(For my YLF blog! Hope you gals don't mind me posting the photos twice ^^)

Stone Canyon Petrified Sand Dunes and Reflection, Paria Canyon - Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, Arizona by Jack Dykinga

Now THIS photo has colors right up my wardrobe palette alley! When I look at this photo I get a feeling of color and texture overload, despite the very serene vibe, so I wanted my outfit to reflect that.

Texture-wise, the strongest impact of this photo on me are the rock striations (new word learned!), and while stripes would be a good choice to represent them I didn't feel that any of mine could really portray the complexity of the rocks' "stripes". So instead, I decided to debut a brand new blouse (!) I just bought last week whose front is constructed with many narrow layers of sheer tiers, which also happily picks up on the pink from the photo.

Color-wise, the strongest impact of this photo on me are the beautiful sunset-like gradients; red to orange to yellow, purple to pink to peach. But because my top is pretty busy, I decided to limit the number of colors in my outfit and not sport a gradient. There isn't actually a gradient of red to pink on a single rock side, but I love how the center reddish rock is flanked by pinks on either side so I chose to wear those colors (plus I adore how fuchsia and red look together). I paired my red jeans (another texture), and then added the fuchsia cardigan to emphasize the color pairing even though there's plenty of fuchsia in the top (and yet another texture); it also calms the top's business a little bit, while simultaneously adding to color overload.

After trying a couple different pairs of shoes (white booties felt unbalanced, black pumps felt too heavy for the photo, navy slingbacks and teal pumps both felt unnecessarily busy), ultimately I opted for my red heels to keep the outfit focus on the top and the color combination (and the leather adds YET another texture). At that point I didn't have ANY blue or purple represented, both significant colors in the photo. So I added this necklace which has ALL of the photo colors in it, and did a quick 5-minute purple manicure

And lastly, to represent the twisted, bleached driftwood I wanted to do a big spiral curled pony tail but forgot that my sister has my curler/iron! Happily I was kind of able to make it work using just curl creme and my blow dryer. Went with my white purse as another nod to the driftwood, and add some (in my opinion) much needed additional lightness to this very saturated, colorful outfit.

Comments, critiques, thoughts and questions welcome!