VAMPIRE SMILE

3:35am.
Can't sleep. Thought I'd do some of my visual journal for uni.
Here's some of it so far.
You can definitely tell I do it in the very early hours of the morning from the drawings of scary, naked women and the photos of couples being all touchy-feely.

YOU ARE THE OCEAN

Yoann Lemoine is a photographer and film director who has shot music videos for Katy Perry, Woodkid, Moby, The Shoes and been commissioned for shorts by Italian vogue. His most recent work on the music video scene has been for the gorgeous Lana Del Rey, first with her video for Born To Die and now with Blue Jeans. I think the videos are wonderful, and the tattooed man-candy in both vids makes them even better to watch. I do wonder why Lana is opting for death at the end of both videos though?

BABY BABY BABY, NO.

Oh, Bieber.
I'm actually lost for words.
Justin takes on UFC Heavyweight Antoni Hardonk and Jed Hill in this shoot for Complex magazine:

CHILDREN'S STORY

Last night the boy and I watched this film that I had seen the trailer for and was incredibly intrigued by; Underwater Love; A Pink Musical.
Pink Film is a Japanese genre of theatrical soft core porn that originated in the 1960's meaning that; it's porn without any actual genitals showing, only breasts and prosthetic genitals are allowed on screen amidst outbursts of song and choreographed dance numbers. Comparatively, with other porno's like typical American or Westernised porn, the Japanese place incredible importance on the censoring of men and women's southern regions and the people don't complain. It doesn't just add a more artistic appeal to the filming but it also has a sense of "what's hot is what you can't see".
So, anyway, Underwater Love is a soft core porno musical about a woman and a 'Kappa' - a water sprite who's form is mostly human other than a turtle like beak, shell on it's back and the top of it's head must be watered in order for it to live. The woman, Asuka, is in her mid-thirties working in a fish factory and about to marry her strange boss Hajime. One day she spots a Kappa, who turns out to be Aoki, an old high school crush of hers that had drowned in a swamp 17 years ago and had been reincarnated as one of the water sprites.
Directed by Shinji Imaoka, known to be one of the 'Seven Lucky Gods of Pink' and with cinematography from Christopher Doyle, an Austalian award winner in his field, the film is definitely an interesting watch. I  found it hilarious, moving, uncomfortable and completely enjoyable.
Check it out;

GOT IT LIKE THAT

When Empty Kingdom put up their listings for the best artists of the last year I scrolled through that shit like a hungry lion smelling out its prey. Here are a few of my faves from the listings;

Bill Durgin is an american photographer with an intense fascination for the human form and the ways it can assemble itself. He works with incredible contortionists in order to give the impression that the subject is a sculpture.

Amanda Elizabeth Joseph is from America and specialises in paintings that I can only describe as beautifully disgusting; painting garish close-ups of sick, blemished individuals where the wounds have been replaced by sequins, sparkles and glitter.

Nick Pederson is an artist and illustrator from Brooklyn. In his collection of work entitled "Sumeru" Pederson attempts to illustrate the 'mental journey that is undertaken in Zen buddhist training and practice'. In his statement he declares; 'In Zen literature, the word ‘land’ is commonly used as a symbol for the ‘mind’, and through my images I have envisioned an exploration into the depths of this metaphorical ‘mind-world’. The narrative follows a spiritual quest as the storyline symbolically wanders through various states of consciousness and perceptions. My conceptual inspiration for this project is in the existential drama of searching for personal truth, and the main themes I am portraying are awakening and rebirth' 
They're just lovely to me. 

Loom by Polynoid is an animated short that shows a fly struggling desperately in a web before the spider comes along with it's fate. It's very detailed and completely captivating; I especially like how they animated the venom inside the body.

Kris Kuksi. I mean, wow. Really - wow. His sculpture work is just incredible. The initial piece that interested me was a war tank he had built, but it was a church. I then looked at more of his work and I'm just in love with it all. Like many artists that I love, Kuksi sees beauty in the grotesque. 

This is the church tank. In. Sane. 

I really do love them - they're like steampunk sculptures of ancient and traditional pieces of art. 

Bruno Dayan is a British born fashion photographer who has shot the likes of Cindy Crawford, Charlize Theron and the beautiful Audrey Tautou. His non-celebrity commissioned work is less well known but lovely nonetheless. 

How wonderful are the colours?

Also - my blogger account and I are mid argument, hence the unwanted changing of font and size of the writing. 

ONLY KNEW

Holy crap - how have I only just found out that Ryan Gosling, the man of all men, has a really good band?
Dead Man's Bones consists of Gosling and Zach Shields, whom met in 2005 and bonded over their love of ghosts and all things creepy and decided to write ghostly love stories together which then became the album. Both Gosling and Shields play every instrument on the record and even taught themselves instruments just for certain songs. They also set themselves little games whilst recording the album, like they couldn't have more than three takes per track or not use certain things to cheat the quality of the music, allowing the mistakes to be incorporated.
It's like an Arcade Fire meets Rocky Votolato meets Jack White. LOVE.

My body is a zombie for you too baby.

BLUES

Spring 2012 wish list

Tobi ruffled cut-out dress:

Ysterike Ivory Dress:

Sass & Bide one shoulder asymmetric dress:

Shakuhachi Neon pink fitted bind dress:

Shakuhachi Burgundy quilted leather bike shorts:

SHOES

Birkenstock's in white (don't judge - they're so comfy):

ASOS Helix:

Nasty Gal Sloane Platform boot:

Nasty Gal Latifah Platform pump:

Nasty Gal Day Platform pumps (literally mopping my drool up over these):

Nasty Gal Jemma Platform in wine:

So, essentially - the whole of the shoe section on Nasty Gal. 

Romwe Pointed rivets black loafer:

SLOW DANCING

<3

BIG JETS

I haven't really had the opportunity to do many shoots over the past couple months, though a few weeks ago Sylva came over and we managed to squeeze in a small photo sesh using this massive chest of accessories she hauled over from home. As always, she is gorgeous. It's not my camera, or any other foreign aid, it's all her.

All photos taken by Romy

MUSIC IV

A playlist I am currently listening to:

No Pets Allowed - Do I See The World?
Arcade Fire - Sprawl II
DEV - Take Her From You
Capital Cities ft. Tupac - Breathe
Hoodie Allen - #Whitegirlproblems
After The Smoke - Never Too Many
Usher - Climax
Pretty Lights - We Must Go on
CAAN - Now Hear This, My Friends
The Knife - Heartbeats
Professor Penguin - Pilot
Strangers - Shine On You (Draper remix)
Frank Ocean - White (Melo-X Gentrification remix)

MY MAN

Nobody's perfect but you're perfect for me  <3

I bow to Missy Elliott.

HEAR THIS, MY FRIENDS.

Woweee- so I have been incredibly lazy in the blogosphere and have not paid this any attention for far too long. Uni work has been my ultimate distraction but I can't deny that I've missed this small white box of literary and visionary freedom where I can rant as I please, drool over what I please and ultimately share the things that make me wildly happy.
I am currently sicker than any sick dog, writhing around in pain, coughing and wheezing inaudible sentences whilst considering watching Paranormal Activity 3. On my own. Miff man.
Cigarettes today: 0
Thoughts about cigarettes: uncountable
Sighs of resentment and frustration: must be nearing 1000 by now.
Cries: 4 times in the last 3 days.
Sympathy? Not bloody likely. Even my doctor told me to man up.
Nevertheless - I will shake off my shivers and scour the internet once more in order to continue on with this visual journal that I so much used to love.

So - off we go again and why not start with a really wonderful shoot of the banging Katy Perry for Interview Magazine, shot by Mikael Jansson - channeling Elizabeth Taylor.

How I lust after her body - her perfect curves, her exceptional rack. Though I did lose some respect for her when I heard her cover Ni**as In Paris. That was just... a real shame. 

MY FLAMING THIRST

I am a sucker for a chick with a hot body.
And who has a hotter body right now than the magnificently sexy Kate Upton?

Kate by Yu Tsai for Esquire March 2012:

Wit - woo.

SETTLE DOWN

I'm kind of shifting myself back and forth between my madre and padre at the moment which is kind of irritating and I can only really move out once I graduate and can support my sorry self properly but until then I'm constantly looking at apartment-porn.
Like this beauty:

It's a floating bedroom. LUST. 

A CASE OF YOU

As my final year dissertation and final film both revolve around a lexicon of love I've been doing research on love and relationships for some time now. I've been hearing both first and second hand accounts of love stories and horrific heart breaks and I thought I'd share something I'd found.
'Emotionally Vague' is a project that displays graphically how our emotions look and feel in our body. From a survey of 35 different countries, using 250 people between the ages of 6 and 75 each time, the project reveals how people experience feelings of anger, joy, fear, sadness and love.
Given a piece of paper wit human silhouettes, each person graphically represented their emotions in 3 ways; as a point, as a directional arrow and with complete expressive freedom. The images were then collected altogether and compiled on Photoshop to show a sort of 'frequency pattern' of graph.
Here are the results:

 From the drawings you can see the similarities that people experience between different emotions:
From the head: Anger, love and sadness.
From the heart: Love, sadness and joy.
From the stomach: Fear and love.
From the hands: Anger.

Interesting to see. I would agree with the majority of these results myself.

THE CHILLS

Stefano Bonazzi - Smoky Portraits

NO LIGHT NO LIGHT

....Unless you have one of these bad boys.

I found this whilst I was working (procrastinating) on my final year dissertation (my 45-page document containing an incomprehensible load of bollocks) and was just completely blown away by it that I even considered changing the topic of my dissertation from.... erm.... the thing I was writing about to something to do with wood carving.

I must learn to carve wood into household items or I will never be truly happy in the facsimile of a sham that is MY LIFE.

Mesmerising.

THE WILHELM SCREAM

Alright, so there is this 16 year old girl called Dakota, I'm assuming from the States and she has recently become famous in China and that because she looks like Barbie.



I mean, obviously she's wearing false lashes etc but she really does look like a Barbie doll...
Is she pretty? Maybe. Is she scary? More likely.



All I know is that I would definitely not talk to her. A little out of fear but mostly out of pure jealously.