Emily Ratajkowski

Fashion Appreciation 

Emily O'Hara Ratajkowski is probably best recognized as one of the topless girl in Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines. She was born on June 7,1991 in Westminister, London, to artists John David Ratajkowski and Kathleen Anne Balgely. 

Ratajkowski started her modeling career at age 14 when she signed with Ford Models. In 2009, she had a recurring role as Tasha, Gibby's girlfriend, on the Nickelodeon series iCarly. 

She attended UCLA for a year before dropping out and focusing on her modeling career. After appearing in the March 2012 issue of treats!, she was selected to appear in two music videos -- Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines and Maroon 5's Love Somebody. 

Ratajkowski's popularity rose; she appeared in numerous commercials, magazines, fashion shows, films, and TV series.

by Steve Shaw for treats!

by Naj Jamai

by Emanuele D’Angelo

via The Vivid

Source: Wikipedia

Pole Dance: Komodo - (I Just) Died In Your Arms

Choreography: Kasia Bielecka

via Komodo

Cosplay is an ART: Colossalcon Texas 2021

 

via The L.A. Explorer

Fashion is DEFINITELY Art: Blake Lively talks to VOGUE on 19 Looks from 2005 to Now

Director: Posy Dixon

via Vogue

Lady Clementina Hawarden

Photography Appreciation

Born on June 1, 1822, Clementina Maude, Viscountess Hawarden, was best known as a pioneering and prolific amateur photographer who captured over 800 photographs of her daughters at her home in South Kensington, London.

Clementina's father was Admiral Charles Elphinstone Fleeming who was best known for his role in the Venezuelan and Colombian wars of liberation, in the early 1800s. Her mother, Catalina Paulina Alessandro, a Spanish woman called an 'exotic beauty.' 

Clementina married Cornwallis Maude, 4th Viscount Hawarden, an Irish Conservative politician. She had eight daughters and two boys.

In her 30s, she set up a studio at her home in South Kensington. She took many characteristic portraits of her daughters Isabella Grace, Clementina, and Florence Elizabeth. Her technique was groundbreaking for the time as she used mirrors to create 'body doubles' and natural sunlight to light her subjects. 

At the age of 41, the Viscountess Hawarden held her first exhibition at the Photographic Society of London on January 1863. She was elected a member of the Society the following March, then recognized for her artistic excellence with a silver medal; although, she passed away due to pneumonia before collecting the prize.

Possibly self-portrait of Lady Clementina Hawarden 

and Donald Cameron of Lochiel (c. 1861)

Clementina Maude at 5 Princes Gardens (c. 1863)

Clementine Maude and Isabella Grace Hawarden (c. 1862)

Clementina Maude and Isabella Grace (c.1864)

Sources:

Wikipedia

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co204482/clementina-and-isabella-hawarden-photograph

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/lady-clementina-hawarden-an-introduction

Ukrainian Director of The Occupant Talks to NPR

Film Appreciation 

While driving into work this morning, I heard an interview on NPR with the director, Mikhail Tkach, of a 24 minute film of Russian Lieutenant Yuri Shalayev, titled The Occupant. Shalayev was captured by the Ukrainians in early April -- Russia launched an unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

During the interview, Tkach commented about the Russian soldiers looking frightened, "I think that Russians soldiers do not really understand what they are doing here and why they are doing that. Having our own investigation on what is their motivation, the main motivation was because they were offered to have some mortgages so that they can have their own apartment and they have some privileges if they serve."

Pole Dance: Tha Trickaz - Megaphone

Choreography: Karo Swen

Via Karo Swen