I don’t get why I must wear rocking horses even if I know I am going to get drunk, drunk walking in them is no easy task. (The stains on the other shoe are from the last time I was dicking around drunk while wearing them and facepavemented. :P) And yeah, my hair is looking like crap. Working on it.

On a semi-hiatus from Megaten, been playing too much of it already. If anyone has a cool casual-ish MMO to suggest for me to play while I get my Megaten motivation back, please do. And no WoW clones, goddamnit. Spellborn is pretty cool but it’s also empty, I played for a few hours and only saw three other players near the starting area. I still play S4 but I can’t stand it for longer periods of time. So yeah. Tried EVE, FEZ, Allods, Aika and NeoSteam already and they were all pretty lame. EVE wasn’t lame but just wasn’t for me. Waiting for FFXIV and WoD Online. :D

I have an entrance exam coming up next week and hopefully a job interview at some point. Got a sewing project to do as well, and cleaning my room is starting to be a #1 priority. I’m kind of liking just idling around but I think it’s gonna get really fucking boring in a few weeks if I can’t find a summer job. :F I also can’t afford to go through with my cosplay plans for this summer, so I’ll just have to do something lamer instead if I end up doing anything. Fail.

Have a generic camwhore photo to make up for the fact I haven’t manage to update this in two weeks again, hahah. Somehow I always manage…

Truthfully told I have been pretty busy with the advance tasks for school applications lately (or more so procrastinating with said advance tasks). Today I dropped them off so basically I am free to… procrastinate more from now on. They did make me a bit stressed so I am glad they are over with, however there are other things making me stressed as hell right now, such as the fact that I am completely and utterly broke. And by this I mean that I have about 4€ in total in my possession (in coins + two bank accounts) and had to loan 20€ from my flatmate today, so basically I am at -16€ as of now. Not all that cool. On times like these I miss having a job and being able to spend hundreds of euros on clothes monthly, no matter how shitty the job itself was. Oh well oh well!

What else have I been doing? I can’t even recall. I went to Mindcore a while back but unfortunately I was sick and couldn’t stomp for more than ten minutes in a row without feeling like dying. Could have been a good party otherwise, hahah. Something good came out of it though, because someone had scattered flyers for the next Graveyard party around and I learned that Hanzel und Gretyl will be there. And no, I had not known prior to that because every time I heard someone mention the event they had just been all “Durr Diary of dreams hurr”. I am so going, I have wanted to see that band for years now and I’ve heard they’re pretty epic live! If I get sick again I am gonna do something drastic, I always seem to get sick when there’s an event I am supposed to go to. You should have seen my 16-year-old jrawk fantard self QQ when I got a major fever when Dir en grey had their first club gig in Finland… Hahah.

Last weekend I went to see the M.C. Escher exhibition at Amos Anderson Art Museum with my girlfriend and it was awesome. I am bad (and frankly, too lazy to) at doing reviews of any kind, but I’m just gonna say that I enjoyed seeing all those works live and felt dumb when I realised that so many things I hadn’t known were by him were, in fact, by him, hahah. Highly recommended even though it was kind of a small exhibition, do yourself a favor and go see yourself some truly unique art if you’re around Helsinki.

Over and out for now since my gaming senses are tingling. In related news I picked up FFXIII again (I bought it on its release day and played it for ten hours before I decided I was disappointed at it) and it’s actually getting a lot better, I am glad I found the will to fight through the boring as hell first 15 hours. In chapter 9 right now, it’s supposedly getting a lot better at chapter 11 which isn’t more than a few hours away. I am still kind of disappointed at it, but it’s not even nearly as disappointing as I initially thought. That was one hell of a slow start for a game though. Anyway, gonna log onto Megaten now, been neglecting it for a few days now. See you hopefully before another two weeks have passed!

Fashion vs. lifestyle is something I have been thinking about every now and then since I first became interested in gothic fashion. And while I was sitting here in the middle of the night, in my red and black room, with candles as my only light source and the smell of an opium incense lingering in the air, sipping my red wine I realised just how cliche I am without intending to be, and thought that it would be a good time to write about this, hahah.

I’ll say it straight away; I don’t try to live up to any “lifestyle guidelines”, especially ones that relate to something as pointless as the stuff I prefer to wear. When I first got into gothic stuff, I was about 12 and was concerned that if I don’t do or like certain things, I can’t live up to the “standards”. Oh how wrong I was, but it’s funny to reminisce back to it and realise that I was just young and stupid back then. Nowadays I see kids on the internets trying their best to live up to gothic or lolita “lifestyles”, and I just snicker to myself because I remember how I was at their age.

What is a “gothic lifestyle” or a “lolita lifestyle”, anyway? Who says what it can be and what it cannot be? There are tons of guides on the internet on how to live a lifestyle up to the fashion you love. Why do they exist in the first place? For me, I started loving the gothic style back then because I had always been into the darker aesthetics. It just took me forever to realise that it worked that way instead of me liking the things I like because they are “gothic”. And that’s just fine.

But there are instances when people try to force theirselves to fit into a specific, assumed, “lifestyle” of a subculture (whichever it is). It should not be that way. There are no set guidelines. There might be things that a majority of the people in subculture x like, but you shouldn’t feel forced to like them if you simply don’t. Each subculture naturally attracts people with often similar interests, but as said, just because the majority in a subculture likes something and you don’t, it doesn’t make you any less “real” than the majority.

To me, subculture lifestyles are bullshit. The only lifestyle I follow is mine, and if some of it falls into the cliche gothic category, then hey, that’s fine. Point being; keep on doing the things you like and liking the things you like. Whatever they may be, it’s your (insert subculture) lifestyle.

I am going to keep liking my candles and my red wine, but I will also keep liking my bad eurodance and wearing my jeans and t-shirts most of the time. I genuinely like all of them, and it would be a shame to have to stop liking something I like just because it’s not “gothic” enough. Not that I even call myself a goth, because I am way too lazy with my frillz (and I bet some of the “true” goths out there would just laugh at my japanogoth stuff, but do I really care? No!), hahah. I am me, and I do things that make me happy. That’s what your “gothic” or “lolita” or whatever “lifestyle” should be about, and nothing else.

Of course, this is just my personal opinion. Someone out there will surely disagree with me, and that’s fine. Some people probably like the “guidelines” of specific subculture lifestyles. If that makes them happy, then more power to them! For me it would just feel like living up to someone else’s ideal standards, and it certainly wouldn’t make me feel happy or natural. But each to their own, of course.

With that said, here’s a (completely unrelated, but hey, I had to stick it in some post) small series of photos I took of my dorries for an assignment (not that they really relate to the assignment title at all, but whatever):

I am in no way a professional photographer, but hey, I doubt many of the people posting in the comms are either. I’ve always thought all of this is self-explanatory, but it would seem like it really isn’t to some. Here’s a short, sweet, super awesome guide on how to take better outfit pictures (or on how to not take them, more so)!

Because I like to acknowledge my own failures, I am using my own “oh god what was I thinking” photos as an example.

So, anyway. WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN TRYING TO TAKE OUTFIT SHOTS YOU WILL POST FOR THOUSANDS TO SEE:

1. No handheld self-shots, ever

Do I really need to explain this one? Your myspace angle does no one any good, and unless you are outside or use flash you will look both dumb and shaky.

2. No webcam outfit shots, ever

This just looks pretty damn stupid no matter how much you pose. And webcam quality always sucks, don’t even bother if you don’t have time for anything but webcam shots.

3. If you must do mirror shots…

At least try to make sure you can actually see you in it instead of random crap like your hair stuff and boxes in the bg. Which brings me to the next one…

4. Don’t take your pictures in busy, unrelated and unflattering settings

I mean seriously, no one wants to see your kitchen. Or your dirty laundry. Or your mom in the bg, unless she is really attractive. You know the drill.

So, what do you want to do instead?

1. Use that self-timer. It’s the thing that looks like a clock on your camera menus. Find it, and make it your best friend. Alternatively, if your camera supports them (check the manual!) get a remote. I used self-timers for years until I finally got my DSLR that supports remotes for my birthday this year, and it felt like a god’s gift to me. If you also have a camera that supports remotes, but not wireless ones like me, you may think you have a problem, considering the fact that at least Canon’s wired remote is generously long:

But don’t you worry! With some clever cable shopping, you can extend it to your heart’s content. If you have the remote and haven’t figured out how to, just ask and I’ll show. I know I bought two wrong cable while trying to wrap my head around it, but in the end all was well and now I have about 5,5m of remote cable on my hands and that’s plenty for most occasions.

2. Get a tripod. Honestly, setting the camera on a flat surface works to some degree, but a tripod is a very handy thing to have and allows you to take self-portraits as well as other non-shaky long exposure shots anywhere. The cheap ones work just fine for most occasions, mine is a cheapskate one as well and while it honestly feels a little less than sturdy in some outdoor situations, it hasn’t failed me yet. If you like to take pictures in, err, shady areas, a tripod works as a weapon, too. You really can’t go wrong with one, buying one made my life so much easier.

3. Use a nice, non-busy background. Honestly, I fail with this sometimes, too, but as long as we aren’t seeing your dirty laundry in the bg it’s not all too bad. A light-colored wall is the best background you can have, bonus points if it’s outdoors allowing you to use natural lighting. (This is why my balcony is my favourite spot for taking outfit shots in my current apartment. It’s boring and it’s very obviously a balcony, but hey, we’re not doing art here.)

4. Which brings me to… use natural lighting if at all possible, and don’t use flash unless you know what you are doing. Most cameras’ in-built flashes are way too strong, and taking good pictures indoors and without flash is hard if you don’t know what you are doing. Stand near a window, go to your balcony, go to your yard, anything is better than dim indoors lighting. If you must take indoor shots, take them on P (program) so that you can set the flash off and set the ISO to 200+. The camera will set the aperture and shutter speed for you, however if the shutter speed goes over 1/4 second you have a problem (I can still take sharp shots at 1/4 second, but anything over that is more often than not ruined because of movement. Someone will probably argue that even 1/4 is too long, but hey, I am good at staying fairly still.) and need more light or need to up your ISO more. ISO 400 is my favourite for indoors shots because it doesn’t produce that much noise but takes in a decent amount of light. (If you know what ISO, aperture and shutter speed are, then you really should already know how to take better outfit shots.)
ETA: As the first commenter said, adding more light is the preferable way to do this, but I was trying to explain how to do it without bothering with it. If you do have the extra light handy, use it instead of upping the ISO. This is so obvious that I forgot to mention it, hahah. That, and indoors (tungsten) lighting usually adds a yellow tone to the photos even if your white balance is set to tungsten. It’s easily fixable in any photo editing program by adjusting the color, Photoshop’s “Auto color” setting can sometimes be a bit overkill but works okay-ish for the most part. It’s, you know, automatic, so no complicated stuff there either.

5. Spend more than ten seconds on it if you have the time. I know it may seem like a waste of time to spend more than five minutes on outfit shots, but you are still gonna post them out there for the world to see, right? Right, might as well make them look good instead of causing people to focus on that dirty sock on the bg. (I know I may sound like I am fixated on the dirty socks, but I have seen WAY TOO MANY of them during my years on LJ’s fashion communities.)

6. Use that Photoshop. Not all shoop is bad shoop. Your lighting will probably be less than stellar, and it’s quickly improved in your graphic editor of choice. Not to mention it can be used to crop those dirty socks out of the picture if you, after all of this, still managed to get them in them. If you don’t want to dish out the money for Photoshop and don’t know where to get it for free (completely legally, of course), GIMP is a great free program that I used for years.

I am not assuming that this helped anyone, because I still think all of this is self-explanatory, so take it as an alternative, tl;dr way of saying “I am tired of seeing crappy pictures on my fashion comms”, if you will.