AP's Fancy Box: camera comparison

I always keep striving to have nice photographs, as a memory and also to convey the beautiful details on lolita dresses. Often times, light conditions are pretty poor, and then it will matter what device I grabbed to take the photo.

Sometimes I wonder how much it really matters... so  I took my favorite Fancy Box JSK and went to try it with an extremely poor light, just a weak lightbulb at night.

The full scene, processed photo taken by Nikon D7200

I compare just the middle of the bodice

I didn't smooth or denoise the images

I took photos with three devices

• Smartphone Samsung P9 Lite            
• Digital camera Nikon COOLPIX P520
• Reflex camera Nikon D7200               

Smartphone (f/2 1/17 sec. ISO 800)

Digital camera (f/3 1/8 sec. ISO 200)

Reflex camera (f/3.5 1/50 sec. ISO 1000)

The details on the image from smartphone are pretty much nonexistent. Both smartphone and the digital camera failed to capture the beautiful blue of the dress, it looks just like navy in their images. The reflex camera has the most details, and captured the blue well, but it suffers some from color noise.

The reflex camera is new for me so I still have to learn to use it well.. maybe I should have gone with lower ISO (the higher the ISO the higher the color noise), but this tiny noise does not seem to be a problem much in the overall photo of the dress as shown on top, as I reduce the dimensions of the image for web use. The reflex camera is going to be my new favorite!

Stock photo, the blue is true to reality

Teaparties are not all the same

Teaparties are favorite sweet lolita shoes. I love them the best and so far have them in three colors, more to come! However, there are slight differences in the look of them from different makers. The originals were made by Angelic Pretty.

First teaparties I could get were from An*Tai*Na. They are less round on the tip and the front bow is sort of flattened against the shoe.

Sosic also makes teaparties ( ClobbaOnline ). They look somewhat better, but they still have sad front bow flattered over the shoe, even if nicer one than Antaina shoes.. probably cute for more classic and less pastel outfits, but personally.. I don't like this kind of bow.

Secret Shop's teaparties I like the best, just look at the crispy front bow! The upper part of the bow is folded, so it's more perky. Another teaparties by Secret Shop I found have the front bow like the original Angelic Pretty's one, I guess they may have more than one design?

I just have no idea which shoes I would get if I bought them from ClobbaOnline? All these are listed as the same item.. first remind Ribbon Romantic Shoes, second are teaparties with flattened front bow, and third the tea parties I love. Don't they see the difference or they don't care? Do *you* mind the differences?

 

Tea party comparison reviews:
Secret Shop vs. Angelic Pretty
Secret Shop vs. Antaina
Secret Shop vs. Antaina 2

2018/06 Steampunk meetup in Prague

I haven't seen my friends since Christmas, finishing my doctorate from math, so I jumped at first opportunity and met my friends at an alternative clothing swap meet. We met in front of a running sushi restaurant Jiu Zhou and I finally got my first running sushi ^.^ It was awesome. After lunch, we moved to the steampunk bar for the swap meet. The outside of the club was breathtaking. 

Dress: Angelic Pretty's Fancy Box JSK

Blouse: Angelic Pretty                          

Shoes: An*Tai*Na                                

Accessories: offbrand                          

 

Tairesia's Metamorphose print and my Fancy Box print

The inside was very dark, crammed with metallic sculptures and occasional neon lights.

Most of the clothing was goth-like and black, so hard to see in the dark. This was the only sweet island in the sea of black, with pastel ruffly skirts and petticoats. So-so managed to photoshop it out of the dark for you to see. 

After checking the goods, we decided to settle in our favourite Choco Café, a chocolaterie with own specialty chocolate factory.





I decided to try one of those macarons with icecream, chocolate with chocolate icecream, because double chocolate! Definetly worth it :)

And Yuki got her late birthday present. Just look at that smile! ^.^

The meetup from the point of view of Tairesia

Inspiration: Bonniviwii

Image Source

A sweet lolita with one of the cutest smiles ever, I first came across her outfits on her Tumblr. She also has an Instagram and a blog, in pretty pastel colors, with lots of cute photos like these photos of Milky Cross details :3

Bonni-jane is a design graduate from Melbourne and beside fashion and photography she also likes cosplay, dogs, udon noodles, and pokemon - also collects pokemon cards and stationery! She wears mostly sweet lolita (Wardrobe post 2016 , 2017 ) and loves pink and yellow. She is 154 cm tall, so the dresses look perfect lenght on her - I wish I was a bit shorter too :3
 
A bunch of her coords is listed in her 2017 post. Of course, being sweet lolita myself, my favourites are her Angelic Pretty's pastel coordinates, but she can also make wonderful coord from Bodyline dress!

Note: If you wonder why the tumblr opens only in side panel and you can't view the tumblr's Archive page, it is because the blog is set to be hidden from search engines ;]

Main piece wishlist

Over the last few years, I've hunted down the pieces I coveted the most.. now I don't have an absolute favorite to keep looking for, but I plan to get some of these sweet Angelic Pretty dresses eventually.. (excluding these I never expect to find at reasonable price: La Princesse Sucre dress and Wish Me Mell Tea Time dress.)

      Toy Parade OP (2012)             Sugary Carnival OP           Decoration Dream apron skirt

           Milky Planet OP                    Sugar Hearts OP             Fancy Paper Dolls tiered JSK

Misty Sky skirt (2012) or (2013) in sax

Right, I love the old era of sweet. What dresses are *you* looking for? 

Meet the lolita!

There happened an awesome idea on Rufflechat, Meet the Lolita! The idea is to make a collage about yourself, so people can get to know about you and to discover if you've something in common. The idea got to international scale and there are over hundred images on Instagram under #meetthelolita tag!

I have made mine too! Since I couldn't really decide on a favorite dresses, I went with accessories I love instead ♥ Do you like it? Did you or do you plan to make yours too! Show off in comments! =^.^=

 

My blank version, free to use :)

Click the image for full resolution.

Inspiration: damare_kozou

damare_kozou was one of my greatest sweet lolita inspirations. She was a well know lolita in Japan. I love her style, the distinct face and afro-like, often colorful hair :3 

She wrote to this blog between 2007 and 2008, and to  her yaplog.jp between 2008 and 2013. I like mostly her pictures from before 2012. Later she preferred to incorporate sweet lolita pieces into everyday wear, got married in 2012 and went quiet on her social media in 2013.

She wrote a tutorial about her makeup and layering of eyelashes, which is quite useful, as least since we have google translate nowadays.

I tagged a handful of her coord pictures on Tumblr.

2014: 4 Stages of Lolita Pregnancy

As we grow into adulthood, some or many of us may get children. Is it a reason to stop wearing frilly fashion? Most likely not. Although the pregnancy can be hard on a body, so it may not be possible to wear whatever you want, with the right choices you will probably be able to wear lolita fashion for the most of it. Granted, I had no health problems so while I could, someone may not be able to, but I'd still like to share my experience.

1st trimester

No changes we required in my wardrobe. 

2nd trimester

The belly is growing but it's still quite easy to wear lolita fashion. I found myself opting out of skirts which are not fully shirred, though. Dresses are fine, they don't push on the belly.



Some of my daily outfits in 2nd trimester. Back-shirred BtSSB tartan JSK, back-shirred Bodyline JSK with floral pattern and a fully shirred Anna House skirt. The blouses are Anna House, shoes are Bodyline.

3rd trimester

Troubles are starting. The belly is big, skirts are unusable. Highwaist dresses are fine only for first half of 3rd trimester. Dresses from cutsew material and sack-cuts are wearable. Deflated petticoats are finally usable, fluffed to the side and to the back.

My high-waisted Angelic Pretty's Precocious Lady JSK and sack-cut Angelic Pretty's Dreamy Horoscope JSK outfits. I'm lucky it was summer and so I didn't need a lot of layers.

Before delivery

Left only with an offwhite cutsew sack dress from BtSSB. Even my Dreamy Horoscope JSK now sits funny on me. I can barely put on shoes by myself. Five days before delivery!