little more enthused to buy some creepers once my leggings from Wowch come in the mail but for now I have my mind set on a good studded, black leather handbag. I'm also thinking of injecting some more blue into my wardrobe by wearing clear shoes with blue socks and denim shirts, but it looks like I'll need to make me mind up and prioritise- I can't possibly buy all the lovely items my heart desires at this moment in time.

Sometime last year (possibly even in 2010) Oyster Magazine featured a striking image of a girl with heavy black front fringe and a  gold-metal studded leather jacket- I thought it looked like heaven on Earth. An icier and cooler reincarnation of the same jacket has once again blesses us this time with silver studs and chic blue hair. I'd love to be able to stud things myself but I have seen far too many sub-par studded jackets and would prefer it be done right and with medical precision. I don't own a leather jacket myself and while they're not on trend prolifically at the moment I wouldn't mind having something with biker gang toughness to wear over my sweaters for university. It just feels so good being punk.

At this very instant I am watching David Attenborough's documentary on bears which features our friend the polar bear. I feel horrible and worn it today and a little blue myself- I think lethargic would be the best word since I've started my holiday for Mid-Semester break and need to revise over all the biology lectures, something which I'm struggling with. Were it not for the fact that I am such an over-achiever and I pride myself on my grades, I would love to curl up in bed with the laptop and watch Japanese movies and blog all day. This is but a simple reprieve from my busy study schedule in order to make time later in the week to relax- when I'll really need the rest and relaxation.

Another wonderful result of my rest from attending lectures is that I allowed my self ample time to scope out Tumblr and collect a few more photographs and images together and explore the Olympia Le-Tan blog. In the online world is a refuge of Japanese and mysticism, something I've been in dire need of for some number of weeks. The next week will be spent refueling my spiritual tanks and getting inspired once again to write and also commentate on collections. There's a great variety of new collections on Solestruck and other 2012 runway shows I can't wait to share with all of you.

My last holidays were spent in the company of aromatic, scented candles of Cherry Blossom and a near-obsession with fire and flames. While I don't attempt to spend my time again in such insidious conditions and with dark auroras abound, I wouldn't mind using them to spark a mood of romanticism- were it not for the fact my family will be home for the entirety of my break. It looks like I'll be faithfully enjoying the company of my new laptop and interactions with the keyboard instead...

While my father would be both abhorred and scarred by the image of such a beauty with blue hair, I love the modern and fresh take on models. I watch Britain's Top Model on and off when I can (the only region where I can tolerate their accents and challenges) and was delighted when a contestant for the show, Anastasia, received a makeover of pink hair. Whether you opt for luscious pink looks or something a little more close to the heart of the ice queen, I am certain that for a moment you will capture strangers' attention. With a great variety of streaking shades and colours that branch out from the scalp and culminate over tantalising bare breasts, I love the new and artistic nature fashion has been heading towards as of late.

I'm already looking forward to studying abroad and I think my mind has been swayed to either visit Japan for three weeks with my mother or study there as part of student exchange. I caught up with all the recent activity of my favourite Parisian designer who had been to visit the Miyazaki museum, feeding my own childish love of manga and the zoo as well as other adorable photos. I can't wait to press my ugly nose up to airplane windows as I touch down into foreign lands again and to go mental with disposable cameras to cement my aspirations, hopes and dreams within a strange city. There's inky black skies and flickers and streamers of light to look forward to on my own when I get out there into the big bad world.

While I had been keen to go on night time adventures in parks and finally engage in wild youth-filled exuberance I'm struggling to stay up at night due to me early morning routine and will probably hang around the house for the next few days over Easter. You often picture what your life is going to be, and plan what you want to become and no matter how much you want something within a single instance, by the time you get to what you plan for, you don't want it anymore. It's enough to make you blue when your mother wants your brother to buy his own house and he's playing video games starring batman instead.

 

I rather badly wanted to make today productive and do work and get on top of my study and feel an aching sense of tiredness, intermingling with accomplishment. I made a small dent into the lectures I need to review, watched an absolutely inspiring video of Tavi Gevinson's room and interview about her journey in fashion blogging and fragmented outfits and am now listening to covers of Lana Del Rey. Strong women and being strong myself usually cheers me up but I could kill for a coffee right about now... were it not for the fact it's nine o'clock at night. I hope everyone is having a cheery Easter.

 

Teenage Runaway

There are many means of running away from ones problems, my go-to method is to escape through fantasy by watching Doctor Who, reading books and also writing on this blog. There's also feeding my soul on things I can't buy but at times that one can get a bit overbearing and depressing. I can't really float on my back and close my eyes, although it would be poetic to enjoy a pool all to myself and pretend I'm being carried down an exotic river. There are however two things wrong with that scenario, A. is that I sink like a brick in water and can't float on my back all that well without expending a lot of energy and B. I don't own a private pool and the public pool is always full of noise and disruptions. Therefore meditation would be a pointless endeavour there.

For those of us blessed with coordination, style and natural swag we can skateboard away and travel to far off regions all by the use of a few little wheels attached to a board. How clever are we huh? Instead of a cosy knitted beanie though it may be a good idea if you're just starter out to wear a helmet and invest in a little safety gear though.

While I have never had mysterious and hard-to-decipher dreams in which I fly, I do sometimes look at the sky and imagine what it would be like to break the bounds of gravity and take flight. I imagine it would be very drafty and cold though at times and a lot of hard work if you didn't manage to read the air currents properly. It would be great though to take a holiday in the Winter and search for warmer weather just like migratory birds though, but maybe not too warm since I personally prefer the cold weather. But saying I'm leaving the Australian Summer for Winter somewhere else just seems a bit... odd though. It seems that normal people always love the Summer but I'm more about warm hoodies and drinking hot cups of cocoa. Plus nearly all of my pets died in the Summer so I have a mean and long grudge against it.

Never in all my life did I have the fantasy of running away to the circus although I do love the big lights and the clashing of red and yellow together. There's so much to photograph when a carnival/ show comes to town and in my neck of the woos it's only at one time of year. Maybe I could double my pleasure by going to the Easter show in Sydney this year and then waiting around for the Melbourne show in September when it comes around. These kinds of activities are always boring and lame when you're by yourself and I'm rather pleased to say that last year when I 'ran away' to the show for just one day I had a Diana F+ camera around my neck and a giant teddy bear my boyfriend won for me. It was a purple Care Bear and it's one of my favourite things he's given me.

If I were ever game enough to get a tattoo in a foreign city I would be attracted to this little date stamp shown here. In my opinion the best tattoos are the lest detailed ones and since I am wary of colour falling out just a simple black design would be good. A good place to put it may be the back of my neck put I can see pinning my hair up would therefore become a problem if I needed to keep it a secret.  Another positive attribute of this tattoo is that there's not a lot of needle work and it's a simple design that doesn't need to be filled in with shading or colour.

Give me Liberty

It was one year ago on this day that I was sitting around and waiting at the airport ready to hop on an airplane and start the long journey to the other side of the world, in total we spent fourteen hours on the plane but it was worth every minute to be able to experience the culture of America, indulge in the accents we so often imitated from television and eat carelessly clogging our arteries. I'd gladly hop on the plane, endure popping all the travel sick pills and pack my bags to do it all over again, it was such a great experience and brought my closer to the peers within my year level before the start of year 12.

Maybe I would have been a little more prepared for the California Winter if I had brought a sweater jumper and also given myself a chance to blend in with the locals? The style was very different there- where Australians where volleys, Americans wear Ugg boots as well as thick and wide belts. My style was described by my American mother as 'punk' and someone else's mother described me as 'so hip'. Needless to say, both appraisals sent tiny shivers up my spine- the people there were just so warm and welcoming. One girls family even hung an Australian flag for her as part of her welcoming, it was very sweet.

 

Lazy Oaf are the manufacturers of this shirt but are in fact  British label. Lately I have noticed they are going through a little bit of an American phase or they had printing not only this flag inspired shirt but also a matching skirt and some variation on popular Disney characters such as a shirt imitating Donal Duck's sailor suit ensemble and beloved Mickey's trademark shorts made into skirts. It's been far too long since I've had a rifle through there blog archive, I always feel so inspired by seeing their office spaces as well as the illustrative work of the people involved in their company.

Part of the reason I was keen to visit Manhattan is to be able to photograph the stature of liberty for myself, perhaps through the lens of a my trusty Diana F+. Even if I can't stretch the vision of my camera that far using a telephoto lens, perhaps I can get one of those cute hats and wear them around in the hope I'll run into a smaller stature of liberty on the streets of the city to pose next to- much in the same way models seem to. They probably travel to New York for runway shoes a lot more often than someone of my kind ever could *sigh*.

We never got any wear near New York, the big apple, but that just gives me a handy excuse to visit again when I'm older and see the hustle and bustle of a busy city and a place where people don't tend to own cars and travel via taxi and subway. I don't think I would ever want to live there though, while I am used to noise I can't imagine being cramped in a tiny high rise building without space and a garden to relax in. Also, I'm too much of an animal lover to feel restrained by tenant policies of 'no pets allowed'.

Giraffes

I think a trip to the zoo is long overdue, I have a ridiculous amount of rolls of 35mm film sitting around on my desk as well as many different cameras all itching to go out on a date with me. One of my favourite animals to photograph when at the zoo are the giraffes, or at least that was the case when I was at the San Diego zoo, partly because one of the girls I was walking around with was ecstatic to see them and partly because they were being little show ponies and posing nicely for the camera. While I have little faith in my ability to use a plastic camera with fixed lens and zoom, it might be nice to use one of my old SLRs hanging around to try and take some film stills of zoo animals- although I don't want to be cursing myself the entire time and missing my trusty digital camera that could easily zoom past netted enclosures and see the tiniest detail on the greatest beasts with ease.

Fancy seeing this Casa Nova giraffe locking lips with a tree stripped bare, the knobs and stumps of ripped off branches to seem to be patchy and all over the length of this tall, vertical tree so maybe a giraffe with poor eye sight may mistake it for one of its own kind? Still, no matter what the reason behind this curious pose it would have been a delight to have seen returned on develop film or the screen of a digital camera.

This hand drawn beauty makes me want to break out the rub-on tattoos I have waiting in a drawer in my room, but at the moment I'm trying to reserve them for when I have a hickey or I'll actually be in contact with people on a daily basis again. If I don't have to go out, my general attitude is that I won't go out. I am going to turn into a recluse with horribly hairy legs or a Hermit devoting myself to some obscure cause sooner or later.

 

Giraffes have very long blue tongues and they also enjoy eating Acacia leaves and carrots. No matter how much time has passed or how boringly stupid the animal fact is, if I bother to commit it to memory it usually stays with me for a couple of years. That is until something else pushes it out of the way and fights for space in my head.

What the Water Gave Me

It's built into our DNA to seek out and bathe in the ocean when we're hurt, even animals when covered in grazes and cuts will bathe in the ocean; it's the salt water which acts as a antibacterial wash that does the trick. I believe there's something else that's calm and therapeutic about bathing and water in general, I always feel so much better after having had a shower or when I've cried in the shower. You just feel new again and cleansed of all your worries and troubles.

I would secretly love to have a pet seahorse, mainly because I have a large in-joke with my boyfriend about how he is a pregnant sea horse and he'll give birth to my thousands of babies. For anyone who knows me in real life and knows who my boyfriend is... well... I'm sorry you had to read that but in a way it serves you right. Also because of the in-joke I am doubly in love with a gorgeous gold ring with a large blue sapphire and seahorse motifs on either side of the gem.

I had meant to focus on the ocean and a more nautical theme but I have some lovely photographs of interaction between aquatic mammals and fish as well as this bird's eye view of pool and tennis courts. It's the contrast of red, green and blue between the two sporting fields that ties it together as well as the sharp geometric lines of each that I admire. I had aspired to one day own a swimming pool when I was younger but now I've realised that all I need in Summer to keep happy is a very strong air conditioner, and the occasional nap in a bath tub on occasion as well.

I'm itching to get myself to either the Melbourne zoo or aquarium these holidays to once again make a day of photography. My last trips to each involved taking my boyfriend in tow but maybe it would be better if I went alone; while in his company he usually points out stuff I would otherwise miss, I'm sure he's sick of me paying more attention to a piece of electronic hardware than to him. That is, until the battery of my camera dies or the memory card gets too full.

I know I shouldn't think of this poor, shrivelled up seahorse exoskeleton as beautiful but there's something sculpture like about the way the bones and plates show with the dehydration of the seahorse. A little specimen like this is a Chinese chemists dream, the main threat of the seahorse is currently over fishing for use in traditional Chinese medicine. This tradition can be supported by the chemical properties within the body of a seahorse but it probably isn't recommended too much these days.

Rather than taking photographs of just the animals themselves when I visit zoos or aquariums, sometimes the better pictures are the interaction between humans and the animals trapped behind the glass. There's something beautifully tragic about the way the human's day is brightened up in that instant and the way the creature longs to be free and walk around and away from their enclosure with ease just as the human will do.I have my own dreams to work as a veterinarian in a zoo so I really shouldn't object to them too much.