Outfit | Flashback Forties

Or, How I Finally Learned to be Smarter than the Camera.

That is, of course, me you see below. I've posted pictures of myself once before and will probably do so again. I dislike taking pictures of myself, nor do I particularly care for posting them online, but I'm learning to get over that by trying out unusual camera angles and trying to capture my own unique sense of style. Sometime, I'm going to need to share one of my super-snazzy scarf ensembles because I love my scarves. :)

The Outfit

I wore this outfit to church today and I enjoyed it immensely. I've actually had this skirt for a while but never worn it because I simply couldn't find a top that matched. I finally picked this white short-sleeve up at Goodwill a week or two ago. Pretty sure the skirt was a hand-me-down from a friend. Hat as well.

This is the "flashback forties" part. This style of outfit-skirt and looser shirt pulled in at the waist with a wide belt-is very forties. It's probably my favourite way to wear skirts; it's classy, stylish, and cute, but at the same time just unusual enough for people to notice. You'll see in all of my outfit posts (I'll try to put one up at least once a month just for fun) that my sense of style tends to be a little bit quirky.                                                                             You can almost see my necklace in this shot. It's a small gold cross-gift from a friend-worn to match small gold earrings. You can't see in these pictures, but I'm also wearing a brown corral anklet and simple black leather flip-flops.

I took all of these pictures on the deck outside of my house, so you can see the trees in the background. These two shots were actually taken in the same place, but I used different photo-editing techniques to improve the effects of the sunlight behind me (it was around 4:00 when I took them, and the sun was starting to set). I couldn't decide which one I liked better, so I put them both in. I like to call this my "contemplative" pose. Or I'm talking to myself. Whichever you prefer to believe. :)

The Camera

In my last post, I made the comment that I am "photo-clueless", and that's pretty much true. I can't work a camera to save my life. But I discovered something the other day when I was glaring at my camera and wondering why it wouldn't do what I wanted: I have a flash-timer.

I don't actually know if that's what you call it, but it's the fancy little timer thing that you set for ten seconds or whatever so you can run around, get in front of the camera, and pose. Super-cool, right? Yeah, so I have one of those, and I used it, and now I look extremely self-absorbed because I have two dozen pictures of myself on my camera. I then pulled my favourites into my computer to edit. I had planned to use Adobe Photoshop to edit my pictures, but my Windows 8 computer doesn't have it, so I pulled the pictures into PowerPoint and edited them that way. Seriously, you would be surprised what you can do with basic Microsoft tools. I didn't do anything major; just to alleviate some of the problems I was having with the light.

Here I am again. You see the lighting problems. For future reference, I don't do any editing with relation to how I actually appear in the pictures; just to make sure you can see me. I'm wearing very minimal make-up in this shot-mascara and a little bit of gold eyeshadow to emphasise the simple gold of the jewellery I was wearing. The way you see me is the way I am, and I will be totally honest and open about that fact.

This is a long post, and since I'm writing it with the Fellowship of the Ring Original Movie Soundtrack playing in the background, I'll leave you with this:

"I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:

Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.

Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,

And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a Golden Tree."

-from Galadriel's song of Eldamar, The Fellowship of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

~Sheridan