Classic revival

I took these photos a few weeks ago when my bangs were still fresh. My hair has grown like a weed since then! 

I've been hopping around to different places around the area to practice my photography, but I keep coming back to my favorite building on campus, the Fine Arts Theatre. Some history of the building: It was built in 1941 and was  apparently the last building of the Works Progress Administration(WPA). It also was used to train WWII pilots. I like being able to walk through this history, and it's one of the reasons I'm going to miss Athens after I move. Photos in this spot are really difficult to do because it's near a busy road, so my time here was a bit brief. 

credits - dress, target | sweater, loft | necklace, thrifted | shoes, talbots | bag, thrifted, stone mountain. 

Muscle memory

I've been in New York for the last three weekends for job and research stuff, but now that my media research project is over, I have much more free time! I'm looking forward to enjoying my last month in town before I move up North. 

So I've been resorting to the same uniform of sorts for the last couple weeks -- dress, sweater, tights, and out the door. I haven't really worn my brooches in the last year or so, but I've been revisiting them as kind of "good luck" talismans I wear throughout the day. I bought this leaf a few years ago before I graduated from my undergrad years -- it seems appropriate now to rewear it while my life is in transition!

It's been very cold down here that my tripod has been freezing in place. I'm so happy to play around with my photography more now that my time is more open. 

credits - dress: loft | sweater: talbots | coat: h&m, thrift find | boots: tj maxx | brooch: vintage, from finder's keepers. 

Grand Central

I went to New York last week for spring break to visit Jeremiah, go to some meetings and work on a giant research project. While I was there, I had to shoot some video footage around the city for my project, so we went to Grand Central. Jeremiah lives in the city now, but had never been! We spent some time wandering around and staring at the beautiful constellation mural on the ceiling. I love old architecture in New York, and learning about the stories behind building development. Growing up in suburban Georgia, most buildings have been built in the last 40 years, so it's cool to visit cities that have more  remnants of their historical background. When I move up to the city, I'll be checking out a few more places I've found on Scouting NY and capturing these details with my own camera. 

I wore this dress multiple times during the week for my meetups -- it's such a great staple. 

credits: dress- loft | blouse- vintage, thrifted | boots, tights: tj maxx | bag: stone mountain, thrifted.

More from the island of lost outfit photos

Basically, winter is killing me in doing outdoor photography. I've compiled some of my favorites from the last couple weeks. 

outfit 1 credits - dress: target | blouse: vintage, thrifted | boots: tj maxx | tights: kohls | belt: banana republic | brooch: game of thrones, hbo store.

I wore this a couple weekends ago for a day of vintage shopping and running errands around town. I felt like a grownup Brownie Girl Scout in this one. And with the addition of my beloved "Game of Thrones" brooch, I also felt like a female Ned Stark, as strange as that may sound. 

outfit 2 details - coat: zara, thrifted | sweater: old navy | skirt: talbots | tights: kohls | boots: tj maxx. 

A typical winter outfit.  The coat was a find in a Salvation Army near my apartment in NYC — I went on a discount day and it was around $3. I wear the fox sweater about twice a week now. 

outfit 3 - dress: loft | blouse: leslie fay, vintage, thrifted | tights: kohls | boots: tj maxx. 

I haven't worn this vintage top in about two years, but I think it works perfectly with this dress. 


Have a great weekend!

Black and blue

My 2013 started with more of a whimper, rather than a bang. I got the flu for about a week and have just been  getting back on my feet. School and work started back up this week, and I'm already a bit overwhelmed.This weekend will be all about organizing (my apartment and my life) so I can feel 100% again.

This was my New Year's Eve outfit, made all the more special because Jeremiah was in town to take these photos. We had a pretty quiet evening because he had an early flight the next day that required us to miss the countdown, but I couldn't resist wearing sequins during the day anyways. This Loft dress was a cool sale find. I don't usually wear a lot of black or blue, but I'm branching out! It's made of a thicker cotton and it has pockets so it's basically my favorite dress right now.

How's your 2013 starting out? 

credits - dress: loft | boots, tights: tj maxx | sweater: talbots. 

photos by Jeremiah.

Write fright

My outfit posts have been piling up and sitting in draft mode. I have like 17 posts just lingering in the queue, mementos of summer days and sartorial decisions gone by. I'm not sure why I've hesitated in publishing  -- I've been consistently taking photos everyday, but for some reason, I've been coming up short when it comes to writing the actual posts. Perhaps it's because I've been sitting in research classes all summer, and have been preoccupied with writing papers on methods and studies, that it's difficult to switch writing styles and be confident and definitive with publishing something that hasn't been copy-edited and fact-checked to pieces. Perhaps it's because in my free time, I'm tired of staring at long words and searching for meaning in research theories, that it's easier to pick up a camera and accept whatever truth I can find on the other side of the lens. Perhaps.

As I've evolved with my photography I've realized it's become more difficult for me, at least mentally, to improve my writing here. Sometimes I feel tempted to put up two ill-punctuated lines of lowercase ramblings and emoticons and just call it a day. Staring at the fruit of my self-photography efforts sometimes is overwhelming, how many hours of blog photography can yield just a handful of photos. And yet I keep trying.

Of course, it sounds like such a navel-gazing luxury to have the time and opportunity to wax and wane on a hobby I profess to love. I feel like any sort of hand-wringing over it seems a bit silly and overdone (not to say that I haven't done it before, though). But often it is eye-opening to take a moment and see how things have evolved as I forge ever onward with my camera, my dear friend who understands me at the end of a long day.

credits: blouse - loft | shorts - walmart | shoes - born crown | sunglasses - forever 21 | bag - fossil, thrifted.

Twist me a crown of wind-flowers

Dress: Forenza, thrifted, vintage; Belt: Loft;

Floral wreath: diy (tutorial here); Shoes: Born Crown.

Twist me a crown of wind-flowers; 

That I may fly away 

To hear the singers at their song, 

And players at their play. 

Put on your crown of wind-flowers: 

But whither would you go? 

Beyond the surging of the sea 

And the storms that blow. 

Alas! your crown of wind-flowers 

Can never make you fly: 

I twist them in a crown to-day, 

And to-night they die. 

- Christina Georgina Rosetti, "Twist me a crown of wind-flowers"

I went to the woods to live deliberately

Top: Banana Republic, gift from ML; Skirt: Thrift find; 

Shoes: Born Crown; Bracelet: Loft. 

Sometimes I look at these photos and wonder if people who skim this blog think I live in some Walden-esque oasis all the time. I spend just a little of my weekly time outdoors on these bridges and near these lakes, and yet, it's often all that's represented on this blog. I think this blog sometimes represents an ideal that I wish I could live out all the time — how I wish I could camp out on this bridge and call it my own.

But I doubt the rest of my life would be as picturesque. Would I dare to show you:

- How much of my life is played out through emails and Gchats? 

- The bottle graveyard in my house, representing all the Coke Zeros I've consumed in a week?

- The to-do lists that are made in earnest at the beginning of each week, only to be scratched out and rewritten in Sharpies and highlighters?

Probably not. So I take photographs in the park instead.

I found this skirt at a thrift store sometime around St. Patrick's Day, but never got it drycleaned in time to wear during the holiday, so here it is. I've mentioned many times how much I love to dress to match my surroundings (something that Tom and Lorenzo dissect constantly on Mad Men), and here I've done it again. 

Speaking of television, I'm back to blogging at Film Rascal. I'll be dissecting Mad Men and hopefully Game of Thrones this week!

Roamin' holiday

 Dress: Jason Wu for Target; Belt: Loft (from this dress); 

Shoes: Born Crown; Bracelet: gift, from Destin.

These are the first outfit photos I've taken in nearly a month. With school and projects, I've been a really busy graduate student, but I'm happy nonetheless and am trying to incorporate more time for solitude into my schedule. 

So, I'm using a new camera now. My college has a photo lab where you can check out camera equipment, so these photos are from a Canon Powershot G-10 on loan. I had fun playing with all the settings during this shoot, and I can't wait to try advanced DSLR equipment soon. I'm hoping some experimentation will help me figure out which DSLR to splurge on this summer. 

I found this Jason Wu dress on a random Target run last week. My Target is pretty small, and doesn't carry much of the Go! International lines, so I wasn't expecting to find any of the popular soldout line when I perused the clearance racks.  But lo and behold, the Jason Wu poplin dress, in my size for $11. I've already declared my love for red and blue wardrobe pieces, so I think this dress will fit in well with my closet. And with this dress and my new short bangs, I have been feeling very Audrey Hepburn all week.

Speaking of pretty dresses, there's still time to enter my Shabby Apple dress giveaway! I'll pick a winner tomorrow. 

The trials of photo-taking in public places

Dress: Giorgio Kauten, thrifted; Sweater: Loft; 

Watch necklace: Waltham pocket watch, heirloom (read story here);

Boots, tights: Target.

It had been raining for a week straight here, so over the weekend I was determined to take sunrise photos on Sunday, early time and chilly temperatures be damned. When I drove close to my usual park, I saw that police had cordoned the stretch of highway my park was at to let a mass of cyclists ride on the road. I thought the cyclists were part of a trial run for an upcoming bike race that's in Athens every spring, so I decided to wait another hour or so and I would try to get into my park at another entrance.

A while later, I enter my park from another entrance, and though there are police cars nearby, I have no problem getting into the parking lot and driving down the lane to the park. I'm not doing anything wrong at all, I thought, and look there are other people here early this morning too!

And there were. Lots of them. Running. And some in bathing suits. Bathing suits?

The two situations were not isolated. The cyclists and the runners were part of one big event, and somehow I had managed to drive right onto the course for a triathlon. I drove through a triathlon. 

When I got to the parking lot, I was soon trapped because the runners were using the only way out of the park as the course, and I didn't want to screw up their running times by driving on the course again. So I quietly went into the park, shot some photos. And while there, I found out from a nice girl in the parking lot it was the first time there was a triathlon of this kind in town, which may explain why there were no signs around the park publicizing it.  Then I sat in my car very awkwardly for 30 minutes until I could exit the course without running any errant joggers over with my car. All the while thinking that I had probably gone insane, going through all of this trouble on a weekend to snap the two photos above. 

I am sure there are many lessons here, and they may involve checking park schedules and knowing that a public place, no matter how many times you may visit it, never really belongs to you and can be converted on a whim to suit public needs. And uh, being sane enough to know when to sleep in.

I actually  have had this vintage Giorgio Kauten dress for a couple years, and have only worn it a couple times. Any ideas of how to style mint green? Here's how I've worn this dress before:

Back at my old farm park location a couple years ago.


Have you had any awkward photo-taking experiences? This was just one of many for me.

Looks like morning in your eyes

Dress: Elie Tahari, hand-me-down from Aunt P.; 

Sweater: Loft; Necklace: F21;  Boots: Target; Tights: Kohls. 

This is one of those outfits that I've been itching to photograph lately because I haven't tried a white/creme combination in awhile, and the pleats and ruffles seem to recall my old romantic looks back in the early days of my blog. I later wore a different sweater with this dress during the day, but I'm glad I photographed this combination. It rained a lot before I took these photos, and I was so afraid I'd step into soft ground and splash mud all over this dress, which remains a favorite piece from Jeremiah's aunt's collection. Word to the wise: no matter how pretty it is, don't wear prized possessions to the park. 

I had major plans to take reflection photos on the long bridge, but the early morning mist prevented that. Another time, perhaps? 

Here are some other ways I've worn this dress. 

Goodbye, vacation

 Dress: Liz Claiborne, thrifted; Shoes: Born Crown; Belt: Loft. 

Today's the last day before winter vacation ends and graduate school resumes, so it seemed appropriate to wrap up the warm-weather outfit photos. It's been a busy winter, but I feel invigorated for school and whatever comes in the next few months. Spring semester, bring it.