Tribal Fusion Bellydance Test Photos December 2011 - Day Set With Vintage Choker

Here are some test photos from a daytime set I did. These aren't that great tho'.

These are the ones I started while wearing my old vintage 1990s choker.

Vintage Orange Arden B. Blouse

I've actually had this blog post in my draft list since spring of last year. I kept getting sick, and I wasn't sure whether to post this in Spring, Fall, or Winter. I believe I shot these in winter of 2012, maybe around January or Feb.

I'm wearing 1 pairs of feather earrings. The first pair with the rooster tail feathers was a gift from my baby brother, whom is now a father of 3 little children. The other pair is long chains with yellow and brown feathers from Charlotte Russe, which I probably bought sometimes from 2010-2011 around Christmas time.

The Arden B. blouse is vintage from 2002 which I purchased in the South Shore Plaza in Braintree Mass (South Shore Greater Boston) back when my spouse was very wealthy running his business there, after we married that Spring/Summer, before I was pregnant with my daughter whom is now 12 years old.


Around the time when I shot these I was still studying Tribal Fusion Bellydance, and I was learning about makeup, stage makeup, studying/practicing more things with photography, and I might've been playing with different lighting, like ring lights, but doesn't look like it in these frames.

I spent an an entire afternoon, and shot into the evening with various other earrings, clothing changes, and probably changing up my makeup slightly. I think this was probably in Feb. because I can see the orange blush, which was a gift from my spouse for Valentine's Day, and a crazy ordeal just to get because I had to drive all the way to Abbington Mass. to the only Walmart in the area that still carried products by "Hard Candy", and he was kind of a jerk about it due to the financial recession/depression.

At the time I'd shot this, I'd been kind of obsessed with orange lipsticks since it was a trend in a number of magazines in the USA and also in China, of a light orange. This was strange to me, but I really wanted to wear orange lipstick since I'd LOVED orange eyeshadow in the 1990s. So, when I lost my makeup after a photography/videography wedding job and had to start buying all new stuff, I started looking for ORANGE because I was so curious!


But, I didn't know ANYTHING about how to wear orange makeup, nor nude makeups, and my first few oranges ended up being nudes or peachy nudes. I knew NOTHING about those either. So, I went to YouTube and was on an indecent search for tips about HOW to wear orange lipsticks, which brands had them, etc.

What happened was that almost ALL of the videos up at the time about ORANGE lipsticks, were by black women, or women with "olive complexion". What came along with that was this idea that ONLY black women should wear this color, and even the olive women had heard the same thing but said they loved how it looked on them... so, then WHY was there a trend of orange lipsticks in magazines???

I thought that was STUPID!

What? Just because I'm pale skinned I can't wear orange? Screw that!


Well, a few months later, I came across a girl whom not only got an orange lipstick, but made it her mission to get THE most intense orange lipsticks, and even got an EXPENSIVE MAC lipstick called Morange, which was SO ORANGE that she said while she was shopping for it, she thought that since she had orange lips, she should also get orange blush, since she already had orange eyeshadows.

And then it dawned on me: OMG! That's it! I need orange BLUSH!

Then, I realized I could wear pretty much ANYTHING with orange blush or orange lipstick if I wore it with warm colors. At the time, I was the only person i knew in my whole circle that would wear orange lipsticks, and I have so many I lost count. I also have 2 orange blushes, 1 of them is by MAC.

Whenever I wore them in warm a color scheme instead of anyone even noticing I was wearing ornage they would just say: "I really like your makeup", and I would say: Oh, thank you! It's my new orange lipsticks and blushes! they actually hadn't even realized i was wearing orange because I was in a warm color scheme. But, before, people had thought wearing orange was for black women only, and that I was some weirdo.

Ironically, most of my color scheme techniques CAME FROM BLACK WOMEN on youtube whom explains differences in their own sphere of influences whom varied in skin tones of warm or cool. So, I took this information and applied it to myself using color theory.

So, many of my female friends whom asked me about makeup, since I'd previously been mostly clueless, I told them what I did, and how.

Also, you need to wear orange blushes differently than red or pink ones. You don't put it on your cheeks, especially if you are fair skinned. You need to put it on closer to your eyes and side of the face.


Also, a lovely black woman suggested that to make orange appear "wearable" you should use a plum based colored lip liner. and, it WORKS!

I also do what's called layering with lipsticks, which used o be a stage makeup thing. Many people my parents' age thought it was some sort of fauxpas to do that. But, I've found it works really well.

But, now that it's 2016, orange is SO COMMON for blush and lipstick that you can find it everywhere, all the time. And, I feel like ALL young fair skinned women wear orange lipsticks and blush.

If you thought that was funny, wait until I tell you about my PURPLE lipstick stories. Purple lipstick was pretty much the same deal, considered ONLY for black women, or scary Goths, or as lip contour shading. But, same thing happened, olive toned women started using it and raving, then, people started experimenting with layering, and even with purple toned blushes, and now I see purple lipstick a lot on fair skinned women.

Boho Chic Christmas Purple Arden B 004

I like feathers! I've ALWAYS liked feathers! I used to collect feathers since I was a toddler. I remember going to the Philadelphia Zoo when I was like 2 or 3 with my Grandparents, parents, and my aunt, and finding feathers all over the ground everywhere. My grandmother got a plastic ziplock bag, and started filling it with the feathers I kept finding. Most of them were BLACK. I also grew up raising chickens as a kid. I had all the feathers I could ever want at the time. 

Not only that, but I'm part Native American. (Mescalero Apache Nation) and since I was in the 6th grade everyone kept calling me Pocahontas (an that was LONG BEFORE there was a Disney cartoon). It was my nickname, probably because I wore feathers in my hair everyday. 

If you want to know how it feels to be judged by how you look, for being different, then I dare you to go a whole year wearing feathers in your hair, or on your glasses, among yuppies, when it's NOT IN FASHION and you will KNOW how it feels to have visceral HATE and prejudice targeted at you for NOT CONFORMING. feathers have an incredibly special meaning to me. 

I DID NOT want to be like the yuppies in New Jersey. I did NOT want to be a superficial, fake, nasty, hatefully bully, nor to be told WHAT I ought to THINK, the way I ought to talk, dress, live or conduct myself. 

Each time they picked on me for wearing feathers, the MORE I wanted to wear them. For every brat, bitch, stuck-up snob that started shit with me, I wanted to be MORE whom I was inside. Those feathers represented who I REALLY WAS, and that I was NOT ONE OF THEM. In the 5th grade, I went from being a popular person, to being friendless on principle. And, my ENTIRE Middle School experience with only a few exceptions was utterly horrid. I use to get beaten up, brutalized, picked on, accosted, and not just by my peers in my own grade, or older kids, but by a teacher, whom also allowed my victimizing to occur and enabled it. 

Back then, I was religious, and I used to practice Christian pacifism which meant that if I was attacked I couldn't retaliate nor exact revenge, however, if someone else was in trouble I could stand up to their attackers on their behalf like a martyr. Not only that, but I had to forgive, love, and pray for my abusers. 

Honestly, I would NEVER teach this to anyone today, because I think it's a horrible way to live, and enables victim-hood. 

Feathers represent a number of things. For one they symbolize the element of AIR. Air or Wind is kind of a theme with me. My Astrological Ascendant/Rising-Sign and my Moon/Lunar Sign are both LIBRA which is a Zodiac Sign associated with the element of AIR as well as INTELLECT or the MIND. Libra also is known for its association with a love and appreciation of Beauty or beautiful things (arts & nature appreciation). Yet, feathers themselves are firm, but they flex, and have give to them. they can cut THROUGH the air, or give LIFT, and can hold the bird in the air while in motion. 

My Sun/Solar sign is Virgo, which is the Earth sign, also a MIND sign. So, yeah, I'm mental... 

Feathers can also, at times give things an "earthy" feel... -dunno why.... 

So, here you can see me in my Boho Chic feather earrings from Charlotte Russe (vintage). Definately a statement piece set of earrings. 

Its ironic that I'd suffered so much for my heritage, or for the audacity of wearing feathers, when several times since I'd graduated high school, feathers had been in fashion several times to be the "in" accessory for HAIR or, whatever..... 

Oh, but Great Spirit for-fend I should EVER speak the TRUTH about this to anyone whom is a FULL BLOODED Native American, whom all LOVE to jump all over me, breath down my neck, and pile on all sorts of HATEFUL words, or threats, about how I'm NOT a Native, how WHITE my skin is, that I have BLUE EYES, or how they want to RAPE me.... and make me "their woman but not their wife", or whatever that's supposed to mean... 

I find that I often gel really well with other mixed bloods like myself of Native American descent, because FULL BLOODS are SCARY, MEAN, NASTY, HATEFUL, PREJUDICED and SEXIST. Let's NOT EVER do anything like that again....

Look, I'm a Cosmopolitan, and I'm NOT sorry about it.

cosmopolitan 

adjective

1.

free from local, provincial, or national ideas, prejudices, or attachments; at home all over the world.

2.

of or characteristic of a cosmopolite.

3.

belonging to all the world; not limited to just one part of the world.

4.

Botany, Zoology. widely distributed over the globe.

noun

5.

a person who is free from local, provincial, or national bias or attachment; citizen of the world; cosmopolite.

6.

a cocktail made with vodka, cranberry juice, an orange-flavored liqueur, and lime juice. 

A Winter Dream Awake (Techno) from BlackUniGryphon on 8tracks Radio.