Innuendo

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Remember I said in December that I was making a video in Singapore with Ukay Cheung, Sinapore's leading fashion photographer? Well, here it is!! I hope you like it! It's an artistic film about women's struggles for equal rights in Singapore, with tightlaced corsetry representing male dominance and female submission...

I'm so excited to go back to Asia this winter! I plan on visiting Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and maybe more! Asian photographers are brilliant. The weather is always amazing, the people are so friendly and hospitable, the food is delicious and the cultures are fascinating... I can't really describe how it feels to be there but I always feel so relaxed and laidback. I think I'm looking forward to Singapore most for the food, beach and seeing the friends I've made there during my previous Asian Tours; Hong Kong to see Hannah Ashlea, who's living there with her boyfriend for a couple of years- she just moved and we have lots of shopping and wine-drinking to be catching up on, I think! And Tokyo for the amazing food, culture, huge variety of architecture, modern and traditional fashions, the tea ceremony... I went there for the first time in December and just fell in love. I didn't want to leave!! So I am very much looking forward to returning.

Today was spent shooting for the first time with a real photography icon of mine, Stephen Perry, in a great outdoor location in Folkestone. He called me yesterday morning and asked if I'd be interested in popping over and shooting with him today- I was like, hell yes! He's photographed lots of celebrities but my favourite section on his website is called "Peepshow"- check it out! He is one of the people on my secret wish list of photographers that I want to shoot with "one day". Well, today was that day! I hope to be able to share the photos soon. They're a combination of fashion, nudes, and fetish too, if you want to see it ;) I love fashion-orientated fetish images that are full of fetish innuendo!




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My New Year's Resolutions

What are your new year's resolutions or goals?

Mine are:

1. I will visit a country I have never been to before. I'm guessing it will be China and/ or Indonesia, but I'm open to suggestion!
2. I will go to a gypsy jazz club
3. I will ensure that my book on freelance modelling, The Ugly Girl's Guide to Becoming a Model, is published the way I want it to be published ;)
4. I will get better at doing my hair
5. I will visit Tokyo again and learn to say a few more things in Japanese
6. I will continue to prioritise healthy eating and sleeping
7. I will gain a basic understanding of economics. All this talk of "double dip recession" and "recession/ depression" etc is making me feel incredibly stupid as I've been hearing it on the news for years now and still don't know what any of it really means or whose fault it really is
8. I will get back into the swing of my weekly pilates/ aerobics/ yoga routine, after two months' travelling
9. I will try and cultivate my brain in the form of classic novels, psychology textbooks, art gallery and museum exhibitions, music and poetry recitals, attending lectures, visiting sites of historical interest etc etc once a week
10. I will read and actually understand the Wikipedia page on photography. Considering how much time I spend in front of a camera, it is scandalous how little I know about the process behind it!

As we look forward to 2012 and turn our backs on 2011, I leave you with pictures of my butt from a shoot for the Lux Tenebrae catalogue that I did with Adam Robertson :)

Happy New Year, everyone! I'm off to celebrate with Liam. We have nearly two months' worth of catching up to do over a champagne dinner and fireworks over the Thames :D

"We can't find a way out of the lingerie section!"

Home again, home again, jiggety jig!

I'm back home in London, having enjoyed a night in my own bed with my man, muesli for breakfast, lots of snuggles with the kitties, a choice of my whole wardrobe rather than just what fits into a suitcase, a completely new manicure, homemade mince pies and the Father Ted Christmas special, some of the things that it is worth being in the UK for ^_^ I'll also be seeing Binky later so that we can exchange gifts and have a good catch-up!

Here are the last of my phone photos from my first trip to Tokyo. I went snap-crazy :) There are yet more to be downloaded and re-sized from my camera, including from my first tea ceremony!

 Old school taxi in Asakusa, the area I was staying in

Otanuki-sama, god of the art of public entertainment

Street vendor in Asakusa

 Once he'd sold some snacks, he just picked up his shop and carried it down the road :)

 Shops in front of the Sensoji temple, where I bought a LOT of pretty painted chopsticks!

 The Tokyo streets are full of vending machines. Some shops like this one even contained nothing but vending machines

 KFC flavour crisps :s

 Shibuya at night

 

 Shibuya

 Beautiful Autumn foliage in the Imperial Palace Gardens

 One of the many crows in Yoyogi Park on Sunday morning

 Sumo wrestler I met in Ueno

 I missed entry time at Ueno Zoo by 20 minutes so I didn't get to see the pandas, but I did find this drinks machine that dispensed hot cans of hot chocolate, which was almost as good

 Cruising on Tokyo Bay <3

Toy shop at Haneda Airport

Toy shop at Haneda Airport

I think Liam's poaching salmon for dinner to go with the Sauvignon Blanc in the fridge. MmmmmmMMMMMmmmmmmm!

原宿: De Bauch does the Harajuku District, Tokyo!

I got the overnight flight from Tokyo back to KL yesterday for another shoot with Edwin Goh last night, my second shoot with him on this trip :) Here's one of the shots from the shoot we did in KL nearly six weeks ago, my first in Asia this year:

 Latex: Lady Lucie | Styling: me

I was half considering wearing this dress to the Harajuku district on Sunday morning until I actually arrived in Tokyo and realised it was far too chilly in December!

I've had a minor obsession with Harajuku street fashion since I started modelling and got my hands on a copy of this gorgeous photography book:

In fact, I found the unrestrained and entirely visual self-expression so inspiring that I started wanting to get photographed myself... the rest is history ;)

On Sunday I finally got to live my personal dream of seeing the Harajuku district for myself!

Entrance to Takeshita Street. It was like a small Japanese version of Camden Market :)

 The best-dressed girl in Harajuku! Those half-trainer, half-maiko platform shoes were everywhere. I'd never seen them before :D

 I thought that people were just wearing their pants really low until I saw these low-crotch trousers for sale!

Goth/ emo dudes who were a bit shy about being photographed but very sweet. Bless!

All I can say is that I am definitely going back to Tokyo next year if I possibly can. It's such a cool city with such a varied and fascinating culture!

浅草, Tokyo!

I had my first afternoon in Tokyo today!

I explored the area I'm staying in, Asakusa, Tokyo's oldest geisha district, including the Kaminarimon Gate, Denboin Temple and Five-storey Pagoda, and went crazy buying hundreds of beautifully decorated chopsticks near the Senso-ji Temple, in between getting (politely!) roped into modelling for a few minutes for a local camera club, which was having an outing!

"Modelling" for an amateur camera club by Kaminarimon Gate. No makeup? No problem!

As well as chopsticks, tea cups and Hello Kitty merch, there were stalls selling other traditional items such as Japanese sweets, kimono and folding fans. I saw some traditionally dressed ladies going about their daily business in full kimono, obi, zori and tabi... it was such a treat to see in real life, especially after re-reading Memoires of a Geisha on my way here!

 Senso-ji, Tokyo's oldest Buddhist temple

 Five-storey Pagoda

 Pagoda illuminated later that evening

 Hair ornaments for maiko

 Kaminarimon Gate

 Fortunes outside the temple

Geisha shooooooooes!

I have managed to teach myself a little spoken Japanese- I can now say hello, goodbye, please, thank you, yes, no, one, two, excuse me, my name is Anita, and one Asahi please!

Latex Fashion in Post-Apocalyptic Singapore!

I finally made it to Tokyo, hurrah, and I'm all ready to go and explore the city that I have been dying to visit since I was 15!

I'll leave you with my last few snaps and a modelling photo from the Sultan of Brunei's "haunted house" in Singapore :)

Photographer: Lem Cheng Hai | Bra: Jane Doe Latex, latex thong: Cathouse Clothing | Styling: me

 Pretty insides of an old lump of machinery I found

 Relaxing at Lantern after another shoot in Singapore

 View from my seat/ bed at Lantern

Another view from the rooftop bar!

Now I'm off to explore Tokyo! Looking forward to visiting the Harajuku district on Sunday ^_^

Bangkok Airport

I have an hour to kill before the hotel taxi takes me back to the airport for my second attempt at flying to Tokyo :p And on the theme of airports, here are some snaps from Bangkok Airport, where I had to stay overnight on my way from Hong Kong to Singapore (no choice!).

Before I left Hong Kong, I had a great fashion shoot in the executive suite on the 81st floor of L'hotel Nina!

This is pretty much all you can do with a leather jacket in the Hong Kong heat ;p
Photographer: Teddy So | Styling: me

Then it was off to Bangkok Airport, to camp in Starbucks for approximately 17 hours before my flight to Singapore. I was too scared to go into town in case I got stuck in the floods :s I passed some of the time by photographing the many interesting examples of Thai arts, crafts and shrines in the airport:

 Some kind of massive sea serpent sculpture

 These are called "stilt shoes"- a bit like ballet heels, but without the heel! The female opera singer's feet go pointy-toe first down each leg into the tiny false feet at the bottom to make it look like they have had their feet bound in the traditional Chinese way, for certain opera roles. Walking in stilt shoes is considered a real skill!

 Beautiful male opera singer's costume

 Me next to a display in honour of "The Celebration on the Auspicious Occasion of His Majesty the King's 7th Cycle Birthday Anniversary"

 Cool (Buddhist?) shrine in the middle of the airport

 Closeup of the pretty flowers and offerings at the shrine

Statue of a mythical Thai giant (it was so big that even kneeling down on the floor, I could only fit it all into frame by tilting the camera at an angle!)

Must dash now, just got buzzed for my taxi- hopefully the next time I blog, it will be from TOKYO! :D