Medusa, Halloween 2015
At London Zoo myself and the team always dress up for our work day at Halloween and this year I decided to create a Medusa costume. I did some research and most liked an idea I found on this site http://aranamuerta.com/
I adapted it and, although I think Angie’s is better, I liked the result. I wore a cobra morph suit underneath a metallic skirt and boots and did green make-up with gems – it looked quite futuristic. The kids at the Zoo loved it and I think it added to the atmosphere of their visit.
I made the frame around my head with garden wire and stitched on a green necklace ‘trim’. I covered it with black felt. I then used Tubular Crinoline for the snake bodies ( http://www.cyberloxshop.co.uk/tubular-crin/ ), and threaded them onto protruding wires. The snake heads were cut out of a car sponge which I sprayed with gold and black spray paint. I stuck on red gems for the eyes and pushed them onto the wires, stitching the crin to the foam to make them more secure.
Here’s some pictures of the headpiece in progress and then the final costume with my colleagues at work then the after party:
Hope you all had a great Halloween!!
Bird, Bark & Bear
Three Canadian discoveries 🙂
Moonlit Walk, Creston Wetlands Centre, Canada
No sign of the elusive Moose but basked in the glory of the boastful Moon instead 🙂
Kitten, Brick Lane, London
This cutie was in the shop window, sleeping on top of a tower of rice sacks 🙂
Dorset Day Two
Cheddar Gorge then caught the Starlings in flight at dusk at the Ham Wall nature reserve.
Happy New Year people!! 🙂
Curious Merchandise At The Witches Market, La Paz, Bolivia
One of the more unusual market stalls you will stumble upon in La Paz is the Witches market, filled with all sorts of unsavoury curiosities – bizarre, fascinating and disturbing – used for ritual offerings and spells. Llama foetus’s feature prominently, as shown above, cast amongst the lotions and potions, necks tied with shoe-laces. A wild cat was hung up with wire which made me feel quite sad – such a beautiful creature reduced to such an undignified and immoral end – and wicker baskets filled to overflowing with dried frogs, their bulging eyes staring out in never-ending panic. These sights were horrifying but captivating – I’d never seen anything like it….
Glorious Green, Poon Hill Trek, Nepal
These beautiful, distinctive plants are growing in glowing abundance up in the mountains of the Poon Hill Trek. They were most plentiful in the more residential parts along the way, so it’s a small wonder all that intense labour in the fields every day ever actually gets done!
The Nepalese guide prepared me a whole bowl-full, de-seeding it out in the open at one of our pit-stop cafe’s and letting it dry out in the sun on a chair. I nervously hid it in a sock in my back-pack. Perhaps not the best hiding place but my socks had never smelt so good.
That evening I was stoned under the stars. Such an intensely beautiful sky – I spent a dreamily lengthy session attempting to photograph it. Unsuccessfully. Of course. Not that it mattered one bit 🙂
taniajessicasmith 