I’ve been super sick for the past few days but I got my voice back today (much to Victor’s chagrin) and the steroids are kicking in but not really enough to write a real post so instead I’m posting this, which I started writing a long time ago but never finished. It feels undone and not properly tied together, but in a way that makes sense because “unbalanced and disjointed” is a pretty fair description if we’re doing a realistic portrait of me anyway:
Remember a few months ago when I said I’d share the rest of the photos that my friend amazingly talented friend Brooke Shaden took of me, but then I promptly forgot?
Well, I remembered. So here they are.
This the first, which I already wrote about here.
But here are two more:
And…
I’ll always keep them because they’re ethereal and dark and magical, but really I love them most of all because I can’t look at the pictures without remembering walking barefoot in the swamp while wearing ripped dresses that wouldn’t zip up over my boobs. Or having Brooke douse me in baby powder while my daughter gleefully looked for fireflies and Victor set off smoke bombs. Or literally falling off that log in the bottom picture while trying to adjust my antler as a baffled hiker walked by. Also, I now know why people use the phrase “as easy as falling off a log” because it is very easy, if you don’t count the hassle of stitches afterward.
It’s weird. But then, all the best things are.
Those are beautiful – do you know where they were taken?
(Is that a trick question? 🙂 Cibola Nature Center in Boerne, Tx. ~ Jenny)
Holy crap… that IS you! And you and I have the same TOES!
Stunning!
Holy shit those are you – that answers the question if you know where they were taken. 🙂
I love the photos almost as much as your memories of being photographed. Big ups to your returning voice!
Beautiful pictures. Feel better soon!
I am glad you;re feeling better and I am SO GLAD you shared. AMAZING
Absolutely gorgeous. You’re very photogenic 🙂
Oh my gosh, these photos would make the coolest wall calendar ever! Do people still buy wall calendars anymore? I do. I would buy a shit ton of this calendar. Seriously.
These are beautiful!
Those are lovely. The one with the red dress and antlers is vaguely Christmas-y, like you’re one of Santa’s reindeer…which doesn’t sound like a compliment, but it totally is.
Love love love these!
Those look awesome!
The recent boom in web resources proving that Victor is always wrong must have been invaluable during your brief period of voicelessness.
These are breathtaking.
Okay, read previous post and answered all my questions, primarily “how did you lug that giant birdcage into a swamp?”
(Victor, Hailey, Maile, Brooke and I all came so we took the birdcage apart and lugged each piece separately. We also carried a suitcase full of dresses and props and equipments and it looked like we were moving in we we were carrying so many things down to the water. ~ Jenny)
Totes gorge. You look like you’re straight out of LOTR.
These are beautiful! I want pictures like these someday!
Those are really freaking cool photos. Love them!
Everything about these pictures is gorgeous. Glad you’re starting to feel better!
These are so full of life! You make a fantastic subject. 😀
You’d be able to deal with that log,
now that you’re on steroids.
These are stunningly beautiful. All of them. <3
I like the red in the antler one.
You see, I would totally do a photo shoot with this photographer. The moods created are amazing AND you look awesome…
you are so cool. wonderful photos.
Breathtakingly gorgeous. The talented photographer finds a different aspect of you to bring out in each photo. Each is splendidly unique yet all undeniably you. What a treasure!
In re the antlers pic, you might enjoy this: https://studiomme.worldsecuresystems.com/canvas-bookmarks/coming-home-canvas-bookmark – this wonderful artist has, in the past, offered 5×7 prints, and I have one of the image on this bookmark, so your photo immediately called it to mind. She always writes intriguing stories to go with her images 🙂
You had to get stitches? Proving that beauty IS pain.
My favourite is the baby powder one. You look amazing in all three!
Glad you are feeling better.
While they are all super-gorgeous, I think the last one, with the antlers, is so very appropriate for you. You should hang it next to James Garfield!
These are lovely.
And the description of how they came to be (talcum powder, bewildered hikers, and all) makes them even better.
clinks tea cup against yours Hope you get to feeling better.
You could totally be a model, if it wasn’t so stressful.
These photos are gorgeous. Remember Glamour shots? I always hated those phony poses and awful makeup and hair so I never got them but I always thought it would be cool to have one nice photo of me. THIS is what I want, These are fantastic! Feel better. <3
Gorgeous. (But the antler one creeps me out a little because I started watching True Detective.)
Jenny (May I call you Jenny?), these are absolutely stunning. Absolutely. Stunning.
Those are amazing and beautiful!
Those pictures are pretty awesome. Love the one with the antlers. PS – Sorry you are sick, but I hope you write a post while you are stoned out of your mind on medicine. That would be so amusing.
Wow, so ethereal and beautiful. Love it!
I hope you are able to see your beauty. Those are amazing pictures.
I especially like the middle one. Beautiful!
Beautiful inside and out. 🙂
They are amazing photographs! I had laryngitis in October, for two weeks. When I finally spoke, my husband said, “I missed you.” Not bad after 26 years of marriage.
I hope you feel better, soon.
Wow. Beautiful! And I don’t think this post is unbalanced and disjointed at all. (Could that mean I am unbalanced and disjointed and don’t know it??)
Those are beautiful!
I hope you feel all better soon.
These are GORGEOUS. So fantastic. Seriously? Just so very.fucking.cool.
You’re so beautiful and your friend is extremely talented! I love your antlers by the way lol. Also, feel better soon!! 🙂
I feel like the only picture that is missing is Summer…You’ve got the bluebird of Spring, the Winter Queen and Autumn Goddess. Beautiful pictures, and they will make an amazing set once hung and displayed.
The best part of these pictures is that anyone can look at them and see how beautiful your heart is.
You look gorgeous in all but I’m kinda getting claustrophobic looking at the first one. Kudos to the person who pointed out the antlers, she should most def get a prize. Hope you are feeling better!
Stunningly beautiful!
Every time I think I can’t love you any more than I already do, Jenny, you post something beautiful or funny or sad or crazy, or, or, or EVERYthing, and BOOM! More love explosion! You bring so much joy. Thank you.
Hope you feel better soon!
I love the antler one! It is so you!
Very cool. Really love the birdcage one, esp the colors.
I agree, the antler one is the best 🙂
beautiful pictures. I didn’t even notice the antlers til you mentioned it.
Those are gorgeous pictures and you look lovely! Feel better soon. Sending virtual hugs!
oh, my goodness! those are amazing, thank you for sharing!
Those are amazing! You look stunning. Very, very cool.
Jenny, do you know the website The Pondering Pool? These pictures remind me of that a little. . .
There’s a wire missing from the section of the cage right in front of your face. I’m pretty sure you could squeeze out through there if you tried.
These are gorgeous. I wish I could get pictures of myself like this.
They are weird, but I love them.
I’m really self-conscious about my boobs. And if a dress hadn’t zipped up over said boobs when I was going to have portraits done, it would have strongly affected me. But, my dear, these beautiful pieces of art are a message to me that I need to quit worrying about stuff like that and focus on the beauty that is.
so incredibly beautiful. seriously, I want the calendar! 🙂
Fabulous!
Where in the hell did she get that giant bird cage?!?! Sweet!
(It’s not quite as big in real life. But it’s larger than you might expect. ~ Jenny)
I want to read the book those photographs illustrate!
“Magical” is exactly what I thought when I saw these. I love them.
Ooh! (I keep thinking LOTR, too, as another commenter mentioned.)
I love everything about these.
I don’t think I’m usually an envious person, but I have to admit I’m totally envying your chance to pose for cool, kick-ass pictures like that! I would have them framed all over my house. I would give them as my Christmas gift every year to everybody I know so that I could see them framed all over everybody’s house! They are that awesome :). Magistra13 at yahoo dot com
Beth
LOVE the pics!
Gorgeous, gorgeous pictures. I want to be a bluebird in a cage.
These are incredible. I’d love to have a similar set done for my daughter.
I’d have made Victor chase the fireflies & Little Miss set off the smoke bombs, but that’s just me! Hope you’re feeling better very soon!
I just want to live in a birdcage permanently, but it would have to have a well-stocked mini bar.
Those are lovely and weird and ethereal – and thanks for sharing the memories that make them even more wonderful!
Those are gorgeous Jenny!
Christmas cards? Nailed it.
so beautiful! and glad you are feeling better.
So beautiful! I adore the photos! They are so magical and mysterious.
They are stunning!! I agree with the LOTR comments above – you are as beautiful as Arwen!
These are incredibly beautiful!
Those are so mindnumbingly beautiful!
Thank you, great pictures. c[] cyber chicken soup for you…
so there have been these ridiculous adverts popping up on billboards around Halifax. The ol’ advertise on billboards makes sense, look at how many people see them…but it they were really big sellers, you wouldn’t think they’d have to advertise the advertising space, right? Anyway. There was one where there was a guy in a suit trying to log roll like a lumberjack, with the tag line…”as easy as”. And when I drove by it I was like, being a lumberjack is not easy, and neither is log rolling and I know this because I grew up in a small town where we used to have logger’s sport competitions, and even wearing studded boots, guys went flying and doing it in a suit and brogues is stupid. And my husband shrugged and said falling off a log is easy. And I said, that’s not a thing, why would that be a thing?
Now I know.
Thank you for posting your pictures.
They evoke a certain sort of sereneness that helps calm my lingering, jagged cough from what I’m assuming is the same awful bronchial, breathing, barking, ungodly, upper, rabid, respiratory infection.
Yes, I’m overmedicated (meds) and overheated (heating pad affixed to my chest).
Another vote for a calendar! Glad to see others had the same idea. :]
GASP!
I want to visit your world
(she murmured, plaintively).
These photos are gorgeous! What an awesome experience for you and great fun images. I want a photo of me in a birdcage.
GASP!
I want to visit your world
(she murmured, plaintively).
Is that last antler one what True Detective was about? Just wondering.
Most wonderful Bloggess, I’m so happy you got to do this!
I want to know where you got the antlers. How do they stay on your head? And the horns your daughter wore. Will you share where they are from?
(The deer horns are plastic horns from a japanese lamp. Long story. Hailey’s ram horns I got on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IOXLFUY?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393185&creativeASIN=B00IOXLFUY&linkCode=shr&tag=thebloggess-20&linkId=CP3IJH4AKUTZ5SSG&qid=1415935027&sr=8-1&keywords=ram+horns ~Jenny)
If I ever get a visit from the Traveling Red Dress, these are the kind of photos I’d love to do.
These photos are amazing and stunning, as are you! Also, and this has nothing to do with the pictures, but do you have any advice for family members of those dealing with depression?
(Be strong. Be kind to yourself and to your family member. Realize you can’t solve everything, but be there for them. ~ Jenny)
Can I tell you how happy I am that someone else can’t zip dresses over her boobs? I thought I was alone in this. In fact, I’m sure designers are not sure we exist as a species (women who have boobs with any heft to them). So here’s to you soul sister. You can’t tell from the pics:).
OMG, I was that hiker who saw you, I thought, Holy Shit, that is so odd…I distinctly remember thinking, I would be wearing Spock ears if I was wearing red on an “unknown planetesqe landscape photo shoot,” and have a token Starship Yeoman handy to be eaten by the otherworldly Alien Sasquatch Four Boobed Polka Dotted Enemy I was beamed down to reason with my pointy eared logic before pulling my photon gun to protect Scotty (because the galaxy really needs a star system federation soldier with a kick arse accent more than Yeoman 1st Class Sniddley). Wait…that totally wasn’t YOUR photo shoot. My mistake, it was a different one. Yours looks equally if not better than the one I described, except you have no photon lasers or plasmic disturbing devices I can see, or do you? I put nothing past your capabilities. Cause that would take it to the next level. Seriously, gorgeous, and seriously, did you have any lasers or Spock ears? Or anyone with a Scottish accent for that matter? What can I say, I’m a visionary.
These pics are beautiful, very artistic. I love the blues in the cage pic. She’s so good!
Your pictures are gorgeous! I’ll have to put “have my picture taken barefoot in the swamp” on my bucket list for sure!
Those shots are so artfully done! The wispy effect in the second one is really lovely.
The Twilight movies have been on TV lately. So, obviously, the first thing that came to mind when I saw the last one was how cool it would be to gore some unsuspecting whingey-goth-vampires that happened to be hunting in the forest. How surprised would they be? I imagine…very.
I would probably watch that movie without hating myself afterward.
The photo in blue dress reminds me somehow of a fancy set design from a broadway musical, lovely ever one.
easy log falling in front of a biker, and stiches seems a small price for proof of such amazing beauty.
Brooke Shaden is f*&^ing awesome!
The antler one is the bomb! Love it.
I absolutely love the second photo, but the third one, even before the antler story, feels like it’s you in a visceral way. Maybe it’s the red dress, but the third one is all YOU. (Sorry about the stitches.) Lurve them all.
gorgeous, I think I’m in Love, tell Victor he’s got competition.
I need antlers like this for a photoshoot but I don’t know where to get some. We don’t have awesome stores with taxidermy around here.
I like the antler one! I may be biased because I’m fond of antlers though.
Gorgeous photos and, as always, a very funny backstory!
The white dress one looks like Snow White just woke up and is wondering where the hell her prince is.
Jenny, these are amazing. And beautiful!
I hope you feel better soon. The photos of you are beautiful and I vote for the calendar!! I’m not a big fan of having my photo taken but I also want to add doing photos like these to my bucket list. Thank you for the inspiration! And for sharing your lovely self with all of us.
Absolutely beautiful photos! WOW!
These are some of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen…wow!
You make a beautiful, creepy fairy princess 😀 I LOVE IT!
I mean this in a totally non-creepy way. I would LOVE if you made posters or postcards or something of these gorgeous photos available in your shop. Particularly the middle one. Also the baby powder, smoke bombs, and fireflies required for the shot sound like a ton of fun…although I live somewhere where there aren’t fireflies so I can’t recreate this experience.
OMG, you’re gorgeous! And those are totally awesome photos. I want a photo shoot like that!
I know you shed blood for the antler one, AND you’re wearing a bloodred dress AND antlers that, oddly, kind of suit you (did you want to be like one of your taxidermied animals? It’s SO cool, very nymph of the forest / Maleficent sort of thing) but I like the blue one best. I wish my brain could dream up such magic… Thank you for sharing these with us!!
whoah Jen, you aren’t going to go all ”a model’s work is the hardest in the world, it looks glamorous and lovely fluffy kittens but in reality!!!” are you?????????????????
oh, bloody fab photos by the way, love and appreciation from grey rainy London (Dr Who country) xxx Maureen
You do realise there is a ghost cat curled around your head in the white one, right? You are pretty much looking him in his eyes (left eye is particularly clear in between the trees) little pointy ears…perhaps his curly ghost tail wafted down to the left… Only you, Jenny, would not only have a ghost cat…but a ghost cat that would sit on your head. Beautiful.
Glad you’re feeling better, thanks for sharing the pics they’re amazing. Your friend is incredibly talented!
Glad you’re feeling better and thanks for sharing these amazing pictures, your friend is amazingly talented!
These are just lovely! I especially like the second one, you look like you’re straight out of an Arthur Rackham illustration. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rackham)
Narnia.
High praise.
These are beautiful! I wouldn’t even recognize you in the middle one with the white face and the dark eyes! You look like a model…yes, you really do. 🙂
Those are beautiful! Now I’d like to have my photos taken in a swamp. Love the third one. Just love it.
But how did she get you in that cage!? 😉 These are amazingly beautiful though!
You HAVE to print these large, frame them, and hang them in a prominent location!
Oh Jenny, I’m so glad to have found you. Out of all of the craziness on the interwebs, you are my kind of crazy!
If I haf the $, I would totally hire her to fly here and take my portrait (or I’d fly to her). I might actually tolerate my picture and be okay displaying it or using it as my profile pic online.
If only there were a way for everyone to see themselves this way, it is more than a photo, it is a portrait.
You’re beautiful inside and out.
*had, dammit.
Those are simply amazing…and the story that goes along with them makes them even more so
Beautiful, dark, and antlers are always a great addition to any photograph of a beautiful woman in a red dress just before she falls off a log.
I really love those photos!
Just lovely 🙂
Ah, yes–the Great Zipper-Boob Conundrum. We know it well. (And that would be the collective “we” as well as the royal one.)
Still, these are gorgeous!
Sweet girl, I wonder about the wisdom of posing in antlers in the woods during hunting season.
Can I say jealous? I’m pretty much never jealous, but those pictures are so beautiful and weird and perfect! Maybe someday…did I mention you look amazing in these, because you do!
About the zipper/boob thing…
It just now occurred to me that this is exactly why lace-up bodices were invented. Why the heck did we give those up??
WOW! Gorgeous!!
Okay, you should get sick more often because it obviously affects your memory in a good way. And I cannot believe that birdcage isn’t photoshopped. I am seriously impressed. Besos
lovely.
These photos are beautiful – Brooke is so talented, and you are a fantastic model! You made me smile when describing the epicness of the shoot – all the funny moments that happened leading up to the shot. I model from time to time, and those moments are what make a shoot memorable and fun. Job well done, thank you for sharing your adventure and these pictures.
In other news: Feel better soon! Your blog is my all-time favorite (partially because it has CATS, but aside from that: the awesomeness that comes out of your brain is pretty darn brilliant!)
I’m kind of obsessed with that bluebird picture. It’s incredible.
Very dreamy and beautiful photos.
ME TOO on what everybody else said about how absolutely lovely you look (and we know you are on the inside, too!) and how wonderfully creative Brooke the photographer is, too!!
Hope you are feeling better and that Victor/Hailey/Cats are waiting on you hand and foot (or paw, as applicable)!!!
I like the red dress one best, go figure right? I wish I had a weirdo talented friend who would take pictures like that, they are WONDERFUL!
My God, you look totally HOT in the latest two pics! Of course I mean that in a totally “not a creepy stalker guy” kind of way. Your friend is extremely talented just to think up these sorts of images.
Stunning photos Jenny. I am wondering tho…what the baby powder was for? Was it to make you all sparkly like Twilight?
SO beautiful. And fabulous (in the original sense of the word of being from a fable).
On the 3rd pic, Nice rack!
LOL
Super hot. Oh oh….now I have become a stalker. Maybe I’m just into antlers. Or baby powder. OK…never mind.
Set as…….wallpaper.
Wow, I’ve been waiting so long to see the rest of the pictures. Totally worth the wait! Absolutely stunning. Brooke is talented!
I love those pictures! They are so magical and beautiful, and so are you.
Weird shit is the best shit. Love and love.
You look beautiful in each of these photos. I agree with Shelley J, the antler one would make a great Christmas card.
These are weird only if weird = fabulous!
Stunning photos! Thanks for sharing and hope you feel better soon.
hey jenny? is that red dress still floating around somewhere? if so, can i put my name in the queue?
Thank you for sharing…Love the pictures.
Game of Throneish, but very cool. Winter is Coming.
I love those pictures, I wish I could take pictures like that.
I am such a freak…
My initial thoughts were ‘beautiful…and I love the last one most’ swiftly followed by ‘Did she really need stitches and if so was that before or after the last photograph was taken?’ If the latter – congratulations.
Great to hear your voice is returning, get well soon. Looking forward to more posts. x
silly me, I was sure those were studio photos, you know, the kind where they PhotoShop you to death–then I realized, hey, this is Jennie Lawson, she DOES stuff like this. Of COURSE she’d wander into swamp and wear antlers, yep.
the photos, by the way, are indeed striking. and yeah, that would make an awesome calendar, although Im not sure you could live through much more of those LOTR settings…
These are simply stunning.
fab pics, what a lovely thing to have.. my snaps are much more low rent!! http://thewanderlusthasgotme.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/what-to-see-in-london.html
Perfection. Love, love, love!
Omg stunning photos.
Wow…those are amazing…I love the 2nd one especially…very ethereal
This is beautiful and bizarre. Thank you for sharing!
Some of the best things in live are both weird and free!
I LOVE these pictures! Very beautiful!!
Absolutely BEAUTIFUL!
Those photos are truly stunning! Your friend is very, very talented. Feel better soon!
What Track Is this in? I’ve been looking for it, can’t find it
We used to go fishing and have parties down there. That was in the ‘80s. I remember Mom hiding Easter eggs. My brothers and I found every one of them. My middle brother and I also found out there’s LOTS of poison ivy down there. We missed a week of school.