Check out this interview with Pixie Trix, member of the Toronto burlesque community and someone who I had the pleasure of shooting almost exactly one year ago. See her original shoot here http://wp.me/pzuja-1qR
Originally posted on Gracie Klutz:
Anyone who knows me, knows I love-LOVE a good joke, and this lady is one of my favourite jokesters. Her compelling layers of character blend seamlessly with her technique. She is a supporter of all positive elements within the Toronto burlesque scene, and has always been a champion of mine. I consider her a personal role model for a life well loved. Ladies and gentlemen, the tiny dynamo: Pixie Trix.
Gracie: Thank you for letting me see behind the curtain Ms Trix. How long have you been on the scene?
Pixie: I have been a watcher of burlesque for about 4 years now, and have been performing for just over a year. I’ve really enjoyed being a part of the Toronto Burlesque Community in both audience and performer roles.
Gracie: Do you have a signature colour?
Pixie: No signature colour. (yet)
Gracie: Who is your biggest fan?
Pixie:
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I am doing a little photographer swap this week, where myself and another photographer are going to shoot each other’s portraits for use on our websites. Don’t worry, I am pretty sure I have it sorted – a long black maxi dress (because I love black) but I still need to figure out my hair – especially since the Toronto summer is causing it to puff up to three times its normal volume.
So having said all this, you maybe a little curious as to what someone would wear when they have booked a portrait shoot. I am a huge advocate of options, the more options the better. So normally I would suggest between 6 and 8 outfits that you love, and especially not forgetting that one outfit that you really, really love and bought that time but just didn’t have and excuse to wear more than once. THAT is the most important outfit.
During a 2 hour photo shoot, there is probably time for 4 or 5 outfit choices, so come prepared with an idea of what is your most favourite of all your outfit choices. Bring the pieces that represent your style and personality, whether you are quirky, bohemian, corporate or casual. As for me, you will pretty much always find me wearing black in some way, shape or form. I live in jeans but also love a good maxi dress, and am somewhat partial to leopard print.
It is all up to how you want to look, these are your photos that will tell your story. If you still aren’t sure, check out my “What to Wear” board on Pinterest. It has a whole lot of different options, easy casual looks, something a bit more corporate, and then headlong into sparkly party dresses.
Of course there might also be some time left to have a little bit of a play in my studio wardrobe, which given my obsession with anything that glitters, floats or is made of tulle is expanding at a rapid pace which you can see here in this behind the scenes video of the Studio Wardrobe Tulle, chiffon and sequins during this shoot with Jessica
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I have had some really interesting results with the Diana Mini lomography camera before mostly using expired film (check out the stuff I took in England and then Spring in Toronto in 2013) but this time was a major fail.
I am not entirely sure what went wrong this time, although I think mostly it is down to me moving the camera as I depress the shutter release.
As you can see they are a blurred mess
Although this one may be explained due to my close proximity to the bar (and time spent at all the bars at the resort)
The only one on the entire roll that wasn’t blurry – Coba
I loved how the colours came out – Tulum
Tulum would have looked really nice – also I am obviously having issues with the vignetting of the barrel/and my ginormous black floppy sunhat.
BUT!
The film out of my Dad’s old Praktica Super TL was awesome!! Beautiful colour, a hint of grain – I was super impressed! Also impressed that I managed to expose all of them pretty much spot on even with the internal meter broken.
This was ISO 400 film and shot most of them around f8 or f11 at between 1/125 to 1/500 although most I think would have been 1/250 since it was pretty bright most of the time. Also super impressed that this film came out at all since it snapped out of the cannister (I may have forgotten how many exposures were on the film and just kept shooting and winding), and I had to remove the film in the darkest room of the apartment (just happens that we are in a basement apartment and have a guest bathroom with no external windows in a dark hallway).
This one is allowed to be blurry, we were riding a Mayan limo at the time (sitting our fat arses in a seat while someone push biked us down the road). We blamed Geoff’s ileo for not being able to walk the 4km in the heat.
Part of the ruins in the games arena at Coba
Same as the Diana photo – I was double shooting a bit since I wasn’t sure if anything would turn out.
Which was lucky since the Diana version of this looks crappy – Tulum
Can’t get enough of the beautiful colours of Tulum. What I also find really weird is that I have less problems with crooked horizons in film cameras.
Managed some depth of field and even exposed correctly for Geoff’s face – AWESOME!
And I ran out of film at Chichen Itza. So glad I took the film cameras with me, I am even a bit tempted to jump on Ebay and find a few more vintage cameras to add to the collection, but I have also spied the Instax Mini Neo Classic AND the Diana Mini Instant back. Geoff knows what to get me for Xmas now :)
Geoff and I got married back in August of 2011 (pretty photos here courtesy of Lara Luz) and never really got round to our honeymoon. We actually intended to head to Vanuatu while we were living in Melbourne, but then moving to Toronto sort of put it on the back burner a bit….well a lot.
So we decided since we would be travelling to Mexico for the wedding it would be a fantastic opportunity to go somewhere new and actually have our honeymoon.
What appeared on Instagram from our time in Riviera Maya
We stayed at the gorgeous El Dorado Royale (recently of Real Housewives of Atlanta fame – I rewatched the episode when we got back so I could squeal “we went there” multiple times), an adults only, all inclusive resort. We opted for a swim up suite which was very conveniently a 100m lazy river walk to a swim up bar – how convenient! Being our first all inclusive experience, I was a little apprehensive but the food was amazing and I must have drunk hundreds of pina coladas/mojitos/raspberry coladas during my stay.
Geoff was kept happy with hundreds of iguanas lounging around the resort and even managed to hand feed a big male iguana a hibiscus flower. We tried to befriend the cats, especially the beautiful black mama cat with 3 gorgeous little silver tabby kittens but they were very wary of people so we could only admire from a distance (I did manage to sneak some bacon away from breakfast and leave it in one of their little hideaways).
Since we also celebrated our 11 year anniversary over this past weekend, we had a beautiful candlelight dinner on the beach as an early celebration – you get the idea below (although this was from a couple of nights later when there was the most amazing moonrise).
Although I took a lot of pleasure in lounging poolside in a cabana, having drinks brought to me every 10 minutes, we did actually manage to leave the resort a couple of times. One reason that we chose the Riviera Maya is because we both enjoy historical sites and ruins, so both of our tours were focussed on Mayan culture and history.
Our first tour was of Coba. The ruins at Coba are around 120 steps (42 metres) and you can still climb them (unlike at Chichen Itza where climbing stopped in early 2006). I only made it about 3/4 of the way up before I got too close to one edge, looked down the side, then looked down behind me and completely freaked out. I thought I was going to fall off. Geoff was really good in trying to encourage me to keep going since we didn’t have much further to the top but I was really done. I did manage to get a photo from where I was before I had to bum slide down each step.
They also had ruins of a tournament arena where the opponents had to booty block a ball up an incline and pass the ball through the limestone hoop. The winner became the sacrifice, unless you were lucky enough to be of powerful standing and only need to offer a blood sacrifice.
After Coba and a delicious local buffet lunch with a very refreshing local lager, we travelled on towards Tulum.
Mayan ruins at Tulum within a walled city
Geoff took some more opportunities to take photos of iguanas, because these iguanas were obviously different from the iguanas at our resort – iguanas on ruins!
Our next tour was to Chichen Itza which is one of the modern wonders of the world. I loved seeing the restored sides of the monument compared with the unrestored, and the scale of it when you see a person looking up at it in the photos.
After visiting Chichen Itza, we drove to a nearby ceynote. This one was the Ik Kil Ceynote which is around 350ft deep and has little blind catfish swimming in it. Geoff took these photos since I was busy swimming in the FREEZING cold water! I was ok until I saw the catfish, and then also when another couple asked me to take their photo. Trying to remain afloat while taking photos and not dropping the camera in a 350ft deep ceynote is quite challenging!
I didn’t jump – I am way too scared of that sort of stuff (heights and my bikini top coming off)
Here are a few more :)
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