Metal Meets Goth Near Loch An Eilein

As I mentioned last year, I am slowly embarking on a project of photographing members of the local Goth community. This set is one of two I took of my friend Joel at a ruined building on the shores of Loch an Eilein, at Rothiemurchus in Speyside. This is the first of three sets of photos that will have come from that day out - these are the ones I took on my little point-and-click camera as tests of different poses, etc. I also brought the Canon camera and took proper photographs on a proper camera, but I mislaid my memory card with those on. I also took photos of Loch an Eilein's ruined castle in the middle of it. I would love to visit that castle by boat... something I may have to try and arrange in the future with the castle's owner.

Joel is both a Goth and a Metalhead, and his outfit for the photoshoot was meant to reflect that, and I had a lot of fun doing his make-up; I don't often get to do make-up on men or in different styles. 

Photograph by HouseCat

I'm not quite sure what I was aiming for, specifically with the make-up; I went with something akin to the effect of wearing a half-mask with the shading drawn on, but it wasn't refined enough to exactly create this effect, plus the make-up over the eyes and bridge of the nose doesn't fit in with that theme. I guess in the end it was abstract geometry and shading. Either way, Joel seemed to like it, and I was quite happy with how it turned out. Crisp lines were achieved with using tape to mask. Using bandage/dressing tape seems to work best for this sort of thing. 

Photograph by HouseCat

I really like all of the textures in Joel's outfit. The complex strapped arm-piece is one really cool accessory, and I'm a little jealous of Joel because it looks pretty darn cool. I actually lent Joel a few of my spikes, even though he has heaps of his own, to balance it out with an eclectic selection of spikes on the other arm. I also lent him one of my spiked chokers, to layer with his own. I don't wear spikes half as much as I used to; I guess my fashion these days leans too much to the anachronistic to embrace the punkier aspects I used to love. Perhaps some of my spikier Goth friends will end up being a better home for bits of my collection. 

Photograph by HouseCat

Taking these photographs was a scramble through rough ground. I was wearing trousers, army boots and a rain-coat, and the weather wasn't warm. I'm surprised Joel wasn't complaining about it being chilly in that mesh shirt! The building (I am not sure if it was a boat-house or fishing lodge for the loch or what) is partly mounded around by rubble and earth, and I did climb up the mound for photographs, but they will probably be in the other set when I find the memory card for the better camera. 

Photograph by HouseCat

I think my photography skills have improved since ::this:: photoshoot I took of Ducky and Catastrophe Plague at Beauly priory (not that I'm not still pretty chuffed with the photos I took then). I am going to continue with my Gothic photography project, documenting visually the variety of Goths in the Highland scene. In the not-to-distant future there will be the second set of photographs of Joel taken with 'the good camera' and also the photographs of the island castle of the 'Wolf of Badenoch'. [Who needs Game of Thrones if you live in Scotland? We've even got a Wester Ross...]

Raven took this photo of me taking a photo.

I've been taking photographs of other things too - there's more graveyards, old churches and creepy things coming up, as per usual. I'm on summer break now, and trying to make up for how little I was posting while studying. University is more work than a full-time job; I've never been so busy in my life, not even when I was studying before. I'm also working on decorating the house and sorting the garden this summer, so I won't be posting every day, but updates will now be far more regular. 

World Goth Day 2015

Official World Goth Day Logo,
used hoepfully within their permitted uses.

May 22nd of each year is World Goth Day, as the ::official website:: describes it: "a day where the goth scene gets to celebrate its own being, and an opportunity to make its presence known to the rest of the world". Considering what happened to ::Sophie Lancaster:: and that Goths worldwide continue to get harrassment and violence simply for having different tastes to the norm, I feel that a day to celebrate the subculture's existence is both necessary and positive. We ought to be proud of what the subculture is, what it has achieved (and not just creatively) and of the the sorts of people we are - eccentrics, artists, musicians, romantics of a modern sort, creative folk. Goth is a haven for the morbidly curious and weirdly interesting, it is a subculture in which we can find likeminded individuals and talk about our interests without scorn or derision, and we should be proud of Goth.

Work outfit. Selfies by HouseCat

I always try and 'get my Goth on' on World Goth Day, but this year, it fell on a work day. I almost always wear all black at work these days anyway - today's outfit of black turtleneck and black trousers is pretty standard for my work attire. I obviosuly can't bedeck myself in spikes and studs at work although I did wear this belt with my jumper pulled over it because my trousers kept falling down. It was lumpy, but less obvious and I was searching before work for my one belt that isn't studded fruitlessly (I had left it attached to my archery quiver, as I found out that evening...) and this was slightly more appropriate than the belts with bullets, skulls and othersuch on them! 

After-work outfit. Selfies by HouseCat, glasses removed to show makeup

I added a spiked bangle, a studded cuff, a spiked collar, and the belt, and let my hair down literally. Accessories such as these are an easy way to make an outfit instantly visibly Goth without having to wear specifically-Goth items, so meant I could just stash my accessories into my bag, and put these on when I went into town after work, without much bother; a very simple transition between 'work' and 'casual' modes. This is actually, as far as outfits go, a very casual one for me to be wearing in my spare time as I prefer less contemporary, more anachronistic fashion of a Romantic Goth, Gothic Aristocrat, Visual Kei and Lolita sort - as my readers will know!

In the evening I went out in Inverness with friends, and while I was standing outside the pub we were supposed to meet at, texting my friends about where they were at as I was the first to arrive (ah, the joys of public transport), two drunken men of a chavvy attitude loudly made a wretching noise behind me, and shouted some comment about "puke green hair" and "fucking freak". It disquietened me enough to decide it was a bad idea to be standing around, looking that different, on a main street with several pubs on a Friday night, so I went to go sit in the nearby graveyard, which was deserted at that point - I guess thereby doing something most stereotypically Goth. We get harrassed on the streets by strangers, but we are not in the wrong - drunken jerks who yell insults at people they disapprove of are in the wrong. Never let people's prejudices change who you are; being Goth is neither immoral nor illegal (in most places), but insulting strangers in public is immoral, and I think it might actually be illegal in some places, especially if you are drunk (but I'm not a lawyer).