Colour blocking, nice fabrics & COLOUR makes this absolutely lovely. Kulte's clothes aren't too shabby either. Not that I'm too much of a sundress kind of girl. But it's their zine/magazine  Kultorama that makes me happiest of all. Tongue in cheek art direction & nice big ass full pages of word art. Think I'm in sartorial heaven. Check it out. I can't actually find anything about them but I gather (quite convincingly) that they are French. As everything's in French. Very perceptive that way... Anyway nice images & I'm off to see Young Adult now, happy Monday!

I can't actually remember how I found Christopher Patrick Ernst's website, but really I'm just glad that I did. His photos conjure up the kind of mental, sparse, depressing America that I've always wanted to wallow in. & the palm print just brings to mind that Versace for H&M stuff... & better palm prints that have been swilling around in my head for some time. Plus, his penchant for crazy wallpaper is wonderful.

I'm so nervous today because I'm going to the school where I'm sort of volunteering /shadowing an art teacher for the next months or so. It was basically because I felt like I needed to do something that felt like more of a step towards what I actually want to do with my life. But I'm not so sure that's it anymore & it's just awkward. Like hello 16 year olds, I'm only 3 years older than you & there's no reason why you should give a fuck what I say because since I finished college I have done nothing productive. Oh well, maybe it'll be fun, maybe I'll get a job out of it. But right now (well when I'm writing this, so...night before) I just want my day off instead. Sorry.

Been waiting on the 20 Years of Dazed & Confused exhibition for a few months now & it opened today! As much as I'd love to rush there on this week, I think I'm gonna wait till the crowds (there should be crowds!) die down a little, or it's not a weekend. In the meantime here are some of my favorite covers from Dazed past. From top left, July 2006 cover by Damien Hirst & Barbara Kruger, December 2006 cover Zooey Deschanel by Terry Richardson, May 2007 cover Kate Moss by Venetia Scott, January 2009 The Youth Issue by Hedi Slimane, May 2012 cover Tilda Swinton by Glen Luchford & April 2011 cover by Jake & Dinos Chapman.

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my halloween post, sorry I've been so absent lately. I wanted to make it up to you by trying extra hard with the photography. Maybe those 2 years of A Level weren't a complete waste of time... Anyway, normal service should resume next week as I'm gonna try & figure posts out on my next day off.

Love love.

By way of some semblance of an apology for my absence here is some beauty for your screen. The work of Andreas Loszlo Konrath has embarrassingly only just come to my attention via the New York magazine that my sister brought back with her last weekend from America. The article on the "lost generation" that I am a cliche of was actually really interesting too, with Konrath's photographs of hipsters with tape scrawled with things like "STUCK" & "Everyone default on your loans" etc, etc illustrating the piece wonderfully enough to catch my attention. Actually, kudos all round for New York magazine, even their joke dissection of a zombie brain is presented beautifully.

Anyway, yes, where have I been? Well no where really. I've been at work. Went to London for a family reunion last weekend. Got pretty ill and slept/relaxed it off between bursts of stress as work. It pisses me off that when people hear I work in a bookshop they assume I sit there all day reading proofs, when actually I've spent the last month dealing with some of the worst human beings known to planet Bristol: Bristol Students. I actively hate and resent them. I'm sorry if you turned up as one of the rare nice people amongst the upper class scum. But honestly I despair for needing a lawyer, doctor or um... French speaker in the future when these clowns are running around. Enough of that.

Basically mostly I've just been really fucking happy at the moment. Life is pretty good despite not really going anywhere. But I have missed finding lovely stuff, thinking about what clothes to wear & writing. & you guys! Of course. First & foremost I've really missed you guys. So I have the day off tomorrow & between doctors appointments & getting ready to go to Belfast I promise to think about & schedule some posts.

How are you?!

It's nice when someone comes to buy a book at work & instead of my automatic retail robot I actually learn something, or have an insightful conversation about the pros & cons of say... Douglas Coupland. On Saturday a man came in wanting to order the new Edwin Smith book & unfortunately I couldn't get hold of it for him, but I cursed myself for having not heard of Smith sooner, especially (embarrassingly) not only having studied photography for two years but also done one project focusing solely on architecture photography. Working in large format, his compositions are very much those of the larger scale & I can't imagine how fantastic it would be to see them life size rather than screen size... (images from Google)

Can I also say hello to Sarah (I think that's the right person, Sarah of Dischohecho if it wasn't you, please let me know!) who I met today in Berkley Square on my lunch break who professed to be a reader of this blog. She was intriguingly taking photos of berries & I was disappointingly dressed for the shit weather & lugging heavy boxes around a humid shop... Oh well. It's nice to remember (most) people on the internet are real & lovely.

Mondays, Mondays

Sick artwork by Carmen Garcia Huerta. His website's down at the moment, but his blog is loaded with his work from Glamour to Portrait Now! I prefer his more sketchy ones that the highly digitalised stuff he does, but each to their own, the others are pretty sweet too. & his portraits of people from Louise Bourgeois to Amy Winehouse & Madonna are amazing. Had to go for Morrissey though, because even though he's a twat, The Smiths were so fucking good that you can't discount his imagery completely. Oh & sorry for all the boobage.

More here.

Sorry for the image overload, but they were all so pretty I just couldn't resist. A post by Mat reminded me about this guy I knew who was an insomniac and used to go for walks at dawn around the city. He got obsessed by spotting odd signs, mainly ghostly painted ones on the sides of buildings & he took me for a tour once which was so beautiful. I don't actually know what happened to him but when I read this article at work on Saturday the mention of Project Neon brought it all back. If you haven't heard of it basically she roams New York looking for lovely neon signs. & it's neon's 100th birthday so the endlessly wonderful Chris Bracey made a sign to accompany the article & it set me on an internet trail. Neon - don't you know - is also my favorite element in the periodic table.

What's yours?

Whilst sat in the airport last week (man only last week), wondering why it is that people insist on queuing up an hour before the flight is due, I picked up the airport magazine & aimlessly flicked through. I came across a story (now I realize, about 6 months out of date) about Kodak's Colorama photos that adorned Grand Central Station for four decades.

They were hailed as the largest ever photographs and printed at 18"x60", which is pretty fucking huge. But it's the weirdly idyllic (*ahem* white middle class) America that they portray that really interests me. From packing up the holiday home in the 50s (top photo) to the election of 1960 (4th photo) they show an amazing amount of detail just because they're so big I guess. They also remind me of Gregory Crewdson, whose giant images are staged to the extreme to produce well thought out dialogues in an image. I actually got to see some of his photographs at the C/O gallery in Berlin & I've never been a huge fan of his work because the women always look so abused, but I have to say the detail is breathtaking.

Anyway before this starts sounding like a photography lesson, you can view the full archive online as well as more information about the photographers & the actual equipment used. It's nice flicking through the images & seeing so many weird scenes that feel staged & yet are trying so hard to look real.

Good morning!

I first came across colour infrared film over a year ago now when Dazed printed one of Richard Mosse's amazing Congo photos on their back page. I then did some vague research online before becoming baffled about having to order it from some dude who cut it himself (?). I then asked in London Camera Exchange in Bath where I was told about Barry who used to have some in his fridge. It all got a bit dodgy & so I left Barry - wherever he may be - alone with his fridge & his infrared film. But killing time on flickr the other day I did another search & found some amazing photos by this guy & many more. So maybe I should go back & investigate further... does anyone know anything about the mystery colour infrared? Maybe I should just get better at Photoshop. Or go back & try harder to find Barry's fridge...

Or not.

"I was in Helsinki when the founder Riittaa Immonen died & in the window of the Marimekko store they had replaced the bright fabrics with a simple black screen."

My mum is the one who introduced me to the prints of Marimekko & as I followed in her footsteps with a slight obsession with fabrics & prints every time we spot the famous red Marimekko poppy (including oddly, the other weekend, as a curtain to the changing room in a charity shop in Bath) we share the same "Ooooo Marimekko" noises. Because there's something just so... right about their prints. In the way Liberty's are wrong, but work. Does that make sense? I guess it's cause they're Scandie, hence being able to offhandedly publish a free newspaper with a whole page dedicated to well laid out repeated white kitchenware. Newspaper picked up on my brief Cheltenham escapade from this shop.

Lovely.