I'm exhausted... I literally stepped off the plane from China at 5am this morning and have been dragging myself around in my pyjamas all day. I'd switched my phone to silent so I could sleep, and forgot about it ...... until late this afternoon, when I saw 15 missed calls from Elbie. I switched on my laptop, and read the first line of her email.... 'WE ARE IN CLICHE MAGAZINE!'. I felt a bit sick and typed in the address, and there it was ........ 24 pages of 'Wonderland' in full colour.
For once i'm genuinely lost for words.... I suppose its because this whole project has been such an emotional journey for me.... and continuous to be, as we are still working on it. To think me and Elbie made everything out of nothing, and were just helped by friends and our partners, the pictures look 'real' and don't appear amateur amongst the other shoots. If someone had sat me down and asked what my dream end result for the photos would be..... I would have answered 'to see them as a full set, as full pages in a 'real' magazine - not an amateur photography one' ...... and its happened.... already...before I've even finished the project.
We still have more pictures and characters we want to do, and I have to finish off the pictures from the last of the summer shoots first (I probably have another 4 left now). But Im getting really excited about the winter pictures already because the woods are looking so menacing now the leaves have fallen, and the darker images are always where my heart is.
So that's it.... I just want to say that Elbie, if you are reading this..... I'm so, so, so glad I met you :) x
I've looked at it about a 1000 times now.... you can see the editorial for real here
What a day....what a day
(ps -i'll catch up about my far east trip soon)
I just landed in Tokyo, I'm staying 27 floors up in the city scape...... I have no time, I've had no sleep, I left my phone on the plane ......... but this is my view tonight, and somehow nothing else matters.........
I'll try and get some pictures, but I'm literally just passing through, I leave for Hong Kong in 2 days and then on to China. Its beautiful, it's quieter than I imagined I can't belive I'm here.
First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!
The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.
A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.
Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.
On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.
And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!
~ daisy
As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.
The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.
When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.
It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.
Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.
As always, thanks for your patience.
I'm afraid I fell apart....... mum died one year ago on November the 9th, and I just couldn't keep up with the blog. Luckily I have written about the more emotional stories behind the photos first, and as the shoots progressed I began to find things easier - confidence wise, although the amount of work was still really exhausting. So i'm catching up... mainly with the behind the scenes photos as they are the most important memories for me.
One of the most magical shoots of the whole series was when we went into the woods with Katie and she performed for us using her aerial hoop - she is a circus performer as well as many other things, and so this was just a dream come true for me. I made her entire outfit, and Elbie spent hours making a huge complicated plait that became the focus for her hair design. We started the day with Katie completely white, and as the day progressed we painted her eyes with black paint, added feather moth wings to her eyes, and finally I painted her white outfit with black paint to match the moth wings and metamorphosize her character into a darker creature. This character was an idea I have had of almost two years now, and has been in my head ever since I saw Massive Attack's video 'butterfly caught'. Katies naturally white eyelashes, and pale blue eyes made this whole look become so mysterious and unconventional, that for me it was really special to finally see it come to life and look so beautifully surreal.
The other behind the scenes pictures which I have been promising to show on flickr were for picture 12.... the girl with 4 legs :) I can't even describe how funny it was taking this photo, I'm amazed any of the shots were in focus as I was laughing so much. It was the end of a long cold days shooting, it was the worst weather I have ever taken pictures in - dull, drizzle, rain, cold.... miserable.... and typically it happened on a day when I had managed to get us into a very special location (which I will write about later). At first I had felt really disheartened about the weather, but actually, as with all the different weather we experienced during the project, it seemed to be just right for the character we had planned.
The main reason behind 4 legs - was simply that I wanted to throw in some really strange characters to balance out the more 'fashiony' / pretty characters - basically to remind people that this is still 'Wonderland' and nothing is as it seems :)
So... we dressed Katie and Jessica in matching outfits, and as Katie is extremely flexible, she ended up bending over the books whilst Jess sat on top of her! I couldn't believe it when the girls where in position, it just looked so real!! Everyone was squealing with laughter, and Jess was just fantastic, she starting ripping pages out the book and rolling her eyes in the back of her head... it was truly like standing in front of monster !! so here you go, as promised.... the funnies ........ :) !
Finally.....
Here are the first pictures of one of our hardest props - the hydrnagea wig. This character (the hydrangea fairy) was probably one of the most difficult characters to create, and came from a conversation down the pub between me and Elbie! It was taken really early on in the project and probably before we really started to get a grip on what we were doing. All we knew was that we wanted to create a fairy - a sort of flower fairy, with an enormous wig made of fresh flowers. I drew a few sketches and we agreed we wanted something on a huge scale, and in an unconventional shape. Once we had agreed on the rough design we were then faced with how on earth we could make such a thing....... and thats were ebay came in ! First of all we bought an old horse riding hat from ebay for £11, then Elbie bought 8 meters of chicken wire, and reel of garden wire and we made the rest up using old rubbish from my garage !
The main issue though was how on earth we were going to afford so many expensive flowers. i wrote to 3 florists, and to a neighbor who had a large hydrangea bush in their garden .... no one helped :(
Finally, after looking for fake flowers, contemplating stealing them from peoples gardens and then being wracked with gulit, out of desperation I placed an advert in 'freecycle' begging for hydrangeas. We half wrote the advert as a joke, but then a few days later to my amazement I got an email from a wonderful lady called Heidi George offering to let us come and cut down her entire hydrangea bush ! So I found myself turning up at a complete strangers house, and walked away with 4 enormous sacks of fresh flowers in the most incredible soft colours !! So here are the pictures, me and Elbie didn't have a clue what we were doing, and made things up as we went along. At one point the frame wasnt strong enough so we ended up stuffing half an old cushion and a paint roller inside for added structure !!!!! But we were thrilled with the results. I'll write more about this character and show further pictures of the set we made after i have edited the other full length shot.... the wig smelt amazing!!!!!
Oh and on a final note.......... something very exciting is happening regarding Wonderland.... It looks like we are going to be published. I'll write more when I know for sure what is going on... gulp :) !!!
I’m meant to be writing about the project, I’m behind with the words, and the pictures are taking so long to edit. There is so much to do, and right now I’m sitting here just falling apart for the millionth time this month. She died one year ago tomorrow and I can’t pull myself together. I’m so tired, I'm sadder than I can remember, I have felt like this for so, so long, to the point where I feel I can't even tell anyone any more. I’m a broken record, going round, and round, and round… Every time I think I’m getting there I’m smashed back down again, and I'm so tired of getting up. I don’t even care who reads this anymore, or what they think. I’m a schizophrenic to grief, I'm fine, I'm not, I'm broken, I mend, I look so bad. I cant remember what its like to look in the mirror and feel like myself, I'm permanently marked by the results of this strain, I'm scared it will scar me. I haven’t taken a self-portrait since May because I simply can’t stand myself anymore. I need this to stop; I need someone to take it away….. No one talks about her anymore, I feel like the only one who cries about her, she is everywhere, inside me, around me, fused into my soul, my shadow….. my heart beat…..my everything.
… I would give anything be my old self again, take me back 3 years before she was ill or I was ill, before any of the pain had begun. I feel like I can’t get through another day, I just want to sleep until I can’t remember anymore….. I miss her so much.
Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.
I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.
Cheers,
Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.
We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.
I will keep you posted.
Thank you for being so patient.
Blog Action Day is every October 15th, when blogger are asked to post something about a single issue to show our strength and conviction as an online community. It's a great way to feel connected to the greater good, and the participation of so many bloggers to support the world's leading non-profit organizations is something you can do to help, right now. By blogging today, you're supporting some of the world's leading non-profits and sharing your voice for change.
This year's topic is climate change, and we'd love to read your thoughts on the topic. If you participate, leave us a link to your post in the comments, so we know to check out your post!
Go to www.blogactionday.org to learn more, get a badge for your blog showing your participation, and see some ideas for your post on climate change.
Can't wait to read your posts!
~ daisy
