Exotic Vintage Silk Bohemian

This was a large, and long so-called scrap of vintage Chinese silk, given to me by my mother-in-law from China, whom might've gotten it form an old neighbor.

This silk is no longer a just a piece of long cloth, but has become a Ghawazee Coat.

I'm sure I would've shot more of these, however, my battery died, and that was the end of it... and my daughter needed  dinner.

Shot in Summer 2010.

No Makeup

Me, without makeup.
I think this was in 2012, or so....

Bohemian Experiments: The Sarong 002 [Rave]

These came out much different looking than the other set, because I used a Daisy Light, used by DJs. I love all things RAVE since the 1990s.

Late 1990s Eurodance Techno from BlackUniGryphon on 8tracks Radio.

Bohemian Experiments: The Sarong 001

Bohemian Experiments: The Sarong

I believe I did these in either 2010 or 2011. Nearly ALL of my makeup went mysteriously missing after a wedding photo shoot commission I got in Philadelphia, which was incredibly stressful, and I went over 2 weeks with very little sleep, because I not only had a store in the mall that was contractually obliged to be open EVERY SINGLE DAY, but THE MOMENT I got back my spouse stubbornly decided THAT WAS THE DAY we would get new "wood" floors, and from a cheap-ass local Chinese company, even tho' Empire was having a MAJOR deal at 70% or something off due to the economic crash, and were ACTUALLY REPUTABLE! Oh, and Mercury Retrograde had JUST STARTED.

I WAS F@#$ED!

What was ONLY supposed to take about a day a a half, stretched past 2 weeks, and they even had a Mexican SLAVE. You read that right, a SLAVE. SLAVE! As in SLAVERY! They guy was made to sit outside, IF, and ONLY IF, he brought his own food, meanwhile the prick bosses (a man and a woman) would actually cook their own food, or purchase some, and force him to work, eating and laughing IN FRONT OF HIM, and never offering the slave ANYTHING.



My husband, became very suspicious of these people after the 3rd day, and began actually cooking food for the SLAVE guy. He said the man worked so hard, didn't speak Chinese, and barely any words in English.

I was NOT a happy person, and at the time, whenever I was at my store, we ACTUALLY had quite a bit of customers, and punk kids. My husband didn't tell me about the SLAVE until it was over, because he was afraid that I would call the cops, and then WE would get in trouble, in his mind, and have to go to court...

The whole thing made me VERY ANGRY, and was like 1 stroke of bad luck, after another. I also had very bad pain in my lower back due to some wrong dance practices that I had totally screwed up, was still dealing with pain from a tubal surgery, and a very very bad foot surgery that dis-aligned my toes.


So, as the summer went on, and after the kid finally had her birthday party, the Girl Scout Party, and Bridging Ceremony, and slammed with Independence Day stuff, I finally began to pick up my camera in mid summer.... after having looking through several kinds of old SLR camera tricks, and photos, I decided I wanted to play around with experiments of my own... even tho' I'd already started to deplete the charge life of my only battery at the time... (I have several batteries now... lesson learned)

I experimented with these of different days, in different rooms, at different times of the day, and also directly TO my computer instead of the memory card, which ACTUALLY looks quite different.


The makeup I had was this REALLY TERRIBLE "smoky eye" thing in some kind of plum color, which looked like a dark brown and pink-ish kinda-sorta purple... it was supposed to be just a 3 step simple thing, bt you could barely ever see anything on the eye, and I did NOT want a black one, since I shy away from too much dark colors, often, unless I'm doing stage makeup (at least back then anyways). Of ALL the makeup that could've gone missing, WHY THIS ONE didn't is beyond me!
Oh, wait- it sucks! That's why! It cakes onto your face, and melts off, and looks awful!



I used to LOVE pretty much everything by Cover Girl, however, I've found in the past 5 years, they often are cheap, miss the mark, and don't preform well on the face, or fall apart... the lipsticks are still fine, which I still have and use, but I HAD to throw that stupid smoky eye thing away.
How did that thing even go into production? It was terrible!


Anyways, if I look like my face isn't very made-up, it's because at the time, I had almost no makeup at all. I had to save up my dollars, and coins, bit by bit, and used coupons to pay for stuff... I also wasn't that great at applying makeup, and still don't think I am, but I think I'm at least somewhat better now....

Also, these were long exposures in low level light, so there will often be some blurring.

Xi'An China Traveler

Traveling to Xi'An China.

It was sometime around 2003 or 2004, my daughter was a still a baby, and stayed with my in-laws in Shanxi Taiyaun (up in the Manchurian Region in the North) and I believe it was March or April. Spring came abruptly in China that year, and was VERY hot even up in the North since the end of February, even tho' there had been a ton of snow all January & Early February.

Xi'An isn't really that far away from Shanxi, I believe it's in the Shaanxi province, which isn't that far away. And, I can speak and understand the general dialects of people, because it's similar.

My mother-in-law gave us umbrellas. I didn't understand why, because the forecast was lots of sunshine during the time we went... but, when we went to climb the mountains, and note worthy tourist attraction landscapes, it was SO HOT as if it was summer. The heat, and humidity was so much. It was actually hotter THERE in early Spring, than it was the time I went to Guangzhou which is pretty tropical.

Luckily, we had the umbrellas to shade us from the merciless sun. And, EVERYONE else had umbrellas also. Everyone used umbrellas in the summer in China. I still do.  IN fact the word Umbrella means "opening shade" in Olde Italian.

Climbing the Pyramid of Emperor Qin Shi Huang

The Lucky Shen Shou. if you rub them you are supposed to get luck.

The Court Yard on Qin Si Huang.

I don't know why, but some of my travels end up having terrible dramas. An incident happened with some local bumpkins, in which my husband had a major fight with them. They were sort of like real-life spammers, but pesky short human beings wanting you to buy something. My spouse lost his temper, so badly, and for whatever reason, which I don't comprehend, it embarrassed him so much. I still have no idea what he was so angry about, because the entire argument went down in English. And, it wasn't as bad as all the huffing & puffing, and he even got some cops, who stood there and did nothing...

So, I was forbidden from talking about MOST of EVERYTHING that we did, or happened when I was there... since I wasn't allowed to really talk about it, I have mostly forgotten all of it. Tho' I know I wrote about some of it in a paper journal, somewhere around my house.

I also almost got jumped by a gang of thieves. My spouse told me to wait outside, alone, by myself, because if they saw my face, and that I was a foreigner they would overcharge us for anything. He told me he would be right back, but as the sun was starting to set, I noticed some people standing around, and they seemed suspicious. As, I kept looking around, and noticed the people were closer than they were before, but still standing strangely....

As it started to get darker, the men, started to close in on me, and got nearer, and nearer, and I began to panic. What do I do? Where is my husband? Did something happen to him?
Not only that, but I was holding & carrying many bags of stuff.

Then, finally, my husband came, just before it was dark, and there are no street lights. We scurried of to a Huo Guo place to eat.

Apparently, some other odd thing occurred.... whilest we were on the tour of the many rushed things to "sight-see" in the tour group, we FINALLY got to see see The Underground Terracotta Soldiers. The ones on display are are supposedly the ones left over from a fire, which is why they are plain brown. But, we saw large scale photos of the ones not on display which were painted with lacquers, or paints, and colors. (So, if you watch movies about these things, and they are just ordinary brown, then you know they didn't do their due diligence homework)

But, it was at this point, where we went to the largest most wide open areas, I was very captivated, and  taken by the beauty of these marvelous works of art, and craftsman ship, since each one was unique, and different, with a distinct personality, even the horses were all unique!

I thought it strange that my husband wasn't as into the experience like I was, because he very much wanted to see these also... he is also an artist, and loves sculpture, and so on...

As it turned out, his very first lover, or ex-girl friend, was THERE. Apparently they "saw each other" but no one said anything... Sometimes, I swear I DO NOT understand some things about the older generations' Chinese cultural things... I had met many other women he palled around with, yet I did not understand why he couldn't introduce me, or even say hello to her, or whatever...

He told me about this weeks later... he seemed really bothered, or upset, as tho' he'd done something guilty, wrong, or immoral. But, he did nothing wrong. I told him I didn't see what the big deal was, nor why it bothered him. He says he was bothered because I'm his wife. I still don't understand. We're married, so what's the problem? And, why does it bother him? It's not like anyone asked us to go to a sex club, rob a bank, or do something totally weird.

Also, at that time, whenever I hugged my husband, people would gasp, loudly, and felt shocked about it, that I openly would just hug my husband.

But, the last time I went there, the culture had shifted so much, and so rapidly, that many people would go to the KTV with us and openly grab, fondle, grope, and kiss the KTV singing hookers ("Xiao Jie"). And, for us WE felt that was strange! Actually, a lot of things shock me about China today. Full on depravity.

Anyways, they had good tea in Xi'An.