Art: Painting Please!

A beautiful and compelling combination of photography, painting and fashion. Photographs are by fashion photographer Nagai Sakai and the paintings and art direction are by Leslie David for Please! magazine. Isn't the texture of the paint incredible? It makes me want to reach out and touch it. See the entire series here.

Naked Eye Photography

These gorgeous images are by Canadian photographer Alexandra P. How sweet is that deer in the snow? Definitely frame worthy, don't you think? Prints of Alexandra's work are available in her shop. 

*Naked Eye Photography is D&OC's newest sponsor. If you're interested in sponsoring the blog, please let me know. Sponsor slots for the Spring are available. 

Photography: Seaglass

Prints and notecards of Jennifer Booher's beautiful seaglass photographs can be found in her shop Quercus Design. If you love everything about the sea (as I do) you'll love her Beachcombing series which includes collections of various items found along the beach. Wouldn't these look lovely framed and hung together? 

Art: Liesl Pfeffer

Collages by Australian photo-media artist Liesl Pfeffer. Check out Pfeffer's print and photography shop here.

Photography: Windblown

images: 1) raychel sonveeko 2) arivonfedyshin 3) neon tamourine 4) jpc79 5) berta pfirsich 6) silvercents (source unknown) 7) leigh ellexson 8) luxe (source unknown) 9) marina kochetyga

Nothing says autumn like a mouthful of windblown hair, right?! Ok, so maybe it's just me that that looks unsightly with my hair whipping around my head. These ladies look downright lovely. Oh well.

The Glow

Creative, stylish mamas, their kids, and their homes. What's not to love? Check out The Glow.

all images via the glow (found via babble)

Labor Day

photo by lisa smit (found via here comes the sun)

How was your weekend? B and I had a great time with his parents who came to visit from Georgia. We spent time outside, ate good food, received an amazing gift of a new mattress and box spring (it arrives tomorrow and I cannot wait to sleep in a comfortable bed!) and got to spend time with two of our very favorite people. Although we're confident that we made the right decision in moving, we miss our family very much and are learning to adjust to being so far away.

Today is Labor Day in the States so we'll be enjoying a relaxing day with friends and gearing up for a new week. B has found a job that he likes and I'm much closer to securing a position so we're keeping our fingers crossed that things fall into place soon. For now though, we're going to take advantage of the day off and worry about the future some other day. Hope you have a good! xo

A trip to the flea market

A little disheveled, a little wrinkled, we made our way to the local flea market on Sunday morning.

Fresh food, giant fake ice cream cones, dogs in strollers, and a plethora of junk and treasure. What more could one ask for out of a Sunday morning stroll?

We give the Raleigh flea market two thumbs up and hope to go back and purchase a few things (handmade leather belts, I'm talking to you). I am a little sad we didn't see any taxidermy squirrel soldiers, but maybe next time. How was your weekend? 

Inspire Me by Here Comes the sun

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Hello again everyone!

Just thought I would share with you all today a few images that have been inspiring me lately. Over on Here Comes the Sun I try to blog 6 days a week and, to be honest, sometimes that can be a bit of a daunting task to take on! Especially when you're also working full time and busy with other commitments too. But I find that the inspiration always comes and one place I love in particular is visiting flickr and favouriting images for some inspiration. It's amazing how much talent and creativity there is out there!

Hope you enjoy my selection! If you're on flickr as well do leave your link in the comments section so I can come see your work :)

It's been great guest blogging for you Christina!

Amanda Thomas
Guest Blogger
Here Comes the Sun

Guest Post: For the Easily Distracted

Hi Down and Out Chic readers! It's Rhianne here from For the easily distracted... I'm so excited Christina asked me to do a guest post, especially when she asked for it to be about toy cameras - if any of you read my blog then you know I love film photography so I jumped at the chance. I've had my diana mini for over a year now and it's still a camera that I'm learning more about everytime I use it and recently I've discovered an amazing combination which I just love and can't stop using. Diana mini with Ilford XP2 black and white film. I've used 4 films already since trying it and here are some of my favourites!
I was never 100% sold on taking black and white photos before, I loved looking at other peoples photos but I was always convinced that I loved colour too much to use a black and white film, until I tried this film. The soft tones of the film compliment the Diana’s use of light and the contrast looks amazing when you do double or triple exposures. It is definitely a film that you can build on. Perhaps my favourite part of this film is that it isn’t a true black and white film and if your lab accidentally scans it in colour then your photos actually have a slight purple tone to them which I’ve never seen before. Thanks for having me and I hope you like my photos. Rhianne

Analogue Life by Here Comes the Sun

taken with the LC-A+

Taken with the Holga 135BC

Taken with the Diana Mini

Hello everyone, my name is Amanda and I write a blog called Here Comes the Sun and I'm so delighted to be guest posting here! I thought I would begin today with a few of my favourite Lomography snaps I've taken over the last year.

I am a big collector of film cameras and love nothing more than heading out with my husband to take pictures of our adventures. The above shots are some of my favourite images we have captured on film and I love how each camera produces such a different look! I love them all but I have to say the LC-A+ camera is my favourite. If you like you can check out a more detailed post on my blog HERE with why I think it's so amazing.
Thanks for having me here! I'll be back next week with one more post :)

Amanda Thomas
Guest Blogger
Here Comes the Sun

Photography: Kim Høltermand

These hazy, ethereal photographs are from the Tuve series by Denmark based photographer Kim Høltermand. A few of his prints are available at Mammoth starting at $20. I think they'd look beautiful framed on a wall, don't you? 

Photography: An ordinary moment

Moments in black and white. Lovely, no?

images: 1) happiness is only real when shared 2) vovesdyh 3) .isobel 4) paula aparicio 5) fetie 6) nyra lang

Horizons

Photographs by Yuichiro Miyano. The aqua tones are quite beautiful, aren't they? In each of these images, the moment where the earth meets the sky is slightly blurred creating one large plane of color. So soft and special. 

Holga + Watson Mill Bridge

I took my Holga out to Watson Mill Bridge this weekend in celebration of Layne's B-day. I had never heard of Watson Mill Bridge State Park before this and I can't believe this little treasure of a place has been so close without me knowing it! The Holga did a good job capturing the laid back feel and beautiful scenery although the lens really has a knack for throwing off proportions and depth of field. I was pleased that it captured the biggest spider EVER (see #6) with some clarity. I think I'm ready to try out some other film cameras and the first on my list is the Popeye toy camera. Why? Because Popeye is awesome. Are any more reasons necessary? I think not.