Blah,Blah,Blahg

JEN ALEXANDER FLETCHER

Photographer Jen Alexander Fletcher sent me the sweetest email this a.m. (actually maybe she sent it a few mornings back. I am notoriously poor at returning my emails--sorry Jen I procrastinate). She was announcing the launch of her new book 'Less Pin-up, more Pin-down', (congrats!) BUT it was the below shoot that REALLY got my attention.  Underwater, with a manual film camera? These photo's look like she had a time machine, they are nice and grainy and really, really interesting.  I love me some pool shots and Jen did not disappoint.

 

//photo's by jen alexander fletcher//

CECILE MANCION

 

Just when I didn't think I could find anything fabulous for you ever again I discovered French illustrator Cecile Mancion, take a jaunt to her blog you won't be sorry you did.

NO 'S' SHERLOCK...

I have been devouring this book each night. I am absolutely hooked and can see why people are die hard fans.  I find it extremely contemporary for a Victorian novel and really witty. Sherlock is surely a work of genius even if he was inspired by another character, he really became his own persona. I also have an unhealthy addiction to crime shows and I can see a lot of inspiration of these shows in this small volume-- a lot. It impresses me to no end that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can still have a reach and is relevant in the 21st century. I love that. I am sure we will not be saying the same about this Blahg a century from now...
 

MIKA ORGANIC

Thanks to the internet I am suddenly craving an Oryx dress by Mika Organic. I usually don't wear short skirts (although I should--my back fat does not extend to my legs--yet).

I just thought this was clever and really witty but still beautifully designed. It's got a sort of hip rocker chick meets haute bohemian vibe. You could wear it with gladiator sandals that have skinny straps that wrap up your leg or even Hunter wellies. Of course I weigh more than 90lbs, so maybe if I owned this dress I would wear it like a shirt.

YIKES IT'S MONDAY!

Tara S. emailed me about the cutest puppy-Evah in this Schwinn commercial. I say the whole commercial qualifies as cute. Oh how I would love to be riding a magic Schwinn like the one featured that turns frowns upside down and makes cell phones turn into cute baby pugs! Mondays are my days where I meet with my boss for an early a.m. meeting and he let's me know that nothing has been accomplished since last week and that he is not a charity, sigh. I have to say he does have a knack for putting together a kick butt team of workers, really a gift so I think his reality is off because of how stellar his workers are.

I am going to mentally prepare myself for this Monday and the week ahead. I am a bit tired because I was up late, late, late last night testing out a shipment of Besotted Brand loot. I have a lot to learn myself but I am really excited about showing you all the end results. The Fancy said if I would have launched in February as planned than I might have been able to quit my job already. That sounds sa-weet but the reality is that I had a bunch of bumps in the road with product not being up to snuff and research, oh gosh the research, and bad samples nearly made me want to give up but last night while I wiled my night away with the new products I was happy that I waited and didn't rush because these are so much better than I imagined. I think I may implode if I can't launch soon!

FRIDAYS ARE THE BEST!

This is the cutest photo of Krista's daughter Finn, the first time she visited Disneyland last week.  I love this photo so much it hurts.  I love it because this looks exactly how I feel about it being Friday--BLISSFUL.

In other world news I got my sofa/sectional delivered yesterday. The color is sublime a true 'greige' if I ever saw a greige anything. With one teeny, tiny problem...I ordered it a little/lot smaller than the floor model because I was afraid it would take over the entire living room and well I guess I should learn to leave well enough alone.  The sofa is now a tad on the small side.  Since it was a custom size it is not returnable (of course) so I shall make do and see how I can make it look larger, is that even possible? I know I am going to want to add a little interest to the sofa via texture or color since it is after all greige, actually more 'beray' than greige (definitely leaning towards the beige side).  I found a couple new to me stores on my darling Etsy that I thought I would share. I am thinking as far as pillows go you can't buy nice quality pillows retail at these prices and I ALWAYS feel good about shopping on Etsy, don't you?

I am not a big color person and these are a bit trendy but they are pillows for goodness sake. I think that adding a pop of color and interest without a huge investment seems like a design decision that I can actually live with.

Speaking of trendy, Ikat is still super popular and this pillow is very subtle about its tribal lineage. I love this shop in general and if I could make up my mind I probably would have plunked down my hard earned bones a little bit ago.

I am not doing a nautical theme but if I were I might just be buying this pretty pillow (that knot is embroidered. how cool is that?):

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, I shall be trying to not fret over my wee sofa and trying to put together my desk which came un-assembled (figures with the price of it something had to be amiss).

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED AT THE OFFICE...

Yesterday the phones at work were going berserk, I usually don't answer the phone because my boss thinks I sound like a little girl.  I do. Not breathless and whispery like Marilyn or squeaky like Betty Boop (does she even talk? If she did it would be squeaky) but more Shirley Temple-ish I guess, firm but little girl all the same.  I couldn't watch the lines light up without doing anything so I picked up line 1.

"Hi, thank you for calling (insert name of my company here), this is Miss B. (okay my real name insert here)."

"is this Miss B. (insert my real name here)?  This is Debbie we met a few years back and you said that you could create a custom parfum for our store."

Silence. Whatthaheck?  Who would call me at my j-o-b? How did they get this number?  Is this even for real?

"Uhm, yes that's me, depending on the parameters of the project I can still do that. What's your budget?"

"I don't know, I thought I would call and see if you still did it and get a quote. I don't know why your fragrance didn't sell in our stores it was great but Brand X and Brand Y do really well for us and I want something that will sit along side these two brands".

Okay, stick a salty needle in an open wound why don't you?  I have NO idea why my fragrance doesn't sell at these trendy stores. Why don't you ask Brand X or Brand Y  to make you a fragrance lady? I realized that I would have to suck up my ego for a second. So hard for me to do, it's one of the reasons I cut way back on perfumery is because the stores and fragrance heads were so f'in mean to me.  I know there were lot's of people that were kind but the majority were a-holes and I couldn't take it. I started to believe the naysayers and feel like a big, fat loser. Whatever I had accomplished in this realm didn't matter I was a broken woman when it was said and done.  So I did what anyone that's as fragile yet motivated as I am would do.

"Debbie give me your email address, I will prepare a couple of quotes for you.  I think I know exactly what you are looking for and would love to help you."

The moral to this story? You can't be everything to everyone but if you find a few people that are buying what your selling, stick with them and tell the rest to kick rocks barefoot.

P.S. For those that are curious, she found my work number on a Google search. She said it was easy.  I say I'm scared.

CREATING DOF WITH A KIT LENS BY KATE PANEROS

I had been waiting to put this up until I had the new blog launched. Since it seems I can't even get my website up, who knows when I shall grace the interwebs with my new concept? A very special thank you to Kate for taking the time to create this WONDERFUL tutorial.  To preface this tute, I have been telling anyone who will listen that the kit lens that usually comes with new DSLR cameras is useless, buy the camera body and get a nifty 50 until you feel comfortable with the camera then you can invest in another lens was my motto. One of the reasons I said this was because so many people wanted that 'pro' look of a focused object and blurry background.  I didn't think it was possible to achieve with the kit lens, Kate showed me that I was dead wrong...

Kate Paneros – A French Safari

The Basics

I think my favourite part of owning a digital SLR is being able to play with depth of field (DOF). My 3 megapixel point-n-shoot just never gave enough control, not that I would have known what to do if it did! That being said, a DSLR body and lens won’t automatically create great shots – you still need to know what you’re doing. One misconception is that the kit lenses are a bit average, and that you need an expensive fast lens with huge apertures to get much depth. I was guilty of this, and always coveted a lens with an f-stop under 2. They were out of my purchasing power, so instead I worked with what I had. First things first – know your kit lens. Mine is a Canon EFS 18-55mm. I also have a 75mm-300mm zoom, part of the twin lens kit. I always wondered what the 18-55mm part meant, so I looked it up, and discovered that it represents the distance from the optical center of a lens to the digital camera sensor when the subject of the photo is in focus. Huh? Don’t worry. It’s not necessary to understand all the physics with photography, but just know that 18mm is a wide-angle, 75mm is a closer zoom, and you can get crazy with 300mm and far beyond... Food photography often uses a small depth of field, to blur out backgrounds and focus on the food itself. At the other end of the scale, landscape photography uses a large depth of field because we want the whole scene to be in focus. It is quite easy to achieve a deep field of focus, but the challenge of mastering DOF comes in the form of shallow fields, or getting lots of nice blur in your shots. The Important Things DOF is affected by three things: aperture, lens focal length and shooting distance. There are 3 general concepts you can master that will get you in control of DOF: 

1. The larger the aperture, the smaller the depth of field. Here the focal length has been kept at 55mm, while the aperture has shifted from f22 to f5.6 – you can see the difference in background blur quite easily.

2. The longer the lens focal length, the smaller the depth of field. In this shot, I’ve framed the subject similarly, but at different focal lengths. I had to move back for the 55mm shot, but you can see the difference it makes to the focus. The aperture has even gone from f3.5 to f5.6, which happens when you begin zooming. Interestingly, you can also see the effect an increased focal length has on ‘compressing’ the scene (objects look closer together in the 55mm shot).

3.  Experiment with distance. The f22 shot in the first example didn’t have much blur – compare that to this one, shot at 300mm. Move back from your subject and then zoom in to achieve bokeh at small apertures. Also, the further away your subject is from the background, the better the bokeh effect.
Combine all three and you can get some great depth of field!

ART WALL

I wasn't sure if I had mentioned Art Wall prior, I meant to. I thought I did but I couldn't find it in my archives and anyways my search feature is completely and utterly useless (it's ME not you Lijit, I love you, it's me that's useless), so even if I did write about it I probably would never find it again anyway.

The concept is so simple and clever that I wish I had the brains enough to have thought of it myself. I didn't but the smart Katie Stephenson did. Her tag line is " Don't decorate curate". Katie curates  illustarted "rooms" with art she hand picks from indie artists and photographers.  She inserts the works in hand-drawn frames to form a grouping. Collect one piece or collect them all!

All you need to do is click on an image within the frame and you can get all the deets about purchasing.

I love this idea to pieces and can't wait to see who she has up next.

YOU CAN BUY LOVE.

Whomever said you can't buy love didn't know it would be up for sale in 2010 for a mere $52 bucks. I so want to buy me some.