Beach, Barbecue and Updates!

          Time for me to make up for the last few days to you lovelies with updates on my life whilst I've been unable to blog.
Yesterday I had a lovely day, reverting back to a child-like state at some points admittedly. I went to the beach  for a barbecue. It was a lot busier then we'd expected but we managed to find a lovely little spot of sand just big enough for our blanket and barbecues in amongst the pebbles and stones. I'm proud to say, we managed to sit away from the wind this time so the smoke didn't bother us much. After the barbecue though, I stood at the sea-front and waited for waves to come then running away from them when I did. I enjoy the simple things in life :P Eventually I took off my shoes and let the sand and water rush in between my little toes-ies. I ended off the trip with an ice lolly and then felt sleepiness take over me all evening, struggling to stay away as I tried to clear stuff off my laptop so the space would go back down into the green levels and I could write my blog ( no such luck so far :/). I have the, sometimes awful disposition of never wanting to get rid of things. No I am not a hoarder or anything that extreme But I like to keep school work and photographs ( original versions and edited) etc etc. Unfortunately from putting different thumb-drives of work onto the laptop to back up the work and having had my last, broken laptops' data transferred and file changes etc. It seems I've ended up, in some cases, with 3 versions of different photographs and so I really need to have a THOROUGH go through of my laptop soon to clean out all the un-needed stuff before my laptop dies and I've lost it all because, if that happened I'd almost certainly cry.

I'm not going to do a LOOONG feature today, instead I'll just put in the 365 day project photographs that I owe you all :)

DAY 9

 DAY 10

DAY 11

I felt so sad that, when I got to the beach yesterday I found out I'd left my camera card in my laptop but then I found this picture from my recent trip to the same beach and giggled as I realised this boy is doing exactly what I was yesterday, waiting for the waves to come in so he can run away. 

DAY 12

This is , obviously, an old image from when I lived in Namibia but, after scanning in the image to my computer I boosted it a little this morning and really proud of the results :D

Love, Always
Luciie Panda

Apologies and Updates

As the title says - Apologies time!! - I feel like such a bad blogger having missed the last few days. I've been away from home and now having MAJOR laptop issues. My space on the C drive has gone into the red zone and with my external hard drive surviving ONE usage before getting broken and PC world telling me it'll cost the same amount to get a new one then to fix it but I cannot afford a new one :( ...Yet 
Basically, what it means for my laptop though is VERY slow performance and my internet pages decide to die every few minutes which is annoying to say the least.


I feel almost guilty enough to write my big make-up blog now but it's almost 3am and my eyes are burning from sleepless-ness so I promise it is coming later today :)


Love, Always
Luciie Panda

Harajuku-ers, Happiness and Heat exhaustion

            I cannot believe how hot it's gotten in lil' old North Wales the past few days. I've had doors and windows open all day and still haven't felt the urge to grab a cardigan once. I did, on the other hand, go outside for a lovely stroll with my camera. I think this year has really opened my mind to photographic possibilities. I've experimented with macro photography and still life and slowly built up confidence with my Fashion. This year is my year to really get to grips with my camera and so, I may not be doing fashion shoots every single week but I'm okay with that right now. I've got a long way to go to get to where I want and I know there's so much still for me to learn and play with and every single photo I take is helping me get to grips with this magical world of photography.

p.s. Yes that does mean my daily photo for yesterday and today are, once again, non fashion related.

Before getting to anything mentioned above though I've got a feature for you darlings. I went through - Wait scratch that - am STILL going through a love for Harajuku style and this year I WILL be creating my own Harajuku inspired shoot :) What is Harajuku fashion you ask? - WELLLL my lovelies;

You can, of course, find out the basics via Wikipedia but here :-

One of my favourite things about this style is LAYERS. This style is crazy- wild and gorgeous. I don't think there is any other style out there that I genuinely describe as 'happy' - Not including the gothic variates of the style of course.

Firstly some photographs taken in Harajuku and london ( I think you can guess which is which) Including images from the promo photo-shoot for the 6%dokidoki shop :)

I absolutely ADORE this!! - In the words of Coco Chanel: “before leaving the house, a lady should stop, look in the mirror, and remove one piece of jewelry.” - I'm sorry Coco but in Harajuku's case I have to disagree. The complete chaos is what makes it so brilliant!

The Sketchbook Project 2013

       One more thing I'd REALLY like to tell everyone about- AMAZING opportunity for artists and photographers alike :)
[link] - All about the place
[link] - How to sign up!! I've just entered and can't wait to receive my sketchbook to fill with a piece of me! - Oh I wish I could visit the library and lose myself for a day!!

Thankyou DeviantArt for letting me know about this place and I advise everyone out there that loves to let their creativity run away with them, to look into it too ^-^

Love, AlwaysLuciie Panda

Procrastination, Ann He and the summer light

The theme of  yesterday and today is procrastination, at least for me any way. I've got a pile of washing up in the kitchen , a floor barely visible in my bedroom and a few bags in the living room stranded across the floor waiting for space in my bedroom to call home. I also didn't get my blog post finished yesterday so am doing both days in one.

Todays' feature is actually going to be on Ann He. I hadn't mentioned this before but this girl is actually one of the main reasons I really pushed myself into action with my blog and even created a Model mayhem after reading about how she managed to get a lot of her models when starting up, from there.
Ann He is actually the photographer of the Hello Kitty couture dress shoot that I featured yesterday. The spectacular thing is that at the time of the photoshoot Ann was SIXTEEN! How ashamed I felt watching this amazing girl with these amazing opportunities and I just felt like I really need to start getting into gear over this next year. I have to admit I've never been good with giving direction. I think it's one of my biggest faults, wanting to be a photographer. I'm a shy person in general and I care about everyone else around me more so then myself to the point where I'm afraid that they'll think my concepts are silly and direction ridiculous. BUT, i'm coming to a point in my life where I'm realising that it isn't about them. This is for me. These are my ideas, my concepts that I want to come to life and I just have to go for it! It'll be hard to get over my shyness and insecurities but I know I can do it. I think Deviantart has really helped me too. I admit I don't have a big following on the site but when I DO get a favourite or a comment it makes me smile and realise how lucky I am to have even found photography and I'm forever learning. But even that ONE comment makes my day. It's more then just a nice message to me. This is my life. This is what I want to be doing and when someone takes their time to tell me that they like what I'm doing it lifts my confidence and makes me really want to go for every opportunity possible.

Okay, enough of that and on to Ann He:
When Asked by Alexandra Plesner Here 'What does photography mean to you?' this was her response:-
The ability to recreate dreams, escape from reality, to remember things, a vessel to realise what has never been seen before, like some candy castles…

Feature: Zhang Jingna,Francis Libiran and a wee bit o' sun

        I absolutely cannot get enough of the amazing photographer Zhang Jingna today and the amazing designer Francis Libiran. I suppose I ought to explain how I came across these two perfect examples of inspiration before doing my feature on them. Zhang, I have been following on DeviantArt for about three years now. Her photographs are sensuous and romantic and her use of shape and form, divine! At the age of 24, she is doing so well for herself and I can only hope I have even half the opportunities she's had when I reach that age. I have a feeling she even has her own blogspot but with my internet deciding that it doesn't really want to get a move on today, I shall have to try find it another time :)

Feature: Tibetan Turquoise, musings and fortunes

      Today has been a simple day but the shining sun has put everyone in a good mood and the calming feeling of impending summer holidays overtook. Unfortunately in my case it seems to year of sun living in Pakistan, Africa and spending childhood summers in Turkey seem to have turned me into a somewhat modern Vampire, minus the blood and gore of course. You may unfortunately find me hissing at the sun though occasionally as I frantically try to get into shade and avoid tanning at any costs.

So today my minds really taken me in the mood of a Feature. I knew I'd do one eventually so why get right to it!

  Recently I've become OBSESSED with Tibetan jewellery, in particular Turquoise jewellery. Turquoise is in fact my favourite colour- there's no doubt about it. Even when shopping I will instinctively get drawn to the turquoise items before my eyes have even adjusted to what else is on offer so much so that my poor poor boyfriend now instinctively picks out turquoise clothing in any shop I go into and brings them over to me so as not to even waste his time pretending to look at other clothes first.

Whilst searching excitedly across the web for Tibetan fashion the last month or so for my college photography project I came across these photographs. There's something so edgy about the colours of the clothing in contrast to the backgrounds whilst the models' pose in the Image directly below is awkward and broken-down in the gorgeously dramatic way that I love, even if her face does slightly make me think she's having bowel movement issues rather then just struggling to pull a yak.

Photograph: Nicoline Patricia Malina
Stylist: Michael Pondaag
Magazine: Harper's Bazaar Indonesia

 

Venturing into the magic...

      After rather a lot of deliberation, I am finally venturing into the magical world of blogging. It is VERY possible that I may be completely awful at it and give up after a few months before returning again a year later full throttle but, we'll just have to see. It's very peculiar to sit here knowing what I'm doing. Blogging hadn't really occurred to me as something I'd ever do before very recently, not because I don't like it but just because it hadn't even crossed my mind in amongst everything else going on in my life . I have to admit I think watching Julie& Julia will be a sad disappointment when I don't end up getting book offers and magazine interviews from this but I think I can forgive the movie for that as I have to say, watching it recently was when I first really pondered the idea of having my own. I wish I could say that It's my guilty pleasure to sit for hours getting lost into peoples blogs and that's why I've finally decided to create my own but actually it's only through the deliberation of starting my own blog that I ventured in to see what it was all about and so now have about 33 tabs open on my Internet browser of blogs that I've been reading in tidbits.

I'm in a bit of a tizz about how to actually start... where do I begin this winding path of losing myself to a blogging bubble? do I let the world know a little bit more about myself in hopes that that will entice them into reading more.. or perhaps I start by just simply explaining what is going to be visible for the world to see through this web page. *ponders* I suppose I'd better just 'go with it' and see what comes out first.

I won't pretend to claim that my writing skills are of a level to suck you in like a book you never want to end, or even that I'm an expert on anything I post in my blog ; i.e. fashion and photography. this is just how I do things, these are my opinions, this is my life.

I know not a lot of people shall probably read this or even see it, but it's out now and is here for those who do stumble across it and have even a spare moment to jump right in and read.

I have to admit that I was actually planning on starting this blog yesterday, my birthday but.. I've never been good with timing so instead I'll just post you a picture of the panda cake my boyfriend 'R' and I spent aaages trying to get 'Just-right'.

I baked my own cake this year, FULLY letting lose on my obsession with Pandas. There I stood with the lovely Rhys in tow and almost 2 hours later this was born. Just looking at it I feel like I've got heartburn and although there were many trials along the way I can say with all sincerity ( and laugh at myself saying it) that this was made with A LOT of love.

Love, always 

Luciie Panda

xXx