Two things you need when blogging in the tropics ~ mozzie spray and a water bottle!
Oh gosh, I got eaten alive taking these pictures, and it’s a bit silly because I have had this happen before when doing a blog shoot, but it was so long ago that I completely forgot about the necessity of mosquito repellent! D’oh!
Also, I’m super glad I took a chance on doing this shoot. It’s the first time I’ve taken photos by myself since getting my 50mm lens for my birthday last year.
Because the depth of field is so shallow, it’s really easy to get the focus wrong and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get the camera to focus correctly and stay focused while running into place before the self-timer goes off!
I have been severely psyching myself out for the last month. I was so certain I needed the Mister to take the pictures for me, and that I couldn’t do it myself. Of course, with the whole family being so busy that means I have to wait for weeks and weeks and weeks because every time I think we might be able to shoot *this* weekend, something comes up without fail! Or the children are crazy, or need naps, or I need a nap, etc…. It’s really difficult to line everyone up.
It rarely happens and it’s so much easier if I can just sneak off when I have the time to take the pics myself. But I wasn’t doing that because I was afraid of my new lens…. Haha!
I discovered the trick was to focus the camera on an object that was where I’d be standing, so either a leaf on the ground, the chair, or the tree trunk in this case. I’d push the button to start the self timer, then swing the camera to frame the shot. It worked surprisingly well! Though I had to run pretty quickly to get into frame, as well as a lot further! The camera had to be so far away to offset the shallow depth of field, so I ending up with a bunch of photos that are just of my back. Haha!
There where definitely batches of pics that didn’t work out and I needed to retake them, but for the most part I am fairly happy with the results. Next time I’ll make more effort to go find a better photo shoot location.
This time I just went to some of the gardens in our Moo Baan because I figured if none of the photos worked out I wouldn’t have wasted too much time driving all around. It’s not the greatest backdrop, although I do really love these giant trees. It’s very hard to show how cool they are because they are soooo big!
I am wearing a vintage dress that I picked up in Thailand last year at a street market. I’m fairly certain it’s a 90s-does-50s dress, the shirtwaist cut is very interesting with strong Asian styling. The waist is quite boxy, the dress naturally just hangs off the bust without any shaping. It did have one of those little slide adjusters at the back of the bodice ~ you know the kind you often find on 90s vests?
I took off the slide part and knotted the two halves together to pull the waist in. It’s a really comfortable dress to wear like that, but for the pictures I wanted it to look a little more vintage and styled up so I threw on a belt as well.
It still turned out as quite a casual look, so I added my trusty Anello backpack and Miss L Fire wedges for a slightly peppy-come-collegiate-come-summer-boardwalk style. Once I added my trusty Peppy Chapette red-breasted Robin to pick out the red of the plaid, it was all good!
I am all for a casual sundress and brooch with sandals these days. It’s my go-too look as I find anything else adds too much fuss and bother for such hot weather.
I like all the accessories and details that vintage ensembles have, but I really don’t think that it’s super practical for tropical environments. Certainly, it’s really hard to get my hair to behave neatly, it’s just wild and does what it wants these days!
I’m happy for it to be super curly, but I do feel like it detracts from the overall vintage vibes of my ensembles… *sigh* Well, you can’t have everything!
xox,
bonita
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90s-does-50s Peppy Plaid Dress | Street Market, Chiang Mai
Peppy Chapette Red-Breast Robin Brooch | Peppy Chapette
Tan Virginia Leather Sandal | Miss L Fire
Navy Mini Backpack | Anello Bags
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