lovely lovely

My sister was given a gold ASOS dress from a friend for christmas that she wanted to wear today, it being her birthday. She didn't have a pair of tights she liked to match so I volunteered to cycle into town to buy her a purple cable knit pair I had seen. In the time it took me to buy the tights and a few groceries a mild blizzard had picked up and my cycle home turned me into a veritable snowman. Abominable.

The kitchen was as cosy as you please, I love being locked up and warm looking out at the cold weather, it's like being inside a car when it's bucketing down torrential rain. My afternoon was accordingly lovely, I sewed colourful buttons onto an old cardigan, baked fairy cakes (or cupcakes as they are now so popularly dubbed)with pink butter cream icing and jelly tots on top, baked brownies mmm I know lots of people think their brownies are the best but these ones really are, please don't take my word for it try them out for yourself to try and prove me wrong: They're Nigella Lawson: http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/chefs/nigella-lawson/snow-flecked-brownies-recipe_p_1.html I took them out of the oven a few minutes early so they were the right degree of crunchy on the outside but still gooey on the inside, sprinkled with icing sugar and served with whipped cream Y U M

back west

driving home for christmas *la la la bus driver driving me home for christmas la la la... the joyous homecoming was neither as momentous nor as romantic as the songs had me thinking it would be. It feels on one hand like I've never left because everything is still so exactly the same as how it was, I came home late at night had some cereal and went to bed. Next morning everybody was pottering around absorbed in doing their own thing and that's been it, I stepped back into the stream of daily life, those already there remaining unaffected and indifferent. But on the other it feels like I've been gone an age and stepped back into a time warp, I've changed but little else has. And that hand hits me harder. It leaves a stronger sting of impact but this in itself is reassuring because at least it confirms in me that I know I'm only passing through now. The fear of returning to my old life would be getting stuck in a deep rut, which scares me to bits and is enough to drive me onwards. Hurrah. upwards.

I like being home because... There's food to nibble on when I'm in a picking mood, I can walk on the prom, the air is clean, i like the proximity of everywhere, i can cycle my bike again, i don't like being subjected to my mother's irritating house rules, or having to put up with her idiosyncrasys, but i like the unpretentiousness of the sales assistants in topshop, i like having friends with whom i can share in - jokes, i like having good friends on hand to be hungover with, i like having friends off whom i can borrow clothes, i like how it's easy to stand out as being relatively well - dressed, i don't like feeling inhibited by that same easily recognisableness and feeling somewhat restricted in what i wear because of it, i like overcoming that feeling because of the confidence i'm given by knowing i look good and have my best friend beside me looking the exact same.

One small thing that I take as a given in Dublin is ripped tights. They emanate the grunge look in an otherwise ordinary outfit. You look on trend without looking gothic or godforbid like you're trying too hard. But the Galway boys are whatever the word is for the complete opposite of ostentatious, with regard to fashion and I have had much slagging for wearing tights with holes in them. In my defense I have never deliberately set out to destroy fine hosiery, it just happens that probably nine out of ten pairs of tights I own have rips and ladders in them and I keep them all to wear doubled up. Two at a time guarantees that one will cover the holes in the other, but of late I've taken to colder legs and only taken from my drawer one pair at a time. Well I like it, and Alexander Wang liked it a whole lot last year in his fall 08 ready to wear collection:

michael clark

It snowed today! not a lot but some all the same. Twas lovely because we had Christmas dinner in my house last night so it's a pretend feeling of a white christmas (stretch that imagination). What a feast we had but Rachel made the strangest roast potatoes ever, they were par-boiled then put in the deep fat frier. And we had peas. Actually we had an odd assortment of contents on our plates as we were trying to use up all the food in the house before we all go home. Which is why we had pancakes and creamed rice pudding for breakfast today, to use up all the milk. And and we watched Home Alone whilst drinking mulled wine heated in the rice cooker because we had run out of clean saucepans...



I WANT TO DANCE LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME!!!

The man's simply a genius. With choreography as bizarre as this it could look like the patients from a mental asylum escaped on stage but no no no they just look like they're having so much fun, perfect, beautiful fun

Maybe I'm amazed

The British met the Dutch, and Lucy met Bart. They then introduced fashion, architecture and the human body to each other. Now they’re all busy working together fusing technology and art into forms not found before.

Lucy had trained as a classical ballerina but also dappled in architecture and design. Her fascination with the human body found itself a common interest in Bart’s, and together they began to look at the expression of beauty and the effects genetic manipulation causes on this perception.

Their work consists of common yet unexpected materials which are used to distort the form of the body wearing them. They challenge the concept of an ideal beauty and explore the changes that are occurring as a result of technological advances and how these lines of evolution will eventually have an impact on the development of society.

Baby I’m amazed.













I read my first issue of ‘Wound’ this week and I liked it a LOT. First impressions? It seems to be the intelligent person’s magazine. I just wish I had the money to buy any of the magazines I like, or even better had the money to subscribe. Wishful thinking. Well this issue was one I came across in college and can’t remember which one it was (my bad)... but anyway these are my two favourite fashion photographs from the winter 09 edition of iD:

Leggings, skirt and dress are Louis Vuitton. Tshirt by Leny and jacket from Beyond Retro.


These jumpers are by Ashish.

paint on my nails

Waiting for public transport. A train and a bus to meet. Cheap sandwiches with stale crunchy crusts. A bookshop. Armchair seats by the upstairs window. Overpriced tea. A dash to the library. A laugh at the children not skating on not ice. A climb to the roof. A hanging and a laughing. A bay view. A suburbian street of lights. A talk of displacement. A talk of home.

My song for today:

so? sew!

Today I had a huge amount of energy- I think the three bowls of porridge I ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner respectively can be held accountable for that. But goldilocks isn't complaining, it gave me drive to put my itching fingers to use. Since my stitch and bitch group slowly fell apart this past month I haven't been making much ( I miss knitting!!) the christmas decorations at the weekend got me back into the feel for creating. I bought a length of festive printed fabric and moved on to sewing and stuffing decorations. Then today in college I raided the scrap box for additional material now all I need is time...

In a giddy moment of looking through the Dior Fall 2009 Couture Collection and in the spirit of Make, Mend and Do, I thought how much fun would it be to get really dressed up going out but wearing your very own couture imitation creation? Using what you can get your hands on around the house to make a masterpiece - for after all, necessity was the mother of invention...


a lampshade and some tulle netting?


some nicely painted rubber gloves?


a starched pillowcase?


a shredded feather duster?

actually these ideas could come in very handy for the Alice in Wonderland trend - I bet lots of people will be throwing Mad Hatter's Tea Parties : D

winter wonder land

Note one: I'm getting the hang of baking with yeast! Hurrah for white breads

Note two: At home we always put our tree up on the 8th December and take it down 6th January, so to me that's when the festive season begins and finishes. Today (okay it's two days early, but close enough) I got my first Christmas feelings. We went to Una's house where there was a roaring open fire, pots of tea, and warm mince pies with cream. We had an arts and crafts day making decorations galore







Note three: with the forthcoming release of Tim Burton's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland (5th March 2010)promising to have a strong influence on the world of fashion, I thought I'd share this video (which, despite the name, is actually not a Christmas carol)



it's interesting how things change over time. or how at any given time individual interpretations of that very same thing can vary so considerably i guess

my song of the day

bang bang shoot

Instead of getting more work experience with a professional stylist, Eimear and I decided to style our own shoot! It was a very last minute affair, taking advantage of the free time the strike day gave us. We had to make do with what we had at hand... that being our own clothes as the wardrobe, Eimear's house as location, myself as model, Eimear as hair and makeup artist, and calling a favour on a friend for photography.



We had picked out a few locations around the house and garden, and I thought using the tiny shed that stored the boiler would be a good idea, if we brought out a lamp as a prop. So that set the scene for the first photograph.



But like I said, it was a shed and these old places always come with a few spiders... Most of them were dead so I played around with the cobwebs before Eimear came running out of the house with a big feather duster.


Then I got excited and started messing with our prop. Lampshade hats - hot for ss 2010 you heard it here first!!




I love this last photo, Declan was standing up on a stool looking down and I'm bending backwards. Although if you look at it sideways it sort of looks like I'm running out of a space tunnel or something


We used an awful lot of hairspray


Her house has one of those stairs that look like shelves, with holes between each step, so we hung a curtain up across them and tried to take pictures of me hanging down. They didn't turn out very well and we got frustrated from trying too hard. The first one (above) was the best and it was the third (out of what was to be over fifty) photo taken, and was an accident as Declan was just testing the flash at the time



That said, we decided to try less and go back to the shed




The flash is really harsh here but I like the 'deer in headlights' look


This was the easiest outfit to shoot. The width of the door was pretty much the width of the shed. It turned out well with the yellow tights picking up the yellow door.


I had brought this piece of netting to puff out the underneath of a dress but when Eimear was gone to make some more cups of tea I started messing putting it on my head to frighten her when she came back. But it looked so cool we decided to use it as an actual look.


The umbrella was originally brought outside for Eimear to hold over Declan's head as he needed to be outside the shed when taking the shot in order to fit the whole length of my body in, and it was raining and he couldn't get his camera wet. But the colours matched so I pulled it in for a minute to use as a prop


and lo and behold


Declan also likes editing so he did some things on his computer and turned some of the photos into these pop - art thingys. Which are spooky but fantastic nonetheless.

oh oh eskimo

The beginning of autumn is fun. The trees are taking their leaves off as you're putting your layers on. One cardigan becomes two and scarves are pulled out for strategic decoration. The crisp coolness is exciting, dressing up is pulled back into a dimension the summertime forgot. But winter, now that's a different kettle of fish. The ending of November has brought the correlation between degrees on the thermometer and jumpers on my back to reach its peak. It's like a battle of digits: can Celcius make itself lower than Zara can make herself measureably muffled?

From looking around and from reading other people's style blogs it seems most people wear what they want when they want, because they want to. I, on the otherhand, appear to myself to be becoming increasingly practical. Of course I care about what I wear everyday, but comfort has come around to being of a first and foremost daily importance.

Not just the sort of comfortable that brings ease and confidence, but physical comfort. Yesterday I wore two pairs of socks, a pair of tights, a pair of jeans, a vest, two long sleeved tshirts, an oversized woolen man's jumper, a knitted Aran-sweater style cardigan, and a scarf. Then for going outside I also had a coat, hat and mittens.

If this michelen-man style doesn't catch on soon then I'm going to have to seriously consider investing in some thermals...

i heart...

i heart remembering songs you used to really like, and liking them all over again. I speak of Heart it Races by Architecture in Helsinki.

Funny though how many songs have the word heart in them. Bonnie Tyler Total Eclipse of the Heart has featured predominantly in my social life of the last two weeks, appearing twice in the space of three nights out. First occasion - pregaming in my housemates room playing Kings, I invented a karaoke round and nominated myself as dj, choosing Bonnie as jukebox song number one. Second time - last song played at WAR, myself and Dave on the windowsill.

How many heart titled songs can I think of off the top of my head now hmm
It's a Heartache - Bonnie Tyler
Hearts on Fire - Cut Copy
This Heart's on Fire - Wolf Parade
Heartbeat - Buddy Holly
Heartbeat - Islands
Heartbeats - The Knife
Shape of my Heart - Noah and the Whale
Heart and Soul - Joy Division
Plastic Hearts - Dirty Pretty Things
Olive Hearts - Bowerbirds
Heart of Glass - Blondie
Florence and the Machine - Rabbit Heart (Raise it up)
umm....

BLOGS

oooh how exciting!!! my photo is on the internet on somebody's street style blog! Last Thursday I went to the Bernard Shaw for the Vice Magazine party and was jumped on by a girl in a big fur coat as I walked out into the smoking area. And lo and behold there I am. Level of drunkness at time of photograph: half a flagan and one bottle of beer.

I'm wearing boots from Urban Outfitters that are actually flat even though they look like they have heels in this photo, bought for me by mum as they're sensible for in the rain. Issy's skirt which is from Topshop, borrowed a long time ago. American Apparel Tshirt, part of my 21st birthday present from Nora and Kinsella. Cardigan from Zara years ago. Beads from Topshop that Aisling once wore and broke so bought me a new pair. Scarf from the Halloween car boot sale in the Bernard Shaw.

http://www.dublinstreets.blogspot.com/

trifle (noun) (a matter or object of little value or importance)

The new Islands album is high up on my list of likes for this week. Some of the lyrics are those pukey romantic ones but sang in so happy a manner it doesnt make you cringe as you listen. Amongst my favourite is : "Kicked open a coconut, / could have shared it with anyone / but i wanted to share it with you".

We eat a lot of cow, pig, sheep. It rains cats and dogs but we don't put them on our plates. Ducks? sometimes. What about horse? Um? well i can now check the box for a grilled skewer of horse meat. Was it nice? Yes and no; tender but tasted rather like the smell of stables.

I had a visit to Naas at the weekend. It was nice to be in a family home again, for one it was so clean. For another it was sort of a welcomed return to the way of living that is so routine. Everybody has their things to do for the day but all the while each knows what the other is doing, all to come together for dinner and afterwards the watching of particular television programmes. But only so nice because I knew I was only visiting. It was cheering to see them so contented whilst knowing my life didnt have to be part of this predicatability; I could take the slippers off and go back to myself and my ways.

Sunday was split between the kitchen and Newbridge. The reading of the papers after breakfast, a visit to the musuem in Newbridge silverware, dinner and the talk after dessert. The silverware shop downstairs was a bit on the shiney side for my liking although I had a good old look in the book corner. Upstairs was a Musuem of Style Icons. I never would have expected it, nor expected it to be so good. There were clothes, photos, letters, scripts, general memorabilia, of stars of the past. There were four identical suits worn by the Beatles for their Hard Day's Night album. Grace Kelly. Marilyn Monroe. Judy Garland. Audrey Hepburn. Maureen O'Hara......... These women were beautiful. They were classic, they were ladies. Not the 'get your slap on and your tits out' idiotic types of today, the majority of whom seem to be famous for merely being famous. This girl parties in this place, this one got plastic surgery, this one was on a reality tv programme, this one

thursday

I came across this image in an old ELLE magazine today whilst looking for material to put together a VM board. It's a woollen tube dress, Sonia Rykiel by Jean Paul Gaultier, created for a tribute show celebrating Sonia's 40 years in the fashion industry. I am currently distracted however by the letter that was awaiting me when I came home this evening. As my front door is an emergency exit fire escape covered in graffiti down an alleyway at the side of a pub beside a chip shop and infront of a block of council flats, I was never expecting to receive post. But there it was sitting at the bottom of the stairwell. A letter from a boy. A boy I am growing to love by the minute where I want to call him up and hang out with him, where I want to sit drinking coffee, where I want to listen to music, where I want to call up in the middle of the night, where I want to go out and get drunk and dance on the furniture, where I want to wander aimlessly in the streets, where I want to go to look at exhibitions, where I want to cry and tell my thoughts to, where I want to hug and be beside. But where I don't want to kiss him. Only sometimes do I want to kiss him but only the times when I want to kiss anybody and he's so lovely. It wasn't a love letter, it was a letter of apology of love. It made me laugh and then it made me cry. All the time I'm wondering why. Why he likes me so? and now why he's so sorry so? and will we ever reach the happy place of mutual love in a platonic friendship? Am I still fooling myself that boys and girls can be the best of friends without sexual attraction coming into the equation on one or the others behalves?

white tshirts

what's more of a wardrobe staple than jeans and a tshirt? it's been dressing fine without dressing up for forever. denim has exploded into the realm of super trendy so if it's skinny and tattered it's right. but up top is a blank slate for personal kitsch; it's easy peasy to reach for something to use as a crayola and make a white tshirt your very own sort of cool
1. urban outfitters 2. american apparel 3. mine

a bedtime note

a lunchtime frustration at the inacessible computer facilities led to climbing out a window to pick tufts of moss off the roof to stuff in each other's ears; then a big muddy mess, but that's what they get for denying us the technology time we need. bah.

His lunch was part hot chocolate from a small white flask. he has a lot of cows but not a lot of land so he just stacks them up. when he made fun of my crappy story i said i'd revenge his using my shredded story as hamster bedding by spit roasting the critter, to which he yelped in fear as he fears spits. spitting is fine, he just don't go there with spits. his father was a spit. it was traumatic. it was ninety five percent chocolate with the hot milk added directly from the flaming cow he personally ignited prior to pumping.

a cup of tea is one euro. it's fifty cents in my own mug. but if i bring the bag then the water is free.

testing the waters of a fashion focus

what's in the shops?
H&M advertisments show lots of chunky woollen knits but their main display in store is typical of every other. Black, sequins, leather, fur, metalic, trimmings, excess. Clothes scream decadence. A boot isn't just footwear to keep the rain out; it's got a buckle and a chain and a stud. A scarf isn't just to keep your neck warm; it's extra chunky and extra long and doubles up as an all-in-one head, neck and chest wrap.

Taking dressing to the extreme where the more you look like you rummaged the archives of amalgamated family member's wardrobes to put together your days outfit, then the cooler you look. Obviously it's all well thought out but put together in such a way that it looks effortlessly thrown together, like the consequence of picking up one item made it seem only logical to add on the next one. Getting dressed is dressing up and dressing down doesn't get a word in.

That's the external extreme. But the internal extreme is off-balanced and juxtaposed. Like hugely oversided jumpers - take your fat dad's wooly sweater and wear it with skinny skinny jeans. Tops are short - take a loose fitting tshirt and cut it up above the waist so it slouches and hangs off your collar bones. Shoes tell the story of Goldilocks and the three bears - either heavy rocker biker style ankle boots or soaring to the sky with thigh high boots.

More is definetly more.

a hangover

today the liquor left me less tired than it usually does so i was out of the house before lunchtime. i had a mission of photos to take for christine's class on things that inspire us, although she said to keep in mind that we are fashion students... which resulted in me snapping stalls in the farmer's market in meeting house square. relevant? meh

the afternoon brought me to an art gallery. it was the one that kinsella and i accidently found when we got lost the day i found my room and i located again another night when i went jogging in that direction in the hope of coming across it. how i love the pacifying effect of galleries

crisis

a crisis of thoughts, recurrent waves of panic crashing over me pushing me so far under. grappling with logic to inflate my own lifebuoy. i don't know what i want to do. well secretly i do but i don't think i can, it's too late now mum and dad have spent too much money and i've spent too much time going in another direction. i wish i could go back in time and give my leaving cert self the knowledge i have now and if i could then chances are i wouldn't be sitting here right now. i want to make things with my hands i want to be a painter i want to be a drawer i love sketching people i want to make clothes and costumes i want to draw and sew and knit and put together i want to cook and bake and be happy. but it looks like i'll have to settle for something like writing about other people doing all these things and be grateful that i can still do them on the side as a pastime of sorts.

I met with Deirdre McQuillan yesterday which didn't go as well as I had hoped because i felt as if she was judging me for not knowing enough and thinking i was wasting her time. Well in fairness she was only there because she was obliged to out of decency at the request of a friend. thank you mckeevers. However after a stumbling and occasionally forced conversation i came away a little better off, having seen that a journalist can cover so many areas at one time. well, to an extent within the realms of lifestyle and fashion. She did say one thing that inspired me and gave me renewed energy at facing in this direction - that she things someone who is able to both write and illustrate is hard to come by. Now i haven't much faith in either my writing or illustrating skills but from years of meeting people who went through art college and seeing their artistic output i don't believe the standard is probably as high as i imagine it to be. i just need to find a confidence in my own capabilities and don't worry so much that there's this invisible standard that everyone else is at which is so much higher above where i currently stand. i am honestly my own worst critic. And writing. that's a little trickier. as an artist as long as you have the ideas then you're free to communicate them any which way you want. take cezanne for example; i don't believe he has exceptional technical ability but it's his ideas and the way people interpret his finished pieces that matters, and that they're his pieces which nobody else in the world would or could ever produce. With writing there are so many people all trying to write about the same thing so there's sure to be somebody out there who can do it better than you, it's easier to compare and contrast skills. Althouh Deirdre did say that when she started out she was writing for a women's magazine and she said it could take her two hours to write the first paragraph. Now she says she just sits down and it comes out; largely due to the fact that there's a deadline there and it doesn't matter what you've written as long as it's written on time. But she's got her name and reputation made at this stage. Anyways i suppose what she was trying to say was that it gets easier with practice.

She said she would be very interested in seeing someone who could both write and illustrate so I took that as the niche i could get into. My style of writing isn't very definitive so perhaps that's how i can stand out from the crowd. My hand has since been reacquainting itself with pencils.

And the waves are just waves; there is some calm in between the rushes of fretting. Out running this afternoon i came home along the canal and passed Irish Nationwide. The wall of glass windows was lit up showing the office floors, rows of desks and computers and the image of facts, figures, statistics, numbers, charts, reports, suits, monotonous information, and an altogether restrictive environment. When i complain over trivialities mum tells me to be thankful i have my health, and today when i saw the Irish Nationwide and saw it in light of my daily perturbance i was thankful for living in a world where i'm free to have the choice to worry about what i want and that i'm not a poor soul like Winston Smith.

and so says George Eliot

"I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs, and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with a little music."

the ringing in my ears

i don't know what it is about boys in bands that does it for me, but i fall. i like the idea of a beautiful mind who can make music out of words. poetry that flows to an air. and a beat you can dance to the tap tap snare bang boom. and the nimble fingers plucking the guitar strings, pulling and stroking them up and down, running away with a mind of their own, playing and caressing long and loose. music is my boyfriend and music is my hot hot sex. a world without it just isn't worth it. skinny boys with lots of power. veins forcing through on lower forearms, biceps stringing out above. lumps and bumps of skin and bones pumping blood and adrenaline and passion and heat. the drummer's at the back thrashing it out letting loose a wild and manic force beating and smashing. smashed. smashing. sweating. stdrumming.
as long as it's more than just noisy noise and overly turned inward knees leading feet into stomping it's fine. as long as there are words and not screams it's good. i'll go there alone to stand look and listen. to fall. to forget for a while about all else but the ringing in my ears which carries on long after the final tune.
upstairs in whelans: first up were the band who were too noisy and the room too empty. a shout out to the other bands and few comprehensible lyrics but one i did like, something about wanting to be peter pan and jack kerouac. the ralphs were the reason i was there - jamie's invite at graduation and a reminder in a text message. the music needs refining but the words aren't too forced. he warmed up with a song whose lyrics i know because nora heard them with me long ago in the roisin and poked me with a sly wink, his seeing a girl in college and noticing they dress the same. seeing her in the library and wishing her number would appear on a piece of paper for him and maybe even with an x for a kiss. but being the funny boy that he is, a later song made me smile to myself when he cried out his joy at finally writing a song about nothing at all but making you think it's about you. the coonics were by far the best with less things happening all at once. four unassuming boys making pretty noises and carrying themselves away on stage; to hell with impressing the crowd they were enjoying it for what it was.
the after-show banter and back-stage beer brought me to bedtime and breakfast was served with dumbed down hearing because of the ringing in my ears.

fashion shoot number one

Mongrel was coming to an end as I was coming into my own.

Although it was one of those things that you don't realise are really happening as they are happening, the beginning of college was opening my eyes to a world beyond school books. The idea that a newspaper might actually not be the most boring thing in the world or merely reading something for enjoyment that wasn't a novel or a girl's fashion magazine. I didn't fully understand some of the articles in Mongrel, its finer points were lost on me due to my youthful ignorace but I liked the idea of quirky stories and lots of photos. Plus it was free. And the handiest place for me to pick it up was in an off-licence on my way home from town, which in itself was a bit exciting.

So when Richard Gilligan, photographer extraordinaire, came into college to give us a talk I knew who he was. I'd seen his skateboarding photographs and recognised the name. He talked us through a slide show generally outlining his career thus far and toward the end put emphasis on the work he had done in fashion. His first collaborations were with his friend Aisiling Farinella and the whole thing started out a bit by accident. It was a case of friends calling on friends to help friends to cover friend's backs... But it worked. Really well. And now they're both still doing what they did, but doing it better and getting paid for it too.

So a week later I introduced myself to Aisling.

In addition to being a freelance stylist she runs The Loft in the Powerscourt shopping centre as well as her own shop Circus; and when I spoke to her we were in the Powerscourt centre as she had produced the fashion show that was running that night. I explained my situation to her and she said if I e-mailed her she would see what she could do in terms of providing me with the opportunity for work experience.

Many e-mails later she proved true to her word and we were having coffee together as she laid out the day's plan of action. We were to spend the day pulling clothes from shops for two upcoming photoshoots - one commercial and one a more personal project. I was dressed for the cold day but by mid-afternoon my many layers of cardigans had been shed as the mountain of bags I was carrying grew increasingly heavier, and the pavement pounding coupled with the heated air conditioning of shops got the better of me. The day came to a close in her studio hanging everything on rails and laying out accessories and filing away the important bits of paperwork.

I was to assist on the editorial shoot. It was for a Dublin-based magazine called Oh! Francis and she was Richard was the photographer.

The day of the shoot began in her studio at 8am. Aisling the drove me, the model, and the make- up artist to the location where Richard was awaiting our arrival. The location for this particular shot was an old manor house in the outskirts of Dublin city, surrounded by fields of horses and reached by entering through wrought iron gates and up a tree-lined gravel drive.

As Aisling and Richard have worked together so much in the past there was a really good understanding betweed their visions, each knowing what the other wanted and a compatibility of working styles. As assistant I had little donkey jobs such as carrying the blankets to keep the model warm, holding props for lighting effects, making tea, and just general running back and forth getting and doing things.

They were two really long days, by the end of each I could think of nothing but my bed. But I learned a lot more than any classroom could teach, it really is the hands-on approach that hammers it home... Here's a few of my photos from the day

dj snke

what a beautifully fantastic relief to have someone who you chose to hang out with rather than being forced to because you have your pasts in common. they don't know your terrible past and all those horrible things you didn't know you were capable of doing yet committed. repeatedly. and will haunt you forever. it's not exactly starting afresh but it's a good enough head start to have.

creation

The beginning has to start somewhere so my A is here. Don't ask where B is, just go along with it and humour me in pretending. Anyway so many people say it's not about the destination, it's the journey and what you learn along the way that really matters. Which is why I've just set this up at long last, thrown caution to the wind in the hope of ressurecting the creative bit in my brain that has retreated into hiding. I would like to use this as a place to write for the sake of writing without worrying whether it will be good or not; perhaps some automatic writing mixed in there with a focused idea or two. I can have high hopes. I can create myself with my blog, create an adventurous mind, create creativity. For one who scorns those attached to technology I'm extending my diary writing to the electronic realm. Pete Doherty did it and he still wrote beautiful poetry oh here's an inspiration for a good beginning: from Sylvia Plath: "And by the way everything in life is writeable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt". I have an abundant amount of self-doubt knotted up inside but here's to hoping that the winding trails of my tales will unravel and dispel all that.