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soraya

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  1. Like
    soraya reacted to chappyhm in Your favorite tattoo?   
    I'm in love with all my tattoos, they are all very special because they represent me
  2. Like
    soraya got a reaction from donbcivil in Photographs & Etiquette   
  3. Like
    soraya reacted to bongsau in Photographs & Etiquette   
    yes, context is everything.
    I stand by what I said to this young girl "just get the tattoos you want". who cares. i hope that she heard that, if she was in fact sincere about tattoos. if she does get the same tattoo I wear, well i hope it's done really well and gives her the confidence and exciting feelings it gave me. own it !
    everything has been done and reproduced. sure, she might end up with a similar tattoo in the same spot...everything has already been done...but no way is it possible for her to copy my look of (6) neck tattoos unless she wants to recreate the last 6 years of my life.
    i feel that the modern-age of internet tattoo picture collecting is feeding into this. Like, everyone is always taking photos of themselves, their surroundings and everything and anything...that we have forgotten etiquette and how to interact with the real world and more importantly each other real-time as people.
     
     
     
  4. Like
    soraya got a reaction from bongsau in Photographs & Etiquette   
    Interesting and creepy experience. 
    I cover up most of the time, but sometimes my half sleeves show. I’ve only had two photo requests, and they were quite different. One, a young woman just came up to me at a street arts fair and rather abruptly said “Can I take a picture of your tats?” First of all the word “tats” turned me off immediately, and secondly she already had her phone out like it was a foregone conclusion that I would say yes. I just politely said no, I’d prefer not to have my picture taken. She seemed rather miffed.
    The other time, a woman approached me politely after a workout at the gym, asked about my sleeves, and was quite nice and respectful. She asked intelligent, and I think sincere questions, and I answered them to the best of my ability. It was very comfortable, and I voluntarily pulled up my sleeves to show her the extent. At the end, she asked me if she could take a picture. She was very polite, and almost apologetic, and I said yes. 
    So for me, it was all about context and feel. I’m pretty private, and this has only happened twice, but I’m more likely to say yes if I judge that the person is sincerely interested, and not just collecting pictures. I’m that way when people ask me about my tattoos. I love to talk about my tattoos if a person is sincerely interested and not creepy. 
  5. Like
    soraya got a reaction from SStu in Photographs & Etiquette   
    Interesting and creepy experience. 
    I cover up most of the time, but sometimes my half sleeves show. I’ve only had two photo requests, and they were quite different. One, a young woman just came up to me at a street arts fair and rather abruptly said “Can I take a picture of your tats?” First of all the word “tats” turned me off immediately, and secondly she already had her phone out like it was a foregone conclusion that I would say yes. I just politely said no, I’d prefer not to have my picture taken. She seemed rather miffed.
    The other time, a woman approached me politely after a workout at the gym, asked about my sleeves, and was quite nice and respectful. She asked intelligent, and I think sincere questions, and I answered them to the best of my ability. It was very comfortable, and I voluntarily pulled up my sleeves to show her the extent. At the end, she asked me if she could take a picture. She was very polite, and almost apologetic, and I said yes. 
    So for me, it was all about context and feel. I’m pretty private, and this has only happened twice, but I’m more likely to say yes if I judge that the person is sincerely interested, and not just collecting pictures. I’m that way when people ask me about my tattoos. I love to talk about my tattoos if a person is sincerely interested and not creepy. 
  6. Like
    soraya reacted to Gingerninja in Photographs & Etiquette   
    What @soraya said. 
  7. Like
    soraya reacted to bongsau in Photographs & Etiquette   
    How do you react when strangers ask to photograph your tattoos ?
    ---------
    so this happened the other night at a rock concert...younger chick (she had small sticker and black out tattoos) gets in my face with her iphone and her opening line is:
    girl: hey i want to take a picture of your neck tattoo
    me: um, no thank you - it's cool if you want to take a closer look but I don't want my picture taken right now. 
    girl: well, i work at the counter of a tattoo studio.
    me: cool, good for you.
    girl: yeah, my tattoo artists wants to give me that exact same tattoo on my neck. so i want to take a picture of yours to show them.
    me: excuse me? yeah, no. you can't take a picture of my tattoo.
    girl: but, i want to take a picture of your neck tattoo to show him... ~why i shouldn't get it~
    me: <<WTF did she just say??>> yknow lady, just get whatever tattoos you want. i'm not the first and not the last to have this imagery. but sorry, you cannot take a photo of mine for your reference.
    girl: well, ~i seen ~ some like that on the internet before.
    me: great, good for you. i got mine on a trip to Belgium.
    girl: <blank stare>
    me: it was a really enlightening experience.
    girl: so i can't take a picture of it then?
    me: no, you can't.
    girl: fine. whatever.
    ----------------------
    Now i've been approached on the beach and on the street before, perhaps people find my tattoo look interesting and i give off a welcoming energy. These are often interactive, friendly and interesting exchanges. I don't mind that ! 
    Like, can't we just have a normal conversation, use that to inspire ideas...seriously some people are a bit clueless...... but hey at least she asked ... it's too bad she couldn't just be normal and have an open conversation about tattooing, I'd probably have been less dismissive ... but she came on a bit strong like she was entitled to take a photo of my neck tattoo ... uncool ... end rant...
    Anybody else experience the random photograph request ? How do you respond and deal with it ?
  8. Like
    soraya got a reaction from bongsau in How Important is the Experience?   
    This is a really interesting topic! It was touched on from a bit of a different perspective here. 
    For me, it is not an either/or thing: I’m buying both product and experience.
    When decided to get my first tattoo I thought I was buying a thing, and it never occurred to me that it might be an experience, except that I was going to experience pain. But after the first one, I realized that I could take the pain, and was actually glad that it was painful, and I had defeated the pain. I liked being in this weird shop where everybody there had, or was getting artwork on their body, and I liked being in the middle of that, and becoming part of that. It made me feel very alive. And even though healing was annoying, I actually liked that I had to take care of it, to be careful with it, go through the itching. I viewed it as part of the process of accepting the tattoo into my body.
    As I got more, I began to see it more as an experience rather than a thing. I came to like the planning, the anticipation, the preparation. Every time I decided to get a tattoo it was like deciding to run a marathon, where you make a commitment months in advance to prepare and train for the event. You go through the process, culminating in the event, and even have a aftercare process. Like a marathon, a tattoo is really a total body and mind experience for me, and I love all of it. 
    I also think that the tattoo experience goes beyond the event. There is also the experience of being a tattooed person. I got tattooed later in life, and I am otherwise pretty mainstream, so I’m something of an oddity in my world. I’m different, people notice me. But I like that experience of living just a little differently. I feel like that is part of what I bought too: a different daily experience of living with tattoos.
    So I would give the nod to the experience part, but only by a hair. But fortunately we are in a world filled with really fantastic tattoo artists, and we really don’t have to chose between good tattoos and good experiences. I think we can get both.
     
  9. Like
    soraya got a reaction from Hands On in How Important is the Experience?   
    This is a really interesting topic! It was touched on from a bit of a different perspective here. 
    For me, it is not an either/or thing: I’m buying both product and experience.
    When decided to get my first tattoo I thought I was buying a thing, and it never occurred to me that it might be an experience, except that I was going to experience pain. But after the first one, I realized that I could take the pain, and was actually glad that it was painful, and I had defeated the pain. I liked being in this weird shop where everybody there had, or was getting artwork on their body, and I liked being in the middle of that, and becoming part of that. It made me feel very alive. And even though healing was annoying, I actually liked that I had to take care of it, to be careful with it, go through the itching. I viewed it as part of the process of accepting the tattoo into my body.
    As I got more, I began to see it more as an experience rather than a thing. I came to like the planning, the anticipation, the preparation. Every time I decided to get a tattoo it was like deciding to run a marathon, where you make a commitment months in advance to prepare and train for the event. You go through the process, culminating in the event, and even have a aftercare process. Like a marathon, a tattoo is really a total body and mind experience for me, and I love all of it. 
    I also think that the tattoo experience goes beyond the event. There is also the experience of being a tattooed person. I got tattooed later in life, and I am otherwise pretty mainstream, so I’m something of an oddity in my world. I’m different, people notice me. But I like that experience of living just a little differently. I feel like that is part of what I bought too: a different daily experience of living with tattoos.
    So I would give the nod to the experience part, but only by a hair. But fortunately we are in a world filled with really fantastic tattoo artists, and we really don’t have to chose between good tattoos and good experiences. I think we can get both.
     
  10. Like
    soraya reacted to JAC1961 in How Important is the Experience?   
    Great subject.  I really enjoy a talkative, friendly artist.  I really enjoying talking to the artist while they work, it really helps keep my mind off the pain and makes the time fly by.  I also like getting to know someone with completely different skills and abilities than I could ever hope to have.  That being said, I guess if I had that choice, I'd take the quality work.  The artist that did my japanese half sleeve told me during the consultation that he doesn't like to chat while he works, preferring to concentrate on what he's doing.  At first I was a little put off, but he was friendly and chatted while putting on the stencil and sketching.  I appreciated his committed attitude and his work is the best that I've gotten so far.
    Music. I've been listening to indie folk and bluegrass on Spotify lately... Dead South, Trampled by Turtles, Colter Wall, The Devil makes Three, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, The Bridge City Sinners, etc.  When I'm feeling especially neanderthalic I listen to Heilung.
  11. Like
    soraya reacted to AverageJer in How Important is the Experience?   
    Hi all-
    I thought I'd start a little discussion about something I sometimes think about. Essentially this question boils down to the question of the extent to which a spending money on a tattoo equates to spending money on a thing or an experience? 
    I'll frame it this way- to what extent is the experience of getting a tattoo important to the overall product? Would you rather get a tattoo that is perfect in everyway from an artist that is no fun to spend a few hours with (maybe even actively an asshole) or are you willing to wear a tattoo that is a little lesser in quality from an artist that you have a great time enjoying your time with? 
    Obviously the idea is to get great quality AND have a great time- and I have been fortunate to hit this ideal many times. I guess I'm just more curious how others here think about this issue- if you do at all. Getting a tattoo is an intimate experience in a lot of ways but it also produces a piece of art that we carry with us for the rest of our lives. 
    What do you think? 
     
    Bonus topics: 1) Have you discovered any new music lately? 2) Who do you like in the NBA playoffs? 
  12. Like
    soraya reacted to Hands On in How Important is the Experience?   
    i must say, this is the first "different" topic i've seen LST for a while. thanks!
    We can all agree that getting tattooed results in both a product and an experience. For me, the experience edges out the product, just slightly. I guess this is because I'm picking a tattooer whose product I've already vetted by viewing their portfolio of prior work... I'm going to them coz I know they do work I dig. This way, even if the experience is bad, the tattoo should be good. But if you don't already know the artist and didn't meet with them beforehand, you have no idea what their personality is like or how the experience will be.
    Tattooing involves a lot of exchange of energy. If you get a good piece of art that was put on with bad energy, you feel that more than skin deep and it sticks with you. Granted, if you didn't do your homework and you got a bad looking tattoo from a good person, looking at that bad tattoo could potentially bring you down. But that's more of a self reflection on you for choosing a bad artist and not due to the artist being a bad person. I feel like i'm rambling, but hopefully you get my point.
    1) I've recently gotten into searching random cultural instrumentals to listen to while i work. This came after a conversation with a Jewish friend of mine... I mentioned that I listen to traditional Filipino tribal percussion and he said it's like my klezmer. I had no idea what that was, so I looked it up and BOOM... my new genre... traditional cultural instrumentals. I like having background noise that doesn't have lyrics that tend to distract me. So far, I've looked up music from Peru, Thailand, Japan, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iceland, Hawaii, and Tibet. More to come!
    2) I've been living in the Bay Area for almost 20yrs and have become a fan of the Warriors... but I feel like the Bay has been spoiled and didn't deserve this title.
    - I appreciated how the Raptors played and think Kawhi deserved it after the Zaza foul a couple yrs back.
    - Canada deserved it too, with all their fans sitting out the in cold! Good for them.
    - I'm a fan of the game.
    Some super interesting trades so far this off season!
    - I wouldn't mind Kawhi repeating with the Clips - LA vs LA is going to be MADNESS.
    - I hate Chris Paul and I'm glad he got traded to OKC to hopefully wither away.
  13. Like
    soraya got a reaction from Princess Sparkle Mittens in Enjoying Tattoos ?   
    This is one of my favorite tattoo topics: The experience of tattooing.
    I find tattooing therapeutic, enjoyable, exhilarating, empowering, painful, agonizing and annoying all at once. I echo Dan’s comments about the importance of the process. It is a ritual of planning, creating, collaborating, preparing, enduring, healing, and loving the result. I love every part of it.
    And as @Dan said, it is intimate, which is appealing to me. Not sexual intimacy, but the intimacy of permitting and trusting someone who is basically a stranger to touch you, to wound you, to permanently alter you body. You may be largely unclothed in front of them (my husband and I dated for over a year before he saw my breasts. My tattoo artist was touching them within 15 minutes of me meeting him).
    The pain? I like it…No! I hate it…No! It’s not that bad!…Well, sometimes it is bad, and I hate it. But I like it….Well…I don’t really like it… blah blah blah.
    The bottom line is, it is a pain I choose, no one that was inflicted on me unexpectedly. I don’t like it, but I like that I am able to endure it, I like that it challenges me and pushes my limits, And I love, LOVE the result.
  14. Like
    soraya reacted to cyoonit123 in Enjoying Tattoos ?   
    @soraya You are a much more creative/profound writer than I. 
    My gf's a phlebotomist and she told me the reason people are more afraid of blood draws/shots compared to tattoos is because of the difference in the needles and amount of penetration. Shots/blood draws have to go deep beyond the layers of the skin while tattoos (hopefully lol) are only going through a few layers of the skin. No idea if this is actually backed by any science but I love her so i'm going to go with it for now 😉
    But I agree with people here. It's a therapeutic painful experience. 3 hours is my tipping point where the adrenaline is gone and it becomes miserable. 
  15. Like
    soraya got a reaction from scottyg in Enjoying Tattoos ?   
    This is one of my favorite tattoo topics: The experience of tattooing.
    I find tattooing therapeutic, enjoyable, exhilarating, empowering, painful, agonizing and annoying all at once. I echo Dan’s comments about the importance of the process. It is a ritual of planning, creating, collaborating, preparing, enduring, healing, and loving the result. I love every part of it.
    And as @Dan said, it is intimate, which is appealing to me. Not sexual intimacy, but the intimacy of permitting and trusting someone who is basically a stranger to touch you, to wound you, to permanently alter you body. You may be largely unclothed in front of them (my husband and I dated for over a year before he saw my breasts. My tattoo artist was touching them within 15 minutes of me meeting him).
    The pain? I like it…No! I hate it…No! It’s not that bad!…Well, sometimes it is bad, and I hate it. But I like it….Well…I don’t really like it… blah blah blah.
    The bottom line is, it is a pain I choose, no one that was inflicted on me unexpectedly. I don’t like it, but I like that I am able to endure it, I like that it challenges me and pushes my limits, And I love, LOVE the result.
  16. Like
    soraya got a reaction from cyoonit123 in Enjoying Tattoos ?   
    This is one of my favorite tattoo topics: The experience of tattooing.
    I find tattooing therapeutic, enjoyable, exhilarating, empowering, painful, agonizing and annoying all at once. I echo Dan’s comments about the importance of the process. It is a ritual of planning, creating, collaborating, preparing, enduring, healing, and loving the result. I love every part of it.
    And as @Dan said, it is intimate, which is appealing to me. Not sexual intimacy, but the intimacy of permitting and trusting someone who is basically a stranger to touch you, to wound you, to permanently alter you body. You may be largely unclothed in front of them (my husband and I dated for over a year before he saw my breasts. My tattoo artist was touching them within 15 minutes of me meeting him).
    The pain? I like it…No! I hate it…No! It’s not that bad!…Well, sometimes it is bad, and I hate it. But I like it….Well…I don’t really like it… blah blah blah.
    The bottom line is, it is a pain I choose, no one that was inflicted on me unexpectedly. I don’t like it, but I like that I am able to endure it, I like that it challenges me and pushes my limits, And I love, LOVE the result.
  17. Like
    soraya got a reaction from VenomX in Enjoying Tattoos ?   
    This is one of my favorite tattoo topics: The experience of tattooing.
    I find tattooing therapeutic, enjoyable, exhilarating, empowering, painful, agonizing and annoying all at once. I echo Dan’s comments about the importance of the process. It is a ritual of planning, creating, collaborating, preparing, enduring, healing, and loving the result. I love every part of it.
    And as @Dan said, it is intimate, which is appealing to me. Not sexual intimacy, but the intimacy of permitting and trusting someone who is basically a stranger to touch you, to wound you, to permanently alter you body. You may be largely unclothed in front of them (my husband and I dated for over a year before he saw my breasts. My tattoo artist was touching them within 15 minutes of me meeting him).
    The pain? I like it…No! I hate it…No! It’s not that bad!…Well, sometimes it is bad, and I hate it. But I like it….Well…I don’t really like it… blah blah blah.
    The bottom line is, it is a pain I choose, no one that was inflicted on me unexpectedly. I don’t like it, but I like that I am able to endure it, I like that it challenges me and pushes my limits, And I love, LOVE the result.
  18. Like
    soraya got a reaction from Princess Sparkle Mittens in Saline Tattoo Removal, anybody know about this?   
    I read the comments on the instagram photo, and the tattoo actually had been treated by both laser and saline. The person who posted the photo was not happy with the saline treatment. Quoting her comment:
    "I had three laser removal sessions and one saline removal. The saline was not worth the minimal results and horribly painful healing process. The laser hurts quite a bit to have done, but there’s basically no downtime (if any at all) with the healing process of that - and the results with a good laser can be pretty awesome!"
  19. Thanks
    soraya got a reaction from Dan in Saline Tattoo Removal, anybody know about this?   
    I read the comments on the instagram photo, and the tattoo actually had been treated by both laser and saline. The person who posted the photo was not happy with the saline treatment. Quoting her comment:
    "I had three laser removal sessions and one saline removal. The saline was not worth the minimal results and horribly painful healing process. The laser hurts quite a bit to have done, but there’s basically no downtime (if any at all) with the healing process of that - and the results with a good laser can be pretty awesome!"
  20. Like
    soraya reacted to AverageJer in Relationships and tattoos   
    When my wife and I first got together she had tattoos and I didn't and actually I was kind of an asshole about them. Eventually I decided to get a small tattoo that we both got together and I haven't stopped since. We frequently get tattooed on the same day, sometimes at the same time and sometimes back to back by the same artist, and we have a lot of fun with this- but I suppose I've already said all of this upthread...
  21. Like
    soraya reacted to Gingerninja in Relationships and tattoos   
    I am perfectly fine with my hubby not being tattooed...ever. 
  22. Like
    soraya reacted to Dan in Relationships and tattoos   
    I think there is another scenario, like what my wife and myself evolved through,
    when we got together 12 years ago she liked my tattoos(I had a lot then),and she had zero tattoos,
    she also said back then that she would never get one,
    well grandkids came a long and she learned a lot more about tattoos and saw the fun I was having and she started getting them on her own free will,
    I was fine with her not having any or having them, I love her either way. I'll take her anyway I can get her.
    it is cool that we share another common interest now though IMO.I love the fact that we experience it together much of the time.(like both getting tattoos at the same convention)
  23. Like
    soraya reacted to Tornado7 in Relationships and tattoos   
    Same reason I tried to get him to eat seafood. He hated it 15 years ago, to the point where I couldn't really cook it at home. Now he asks to go out for raw oysters, and he's picked out the fish we're cooking at the house all year.
    Sometimes we encourage each other to grow, try new things, change thinking we've carried without understanding for years, etc. We trust each other.
  24. Like
    soraya got a reaction from pfj99 in Your First Tattoo Story   
    My husband and I had been married for a few years when he asked me if I would consider getting a tattoo. He said that he found tattoos on women very attractive and sexy, and after a lot of thought I decided to get one. I will spare the decision-making details now since it i already posted them here:
    http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/general-tattoo-discussion/546-relationships-tattoos-page32.html#post72275
    I decided I wanted a peony on the front of my hip. Although I was happy to get the tattoo, I considered it very private. I was uncomfortable about getting anything that might show, so I picked a location where it would never be visible in public (accept maybe in the locker room at the gym, where I planned, of course, to go to great lengths and convolutions to keep it covered).
    The day arrived and I showed the artist my idea. He suggested adding some background to peony - some cherry blossoms, foliage, and decorative elements to give it a Japanese style. That made it much bigger than I had planned - It would be about 4" x 6", which I thought was gigantic at the time! I almost said no because I wanted to keep it small, but it did look much better with the added portions so I said, "Go for it." Part of it was over a bone, and the artist warned me that it might be more painful in that area.
    I remember staring intensely at the needle as he was ready to make the first line, and I prepared for the feeling of the needle because I wanted to have a vivid memory of the moment that my skin was changed forever. The needle first touched in a soft area, and the pain was not as bad as I expected, and as he worked for the first few minutes, I thought that this was going to be pretty easy. Then he started working over a bone, and OW! The pain was indeed pretty intense there. But except for the flashes of pain over the bone, the experience was not that bad.
    It took about an hour to complete, maybe longer, but I'm really not sure how long it took because I was concentrating so much on what the artist was doing. This was going to be my only tattoo and I saw it as a pretty important life event, so I wanted to mentally absorb every aspect of the experience. About halfway through the session, even the pain over the bone started to melt away, and I started to feel a little euphoric, and I was almost enjoying the feeling. As I watched him add the color, the tattoo began to take a recognizable form, and I started to realize that it was very beautiful - even more so than I had ever imagined. I was glad that we made it bigger than I originally planned. It started to hit me - "It's part of me. I'm tattooed, There's no turning back." I was so glad I had decided to get it - I was almost giddy.
    When he finished I looked in the mirror, and I was nearly speechless. I remember saying "Oh Wow...Oh Wow! Its so beautiful!" over and over. I loved it, and I was so proud of myself!
    Afterwards we went to a restaurant and and as we ate, I was floating. I was just babbling on and on about how much I loved it, how happy I was that I decided to get it, and how glad I was that he had suggested it, and how pretty it was, and how realistic it looked, and how the pain really wasn't that bad, and how I liked the colors, and how I wondered how the girls at the gym would react, and on, and on, and on... finally when I ran out of breath and words, I blurted out, "I want to get another one!"
    That was how I got started! At the beginning of that day I thought I was getting my first and only tattoo. I could have never imagined that I would someday have half sleeves and several tattoos. I'm at eight and counting, and have big plans for much more coverage.
  25. Like
    soraya got a reaction from pfj99 in A tattoo on Jeopardy!   
    I think the apocalypse must have arrived. I saw a tattooed woman on Jeopardy!
    Last week I was watching the game show Jeopardy!, and there right in front of millions of viewers was a very proper looking young woman with a tattoo. And not just a little butterfly, or fine writing on her wrist, but a large, prominent tattoo on her right upper arm. She was wearing a top with something like a cap sleeve or super short sleeve, and she was rocking a big floral piece that extended from the edge of the sleeve almost to her elbow. From what I could see, it was a well executed tattoo.
    I was really quite amazed,(and a little excited!). Clearly there was no attempt to hide it, and it made me wonder if she chose her top to feature it. It was clearly visible every time she gave a question. Kudos to her for being bold enough to show it, and to the show’s producers for not making her hide it. I had Jeopardy! pegged as a pretty buttoned down show middle American show, but was pleasantly surprised. I feel like the show really did tattooing a big service by letting this lady show her tattoo, as did she by simply being an intelligent woman with a tattoo.
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