leibovitz

Hello. It's been one and a half months since the last post. I know, this awkward silence of my blog is getting old now... But that's better than a three-month pause, isn't it? And I guess it means I have a life, which is good, I have to say.

ANYWAYS, I'm here to write, not to be making up excuses and apologies to my own self so here we go:

In October, about one and a half months ago, my best friend Jenny and I decided we had to go see the Annie Leibovitz exhibit in Moscow, before Jenny went off to London for a whole month. Of course, as someone interested in art and photography I had already knew who Annie Leibovitz was. I've never been a big fan of her work, because I was familiar with mostly her new work and never cared enough (as embarrassing as that is to admit) to dig deeper and look at what she did before the, in all honesty, horrendous Disney series and all the widely known studio celebrity portraits. I have to say though, I have always respected her for being such a prominent figure in photography, considering how most photographers are male. But, as I have already said, I never really got why she received so much praise.

The exhibition changed everything. I don't exactly remember what it started with, but since I'm quite sure that the exhibition was basically what Leibovitz's book A Photographers life: 1990-2005 is, so it's safe to say that it opened with photographs of the Leibovitz family. As I walked in, I immediately understood that there was something special about all these images, but I didn't quite grasp what exactly it was.

The show consisted Annie's commercial work, which was intricately intertwined with her personal stuff. Amongst her personal photographs, there were numerous images of Susan Sontag, American writer and the woman Leibovitz called her lover. This set of personal photos is probably responsible for this special connection that I developed during the 40 or so minutes I spent looking at the show. It is really hard to describe the state these pictures got me into, there's just so much behind them: they show off the vulnerable side of Annie Leibovitz, yet at the same time, they are proof of the strength that this woman has within herself; these photos are so natural, so representative of what life actually is.

But it weren't just the pictures of Sontag and the Leibovitz family that made the whole thing so alive. Leibovitz's commercial work of that time is absolutely breathtaking. Even though she must have been paid an impressive amount of money for most of these pictures, they still feel so personal, it's like having an intimate moment with whoever is photographed, it's electrifying, really. The way Leibovitz manages to capture the essence of a person or relationship is mind-blowing.

This has helped me reevaluate my understanding of what photography is and it is so much more than JUST and art form or JUST a way of recording certain events. It's really hard for me to put it into words, it's like explaining what God is, I'll have to think some more about it, so for now I'll just post some pictures:

Sarajevo, 1993, right after a teenage boy was shot in the back.

Kate Moss and Johnny Depp, 1994

Cindy Crawford

Susan Sontag, the 90's

Jack and Meg White, 2003

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, 1980, five hours before John's death.

Susan

Susan, the end, 2005, I can't even imagine how difficult it must have been for Annie to take this picture.

You have to see them irl though, this doesn't do it for me.

Well hello there again. It's been three months now, since I started this blog and I still suck at blogging. But hey! I'm here to fix my overall suckiness and up it to the level of more or less consistent mediocrity and then just keep on working on it from there.

So as I was pondering over what I should write about, I had tons of ideas. I've thought about writing a love letter to Ricardo Tisci, an essay on what freudianism has to do with art and fashion, posting a picture of me in arguably pretty clothes and stuff like that. But I realized, I just don't feel satisfied with any of it. I generally don't feel any satisfaction with anything in my life right now. Which, I guess, is normal: I'm only sixteen years old...

So back to what this post is supposed to be about. *drum roll* Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinspiration! It's quite amusing that what I'm momentarily feeling for this fall is the topic of the first post, considering the name of my blog and all. Anyways, let's get to business now!

So the overall feel of what really makes me aesthetically ecstatic at the moment is all ghostly, gloomy, dark, yet at the same time romantic and maaaagiiiical. Basically, what a dark forest fairy would wear. Etherial is probably the accurate word for that.

>





These photographs are all by Paolo Roversi, a man whose work I really admire. I LOVE the hazyness and moodyness of his work and that it's all sort of like a fairytale, which I always come back to in terms of inspiration. And then I've been into the whole goth romantica aesthetic lately, and these photos definitley fit my mood at the moment.

Moving on!

So two words: Wednesday Addams. Man, that grim little child — she's just so geniously dead-pan in all her existance and very eloquent for a six year old. I wish I was that way (okay, so now what have I come to if I want to be like a six year old?). And I also find it awesome that her favourite toy is a Marie Antoinette doll AND that she has a spider named Homer AND that she does ballet. It's all just so perfect. And her style, it's just so sophisticatidly goth, the absolute opposite of those awkward goth phases people go through (not that they're a bad thing, there is something very poetic about them)

Back to Wednesday. I've fallen for those crisp collars and dark little dresses, and the knee-high socks. and the mary-janes. and the raven-black braids. And did I mention she had a Marie Antoinette doll?

And finally, just some random photos, that match this whole post and have a victorian-ish feel to them:

Irving Penn, 1949

some victorian erotica

a random girl with a weird facial expression which kind of works for this picture

Photograph of a young woman by Fitz W. Guerin, 1902.

I'm sorry, my non-existant readers (not yet at least), for the time it takes me to think of something, but I'm working on it. I hope it'll take faster this time.

a renewed beginning

Well hello there,

It is almost two o'clock here in Moscow, Russia. So, I lay there in bed, trying to fall asleep, reflecting on all the numerous projects that I have started and never brought to a logical end. The thing is, I view myself as a struggling artist (aren't we all?), which sounds pretty amusing, funny, whatever coming from a typical teenage girl with a desposition to art and other creative shizzzz (oh yeah, very classy). SO, as a struggling artist I typically struggle with my artistic ventures and creative flow, but now, for some reason everything has started falling in to place, everything that in one way or another has to do with art. I've failed so many times at this blogging thing and I'm afraid it might happen again, but hey, why not give it another try? everything else seems to be going well...

And so I sit here, writing all this. I don't want to share my full biography here, or list all the qualities I might or might not posess, since this isn't really about me; it's about the blog. There is no set concept here, as much as I'd love there to be one, but I definitely plan on writing mostly about fashion, my favourite artform. Anything that has to do with it, be it a review for a fashion show, shots of myself wearing the outfits I wear, photography I like or my musings on the different aspects of fashion. So basically, what this is is a traditionally-formatted fashion/style blog (Isn't it astounding how in a matter of a couple of years new tradition is created?). I will most likely include my personal artwork here and I might write about things of genres other than fashion that left an impression on me. But that's pretty much it, I'll try to stay as on topic as possible, even though the frames I have determined for myself are pretty broad.

Anyways, now that I got this a little, teeny-tiny bit off my mind I can go off to sleep.

-Staci (yes, with an "i", that is something I decided upon in 6th grade and don't plan on changing)