An early morning wake-up with Mrs Fendi, on Ponza Island

I realised I haven't done any "An early morning wake-up with..'' posts in a long time. All the previous posts are quite popular even months later (see elder posts: Rachel Zoe, Coco Rocha and Gillian Zinser) so this time I thought I might make you dream a little and I'm taking you some where exotic.

Just one thing before: this gives me the perfect chance to talk about italian summer houses and their decoring. Mmm.. right?! "Italy".. "summer".. and "house".. ! A perfect combo! which easily stimulates one's imagination. But the truth isn't as classy as one would imagine.. that romantical clichè of a stylish and cozy mediterranean villa at the seaside with exotic gardens full of beautiful cured flowers.. is just a clichè. Yes, because a typical & mediocre italian summer residence is everything else, than that. As controversial as it sounds italians don't know anything about the cozy-home-decoring culture. And they don't care much about it either, they like to spend most of their time outside their homes, especially when on vacation. It's all about hanging out at the lidos (the beach) (from 10 o'clock in the morning until 19 in the afternoon, not esagerating!) and all the remaining time they spend it in restaurants, walking on the lungomare or in the city center, meeting friends at the ice-cream bars. Not to forget the exciting life going on on the piazzas. So as you can see there is no time to spend it at home. Italians just don't have that tradition. Even if they have frieds over for dinners they usually hang outside anyway.. So why to bother themselves with decoring a house they only use for sleeping? That's the reality, guys.

This is why whenever I come across an exception in this field I get all excited. Like in this case. When doing my research for the Ponza island I spotted these fabulous pictures taken for Harper's Bazaar. I couldn't resist on not sharing them with you on CN. Take your time and read this interview with her on harpersbazaar.com.

For some of you who don't know (read my previous Ponza posts here) Ponza (circa 10 km²) is the main island in the Gulf of Gaeta, near Rome. Just like the rest of Riviera Ulisse, the coast between Rome and Naples, Ponza is quiet and calm. The exact opposite of the jet-setters' so much loved Capri island in the Amalfitana coast. Ponza is one of my must-destinations this summer, let's hope I finally make it there!

An early morning wake-up with Gillian Zinser

It is time for another post from the series "An early morning wake-up with.. " (check out the one with Rachel Zoe here and with Coco Rocha here!). This time take a sneak-peek into the home of the actress Gillian Zinser. She hasn't done any big parts (yet, let's hope. I love her!) but she sure is a big inspiration for many bloggers at the moment. Differently from other posts this one does not give a big glimpse to the home itself. It rather concentrates on some inspiring home-decor pieces and Gillian wardrobe's key-pieces.

Treasure Hunting

“This is my grandfather’s hat from WWII. The chair I found at that groovy flea market on Farifax and Melrose. I found the corset at a vintage shop in Paris and have been meaning to use it for some sort of homage-to-early-Madonna shoot. I found that amazing onyx black tooth pendant up in Big Sur, and the framed photo was something I found while gutting a house in the lower ninth ward in New Orleans while volunteering with the St. Bernard project after Katrina hit.”

Mad Hatter

“I am mad about hats. I collect them as souvenirs from my globe trotting.”

State of the Art

Top: “The hat on the right I found in a gutter in Haiti. The pieces of art were from a series called 'The Loudness of Silence' that I did in college.”

Bottom: “This photo is from an old self portrait series I did when I was living in Brooklyn.”

Dreamweaver

Top: “I’m in love with dream catchers. I collect them from every trip I take.”

Bottom: Vintage shawl, Chloë Sevigny for Opening Ceremony sunglasses

Easy Rider

“I found these boots at a vintage store in Prenzlaurberg in Berlin.”

Hurley shirt

Coming Up Roses

“I found this dress at the Rose Bowl. The turquoise bracelet was a gift from my first boyfriend.”

Rough-and-Tumble

“I made this voodoo bust a few years back, and my friend Malcolm Ford just gave me that Mike Tyson etching which I’m just mad for!”

Magic Touch

“This is some childhood memorabilia, my crystal magic wand, and my favorite camera to shoot with.”

Rock Steady

“The crochet top is vintage. The teeth are from my favorite store in New York, Obscura Antiques. And I’m just mad for amethysts.”

On Board

“These are two of my favorite Falsa Balsa longboards.”

Hang Up

“This is my ‘bling corner’ where I hang my jewelry from antlers. My dad took that photo of my mom when she was my age.”

Take the Bull by the Horn

“This is a bull’s skull sprayed with adhesive and covered in sand, dripping with a few of my favorite charms.”

Desert Finds

“Here's my old Polaroid collection. And both of these pieces are from my beloved adventures up in Joshua Tree. I bought those leather fringe pants right off an old cowboy outside of Pappy and Harriet’s, and the hat is from the Past Times Antiques shop.”

Paint it Black

“This painting is by one of my favorite artists, Travis Lindquist, from the Goldmine Shithouse Art Collective. The hat and old lace vest are vintage and the bag is Olivia Harris by Joy Gryson.”

Eye Candy

“The artwork is by Kill Pixie (Mark Whalen). These glasses are insane – I used them as a prop for my self-portrait project. The photo booth strip is taken in Berlin.”

Loose Ends

“The artwork in this shot was made and given to me by Kime Buzzelli, who's also the costume designer for 90210. The tattered coral top is from the Greenpoint flea market in Brooklyn. The sequin bib necklace is from a vintage store in Paris right behind the Pompidou.”

"Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long."

* the picture above & the title is a quote from Walker Evans.

This week a photography course was held at our school. Our visual arts education teacher invited a social documentary photographer, Andrea Mosso, to share his professional experience with us. While showing us his work, which I found really impressing and emotionally involving (in the early nineties he documentated the tragical situation of homeless children and their lifestyle both in Bosnia and Romania, for example), he talked about how to prepare a good reportage and it is the accurate homework and research which makes the difference. And how the choice of different techniques and the composition can affect the results of your work. I was really inspired by it all and it gave me a whole different enthusiasm and energy to approach photography. We decided to start a little project which consists in a representation of the school as a space and the meaning of it (to us). But I'm not that enthusiastic about it. Therefore I shall do also a reportage on my own and I thought about a neighborhood as a space. Garbatella, of which I've previously written (and posted pictures) about here, is full of colours and it's really hard not to get inspired by it. I started today and as soon as I'll finish my reportage I'll share it here. In the meanwhile I thought I'd share some useful tips (which I found from Brian Q. Webb blog) to make some good street photography.

1. Always, always have a camera with you. The reasoning behind this should be a no-brainer and if you’ve followed the prior two tips, should be a non-issue. If all you have is a pro-level dSLR with a huge white (or black with a gold ring) f2.8 telezoom and permanently fixed battery pack, then you might want to invest in something smaller and more portable as a “back up” that you can carry in your messenger bag or coat pocket.

- so true, you cannot afford to miss "the perfect situation". And practice practice practice! That's what makes the difference.

2. Be proud! Yes, it’s a bit cliché, but confidence is key. You will be treated according to how you behave. If you’re off at a distance, half hiding behind a wall and sniping away with a 400mm cannon, you will be treated with suspicion and possibly confronted (not to mention eliminating the environment component of street photography). If you walk around pretending to be a ninja, imagining that you won’t be seen not only are you self-delusional, but once again your behavior will be met with suspicion and you will probably be confronted. However, if you keep your camera out and photograph confidently (respectful confidence, not obnoxious confidence) chances are that not only will you be left alone but that you will be ignored. The people around you will assume that you are doing what you are supposed to be doing. Counter-intuitive perhaps, but true.

- I personally have some issues when it comes to taking pictures of people I don't know. I'm just too shy! But it's also true that a photographer should not be noticed by his models, otherwise they won't act naturally. So be invisible!

3. Use a fixed focal length lens. No, fixed lenses aren’t a quaint novelty. Generally speaking, they are faster and stop-for-stop sharper and cheaper then their zooming brethren. From the perspective of street photography, it lightens your load but more importantly it teaches you to pre-visualize your composition. Being able to know what you’re going to get before raising your camera to your eyes to shoot mitigates the need for you to make compositional adjustments and speeds up execution, an important skill in a pursuit where the moment must be captured, not created. In addition, using a fixed focal length lens allows you to make use of zone focusing (including hyperfocal technique) eliminating even more time from execution.

4. Leave your camera at home. Find a nice city street with loads of foot traffic and a comfortable place to sit. Now, grab a latte, relax, and people-watch. Practice reading people’s motions and interactions. Developing the ability to predict human behavior is key in being able to capture that decisive moment, much more so then something like shutter lag.

- I think this is the most important point. The capability of observing a situation and getting to know it.

For some more from Brian Q. Webb blog read here!

Check out Joel Meyerowitz, the man from the clip above.

Who is your favourite (street) photographer?

A letter to all of us!

I came across this post and if I usually don't have time and actually like so much reading long articles on web, this one sure caught my attention. Please take your time to read it as I think Emily, from Scarlett Letter Style makes a really really really GOOD point.

Are Boobs Really Back?

"32 B. That’s the bra size for my minute mammary glands. As such, I’ve always thought that a voluptuous figure is not necessary to be beautiful. You can only imagine my dismay when I picked up the September Issue of Vogue (the Issue of Issues of the Magazine of Magazines) to find that, this season, I am not “in style.” That’s right, folks. The biggest trend this season is boobs.

Fuller cups have gotten the fashion world all fizzed up this fall. Designers, such as Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton, chose to cast “curvy” models for their fall 2010 collections. Many fashion editors are attributing this trend to the naming of Christina Hendricks as Esquire’s hottest woman of 2010. The pillowy actress, of the hit show Mad Men, is setting the trend for curves and vintage A-line silhouettes. Now, creative directors and agents can’t wait to get those boobs back in the press. Almost every major fashion magazine has an article on the rise of the shapely model. This flesh fetish is a breath of healthy and fresh air compared to the heroin-chic emaciated models of the late nineties. Or is it?

Don’t think that I’m just bitter in my B bra when I say that this trend is not good for women. Curves being “in” does not mean that the American populace has grown to accept body fat. On the contrary, it suggests that breasts are the only part of the body in which bigger is better. In the article, “the F Word” in the New York Times Style Magazine, the book “Revolting Bodies?” is quoted to say that “fat is seen as repulsive, funny, ugly, unclean, obscene, and above all, as something to lose.” This view of fat seems to coincide and resonate with the fashion society’s obsession with Anorexia and obesity. Fat is something natural, but it is viewed as something that is unacceptable that one needs to conceal in corsets, spanx, and funny underwear. Hendricks even states in the article “Learning Curves” that she must wear a girdle and garters that give her bruises when in costume for Mad Men (Vogue, p. 480). I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t strike me as fashion that is friendly to the figure.

All in all, it appears that haute couture has never been amenable to the idea of a natural silhouette. Through the rib-shrinking-and-intestine-twisting corsets of old and the more recent girdle, designers have created images of the way they think women should look. These images, throughout history, have coincided with women’s roles and freedom. Corsets restricted women in the same way that the old Church restricted women. The structured sixties look coincided with a time when American women were paid less, still expected to be wives and mothers, and were not viewed as equals. The focus on breasts in fashion has been a focus on a woman’s capacity to be a mother. This focus has been a way to separate women from men in clothing, lifestyle, and gender roles. Think of times when breasts were not the focus of fashion: the twenties, the seventies, and the nineties. These times included Coco Chanel’s diversion from the corset and the rise in women’s sexual liberation, the burning of bras and the feminist movement, and the thin aesthetic and rise of the modern businesswoman, respectively.

Although many see the celebration of curves as a celebration of women that will reverse the rampant Anorexia in the modeling world, I disagree. I do not think that it is a fashion designer’s right to dictate which BMI is considered beautiful. In my opinion, it is ridiculous to purport that a certain body shape is a fashion trend. Bodies cannot change as easily as clothing can change, and dictating the ideal figure can lead to less body peace, more figure insecurity, more eating disorders, and more plastic surgery. Although it may seem far-fetched, I propose that fashion magazines focus on clothing. I know it’s ridiculous, but I think that magazines should eliminate articles that talk about body shapes like they are the new trench coat.

Despite all of the body politics, I am personally a fan of fashion. I love dressing myself in outfits that make me feel special. I love the combination of colors and textures and ability to express my creativity through clothing. This may seem ironic coming from a girl who has personally struggled with body insecurity and eating disorders. However, I think that authentic fashion can be a wonderful artistic medium. This is why I love fashion blogs and fashion blogging; blogs allow average women of all shapes and sizes to express their personal styles. In my fashion blog, Scarlet Letter Style, I write about all aspects of fashion except body shapes. In the world of fashion blogging, all bra sizes, from A-Z, are considered to be vogue. In the world of fashion blogging, women can write about fashion that allows them to pursue their individual dreams.

I find the idea of “boobs being back” to be completely ridiculous. Boobs cannot be back; they have always been and will continue to be “in”: a distinctly beautiful attribute of women."

I'm curious what do you, my dear readers, think about it?

INSPIRATION: The Grace in the Nature

This wonderful creature has been an inspiration source for my drawings for a long time .. So gracious, so colourful, so elegant..
So.. I wanted to share this divine beauty with you.
I think there is no greater inspiration font than Nature is.
What you think?

*these beautiful pictures are not shot by me (though I wish they were!). I did find them from here and there, so if someone feels I'm violating something, please let me kindly know:)