Pics clothed - unclothed

the mods present in the pics are:
(Race) Mannequin Races
(Hair) Megaton Hairs
(Armour Clothing) Canon courier Holster Gear Wasters Scarf
(Weapon) TOZ-66 Lowry's Revolver
(Visual) DYNAVISION 3 Dusty Distance Redone Atmospheres - Weather and Lighting

I first learned about Kibbe four or so years ago and immediately loved the idea of refining a wardrobe based on it, but was also immediately overwhelmed. I had a gut feeling it may be DC for me, but overall, I became too bogged down in worries about my own bias and all the language. So I gave up.
The last year or so, I've been toying around with it again and trying to be more objective about it. There are several types I knew I could rule out right away, but about 3 or 4 I'd consider over and over again, with none of them feeling quite right. This past weekend I took a quiz again with a better grasp of the concepts and got a leaning DC result. Huh, I thought. Could it be?
It all makes sense now. I'm only 5'2", but people have always thought I'm a bit taller - not extremely so, they just never think of me as "short" exactly. "Petite" has never been a word used to describe me. Even as a child, I didn't have the childlike or dainty qualities that seem to be associated with gamines, so despite my height, those types just never felt right. My face has always felt more dramatic: I have a large, bony nose and non-rounded eyes. My cheek bones too are more prominent at my ideal weight and I have a heavy browline (thus the bangs). My hands and feet are large for my height, but otherwise, my body feels fairly neutral: a defined waist and bust, but not overly curvy, either. My hair has a bit of a natural wave, but I feel overwhelmed when it's too "free" and prefer a more defined style - pic is about as wild as I let it get.
I was still doubting it a bit until last night I was going over the recommended clothing lines for DC and it hit me: these are all my comfort items that I've always felt best in. I love tapered skirts and strong, clean necklines. I feel lost in anything without structure and love heavier linens, crisp cottons, items with interfacing. I want to wear a tailored blazer with everything. All my favorite shoes are narrow with a pointed toe: not too delicate or too chunky, but just right. I like straight and wide legged pants, but not skinny or oversized ones. My ideal outfit is neutral with a punch of color. Handbags, too, should be structured and sleek. Jewelry significant, but not chunky either. Maybe this is it!
I'd love to hear any of your aha moment stories. I'm excited to be here finally and learn more about how to look & feel our best. Of course, if you feel I've missed something and might more closely align with another type, I'm open to that delivered in a constructive manner as well.
Pic is of me in some of my best staples. I'm a bit heavier than my ideal weight, but feeling quite good in this outfit all the same 🙂

Things got a bit squirrely over the weekend, so I decided I needed a break to get out into the park and try out a couple of new lenses I have on trial. Apologies if I have any technical terms down wrongly, hopefully the descriptions will be adequate accompaniment for the pics.
Voigtlander Nokton 75mm f1.5mm Aspherical & Heliar Classic 50mm f1.5
I really like the rendering of this lens. To my less experienced eyes, it seems the micro-contrast is decent, but it's just the organic feel of the image I like, especially the OOF areas.
All of the following were shot between f1.5 and f2 - apologies as I didn't keep exact notes. All shots were in Aperture priority mode, at ISO 1600 with the manual lens adapter settings for focal length in the GFX menus set at 75mm and 50mm, as appropriate, which should (in theory) mean there was some IBIS in the mix.
For aesthetics and handling, the Heliar 50mm looks drop dead gorgeous with that contrasting nickel-finish band. The aperture ring clicks just a tiny bit more positively and makes the cheaper lens feel that it's cut from a very, very slightly better quality cloth. However, that's entirely subjective, I'm sure others could find that nickel finish slightly gaudy and prefer the clean lines of the Nokton 75. Both get high marks for perceived build quality and the detents in the aperture rings. Both also have smooth, well damped focus rings.
For image quality though, I felt this Nokton 75mm looked noticeably better when adapted to the GFX, which is probably as much about the difference in focal length as it is the quality or design of the optics, although the Aspherical elements in the Nokton *could* also play a part there. For me, both have a smooth, organic rendering to them on that sensor, but I still prefer the Nokton by a hair even in that respect. The biggest negative for the Heliar Classic 50 is that there is some weird compression in the out-of-focus areas just off-center, approximately where lines of thirds would be if made into a circle? It's very reminiscent of swirly bokeh lenses such as a Helios 44M, and I found it too distracting.
The Nokton, on the other hand, has a surprisingly small amount of vignetting for an adapted lens, and needs minimal cropping for these shots to make it mostly imperceptible, although it is a little strong right in the corners with this busy background. However, for smoothness of out of focus areas when at f2 and below, I really like this lens.
Coming from Canon, via Sony, and only recently to GFX, I had no issues with finding the focus ring with my eye pressed to the viewfinder and found focus peaking to get me close on almost every shot. Unfortunately, of those 'almost' shots, my keeper rate was probably around 25%, and only five of those would be 100% in focus (out of 81 shots)
For each pair of images here (Nokton 75mm), the A shows the full, uncropped image, with some noticeable hard vignetting right in the corners. There is some swirliness to the image, but it's lighter, and much further towards the outside than the Heliar Classic. The B shows a center crop - 2B is VERY usable at 3450x2588 pixels, 1/340s, and approx F2 (I didn't make notes of my apertures, sorry, but they were all very wide!)
Nokton 75mm - settings below
Nokton 75mm - settings below
** RAWs 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B have not been edited in Lightroom, except for guestimating the color temp at 5500k. RAWs 3A, and 3B, the black squirrel, were set to 5000k and had some minor tweaks to contrast, texture, shadows, and blacks for the enlargement to show a little detail in the fur. All images resized to 1600px on the longest edge for posting here. All images shot with the Nokton 75mm**
https://preview.redd.it/heeltiuq3m1d1.jpg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a7dd503108b9bd78eb4962336787878b745bade0
Nokton 75mm - settings above
Nokton 75mm - settings above
Nokton 75mm - settings above
Obviously, directly comparing these two lenses isn't entirely fair, or even appropriate, but I have found it hard to find solid examples of these lenses converted to Medium Format, so I thought I would post some examples for anyone in the same boat. The comparative focal lengths on Full Frame would be 40mm and 60mm.
Heliar Classic 50mm f1.5 - uncropped - ISO 800, 1/40s, 4800k no other edits
Here is a straight-out-of-camera jpeg showing a fairly distorted foreground with the Heliar Classic 50mm
Heliar Classic 50mm f1.5
In an attempt to give some context, I had also done a similar walk earlier in the week with similar lighting conditions using the Mamiya Sekor C 80mm f1.9 with a kipon adapter on the GFX 50S II. Here are a couple of shots in the same format - uncropped, unedited except to set color temp, shot in Aperture priority mode.
Uncropped - Mamiya Sekor 80mm at f1.9 and 1/18c 5000k, no other adjustments
Zooming in...
As above, but with some light sharpening and noise reduction in LrC
In summary, I feel the 75mm Nokton Asph adapts much better to Fuji GFX than then Heliar Classic 50mm. The vignetting is less noticeable, and it doesn't have the same weird compression going on that the Heliar had in my setup. While they both have good color rendering and the micro-contrast seems like it could be decent (I'm no expert and it's difficult to judge at 1600 ISO), the 75mm Nokton ASPH is the one I will be keeping and looking to use. I think both lenses could work well for portraits with a less jumbled background, but I would still take the Nokton every time. The Mamiya has the distinct advantage of being designed for a bigger sensor and just shows a clean, organic image, with no serious stylistic affectations. I really want to shoot some portraits with the Nokton and Mamiya to see how the latter works with a larger cubject in the center of the frame as this is the mean reason I purchased the camera. I will make a follow-up posting if there is enough interest and I can find someone to model for me.
Finishing up... be aware that both Voigtlander lenses do appear to have some issues with flaring, I did not have either (included) lens hood available to see whether this would have made a difference.
Nokton 75mm at around f2 and ISO 200 and 1/2400s
I hope this helps anyone looking for a high quality, modern, manual focus lens which will work almost as well on Medium Format as others have shown it to do on Full Frame. Both Voigtlanders seem very capable and the ultimate choice is likely to be subjective for each person. The Mamiya has good resolution, possibly slightly more muted colors (although these were shot on a different day to the Voigtlanders) and has almost as wide of a maximum aperture. The Mamiya might be a bit cheaper used but prices are volatile and climbing for most good quality medium format lenses.

my husband and I were at a garage sale last week and we found this great lot of Barbies with clothes! I'm having a blast going through everything because growing up my sister and I had all the Barbies and clothes and sets and accessories. Our collection was given away and donated and it's such a big regret! I even had all the Jem dolls ugh! Anyways, I've been able to identify a few of these lovely ladies but am having trouble with some and any help would be greatly appreciated! I haven't played with Barbies since I was younger (I'm 41 right now) and can I tell you how excited I am by this find?!
Need help with pics 1, 2, and 3! I can answer any other questions or provide more pics!
2nd pic: Brunette - Wedding Tracy from 1982?
4th pic: I think that's Sun Lovin Malibu Barbie 1978, Pearl Beach Barbie 1997, and Twist N Turn Stacey 1969.
Last pic: I identified and found the clothes for Twirly Curls Barbie 1982, Magic Moves Barbie 1985, and Tropical Ken and Miko 1985.

1. I was going through the followers of one of the strange pages in the other post about the dogs. I did not think I would find anything relevant but found two people who are in the industry following this page (iaminlovewithyourpets…) Michael Anthony is FOLLOWING - Ariana grande’s makeup artist - did her makeup for the 2024 Met Gala. One other person who is a photographer affiliated with Elliot Wilson, Eric Johnson is FOLLOWING. Not sure if this has any relevancy but thought I would give an update.
   
2. I also mentioned HL in the previous post and was doing some looking for connections and was only able to find this post on Facebook from Vogue that is no longer on the site. It talks about wearing a HL dress at the Mark. I then tried to find pictures of the model and literally nothing has come up her name is Eugenia. Even reversed image searched her. Nothing. Then I searched for the photographer of the pic and he passed away in 2022. Marko MacPherson. He is listed as a dog whisperer in his ob. He took pics of dogs apparently in the Bowery Hotel in New York but frequented THE M. The font on the clothing looks like Lingua Franca (the designers who make the clothing for the Mark). Not sure the significance of this but the bowery doesn’t have clothing or dog merch that looks like that.
   

I think all that this shows is that there are more people into this than known. I don’t think it’s that farfetched for drake to be into dogs unfortunately. Especially after what his internet bestie AK, ex gf said about being trans K9.

Greetings everyone
Just wanted to post a quick update on my carpet project! It’s been a busy couple of weeks, but I believe I’ve been able to warp my loom in a way that I’m kinda happy with.
Using a warping board, I created sheaves of warp that were then fit directly onto the warping bars which sit in a notched-groove beveled into the cloth beams. You can actually see this in the photo - the bottom cloth beam is positioned so that the notch and bar are visible. I still have some issues with uneven tension and I have a few ideas of how I might remedy this in the future. In a previous post, I linked a view videos of weavers in Turkey warping and dressing a large floor loom similar to the my own. In the video, the weavers can be seen creating the warp in one long, continuous sheave around two verticals poles.
I’ve thought about creating a similar apparatus, where I could vertically position the two iron rods around two individual bases. I could separate the bases (in which the rods are secured) are space them to the vertical specs of the textile. I’d then warp around the two posts in a figure 8, and perhaps running a line of crochet across the top and bottom of the warp to keep the warp threads organized and separate. The two rods could then be removed from the bases and affixed into their notches. Idk, I don’t think it would be tooo tricky to figure out. Perhaps it could help.
Anyway…..the sheaves were fit onto the rods, which were placed into the cloth bars. The top was rolled up (as evenly as possible lol) and the bottom rod was fit in place before the bottom cloth beam was tensioned down.
I’ve begun the process of weaving a header and organizing the threads. I’m planning on weaving an inch of header using the same weft as the warp. Aside from pics of plain weaving, there will be at least one row of soumak, where weft essentially wraps around and separates the warps.
I’m still early into weaving the header, but I’m hoping I’m able to space things out MUCH better than this. lol send me good vibes.
Once the header is woven and thing feel separated and spaced properly, Ill proceed to stringing the heddles.
I’m sure I’m making loads of mistakes, but I’m still loving every minute of this.