boundaries, borders and big changes
2017 has so far been a very big year for East & West. Although we are only almost three months into the new year I have already made a few major changes in the way I present myself on both the blog and its respective Instagram account. These changes may seem minute to a vast majority of you ( my readers), however for me these changes are BIG as they have freed my from the boundaries and borders that I restricted myself to.
The first big change I have made thus far is to stand up more in my photographs. As many of you are aware that I live with a disability known as Cerebral Palsy which restricts my ability to walk and use my gorgeous long legs to their full capacity. During most of my photoshoots for East & West i rely on the aid of my wheelchair and / or a regular chair in order to take pictures that are somewhat usable on social media. Constantly having to sit down gets incredibly boring and frustrating it also restricts the number locations I shoot in and the type of clothes I am able to wear ( I still dream of being able to wear supper baggy clothing.. Just sayin) However, after two years of shooting with the most gentle, kind and patient fashion photographer on earth I have gained the confidence i need to be a bit more risky when shooting. However being risky does not come without its challenges. As I'm sure we've all heard at least once in our life "if there is no pain there is no gain" and / or practice makes perfect and for me this was defiantly the case. I desperately wanted to escape the seats in which i spend most of my days and try something that I had never tried before or had previously tried but failed miserably. The first and most logical thing I could think of was standing up. I had previously stood up in a few pictures taken approximately two years ago however my efforts were met with more negative remarks than positive ones leaving me feeling quite discouraged. Nonetheless I decided that it was now time to give this whole standing thing one more shot and see where it takes me. I must say that the photos below look awesome. The only reason these photos happen to look as nice as I think they do is because 1 I have a great photographer and 2 I was feeling particularly sexy, handsome and confident whilst shooting this look. I was no longer worried about my horrid cerebral palsy posture as I had found a way to stand but sit at the same time (by resting my upper butt on the back of a chair or other object I was able to stand straighter and longer than usual) and focused on having a great time shooting in great clothes. Although my legs soon got tired and sore I wanted to push myself (within my limits) to show not just myself but others that sometimes pushing the boundaries results in a great outcome.
The Second big change was one that took a very long time to come about. Late last week after numerous consultations with my fellow influencers and a lot of trial and error throughout my blogging / influencing endeavours I decided that my Instagram feed would no longer be restricted by borders. I began using borders last year as a way to make my unfiltered and unedited Instagram feed seem clean. I soon found out that my chosen borders were greatly restricting the content i was able to upload by cutting out parts of my images and making it very hard to keep the border lines consistent. Instead of stopping the borders all together I simply switched to a thinner border that gave me more room only to realise that I still not not achieve my desired outcome and became stressed trying to make the borders align when uploading different sized images. I worried that if I were to stop using borders my profile would look incredibly messy and disorganised. After finally getting the hang of VSCO and Snapseed thanks to some of my wonderful friends ( Anastasia Siantar, Catherine Sumitri and Andy) I was able to overcome my fear of going borderless and found the results quite surprising.
Another big change that will soon be happening is my move. For those of you who don't know In eleven days I will be leaving Asia and heading for the northern hemisphere (exact location to be announced later). This move was prompted by a number of factors that were very much out of my immediate control however it will be a new adventure. Having spent most of my life living in Asia I am looking forward to a new challenge and the new and exciting opportunities that await me in a whole new territory. I aspire to inspire more people, spread the word on Asia's amazing fashion scene and utilise the knowledge I gain to create opportunities for Asia's amazing design talent. I look forward to sharing new stories and experiences in a whole new world. I promise to write more on my Asia exit sometime within the next week. Until then enjoy the images of todays OOTD post featuring this super stylish shirt by Happa XY and stay stylish!
FYI: After about four minutes I did need to sit down and decided to shoot the rest of this look in both sitting and standing positions so please excuse and enjoy my fierce sitting shots also featured throughout this article.
