meet danielle.

Danielle De Block was the girl who entered art history class as if she came out from a Raphael's painting of cherubs. So far I witnessed her love of fine arts, cats, salad, and how she can literally glow under the sunlight. To experience her presence in the room is to ponder upon a pair of clear blue eyes only to find traces of the sun trapped in her irises.

My words are cheesy, but the pictures will show you further about what I've been trying hard to explain.

These pictures of her test shoot turned into an outlet for me to improve my editing. Plus I'd like to be braver and take risks in art, learn things that I'm capable of learning before defining my own style later on in the future.

Thank you Danielle for lending a Sunday to me.

coming soon.

"Where are the updates?"

"Why do you keep on posting previews at Instagram and not post any pictures?"

"Is Olen still alive?"

Yes, this is all I've been hearing for the past two months despite the fact that this visual blog doesn't have much followers except you, yes you, all of my loyal friends and people who got the updates notice from Facebook.

If you're wondering why the updates are getting longer and longer, it's because I've been living without a laptop for almost three months by now. How is that even possible? IPad. That practically saved my cyber connection. Yet when it comes to keeping the blog updated, it's pretty difficult especially with the library closing at 11 PM and the weekends spent getting distracted with food, friends, and artworks.

Just to keep you posted (and interested, believe me I'm trying hard) I have two batches of pictures to edit ...hopefully soon. One would feature a new friend of mine that looks like an asian-caucasian cherub, and the other would be a comeback of one of my four muses. They're just simple stuff, since  I'd like to keep my things far from grandiose. But who knows, you might find me doing glamour during the summer.

And so here I am, keeping all of you curious with a sneak peak above.

Hang in there, pretty minds!

Calins pour vous,

Olen

one day.

The vintage-loving lomo-mania Bea came to visit NYC for two weeks, yet we squeezed her NYC experience into a Monday. We started our morning walking to East Village, then hugged some mugs at Max Brenner Union Square, spent major hours at the MoMa, ended the day in front of the closed St John the Divine and ate lamb chops at the Symposium.

Of course it's quite impossible to experience everything in a day but we successfully filled our stomachs and brains with delights and culture.

Wishing lots of wellness to Beejoux! See you in the summer!

meet zoe.

Brea introduced me to Zoe Baker-Peng during my Sandy evacuation week, right after she showed me this. I was awed by so many things in the pictures that it broke this hibernating mind of mine. After weeks of trying to find the right time (and enough courage), by the beginning of last week I contacted her and Lili Finckel the stylist, went uptown on the Saturday, and witnessed one of the best duo I've ever worked with so far. I can't thank them more for their willingness to create such amazing looks, expressions, and images even though it's only for a test shoot. I will surely be waiting for future collaborations with them!

Special thanks to Brea and Stefan for accompanying us throughout the shoot.

german crown.

Introducing Stefan, named after the Swedish tennis player, Stefan Edberg. He's an aspiring photographer, currently studying at SVA with me. We knew each other since primary school, then he moved to UK in 10th grade. Despite that, we still hang out with the same group every summer. Our similar corny humor brought us to frequent talks about photography and anybouts.

Click here to check his dramatically solemn works.

'13

First of all, happy new year 2013! Hopefully we all will have a better year than the previous. Personally, I wanted to be able to update this blog more, and so I shall not restrict myself on posting fashion-related pictures only this year and so forth.

A lot of people said to me about how I don't need to make a website, and I was never really sure that I need one either. Pretty Merdes so far allows me to interact with the viewers about the creative process and product of each project, and even slipping some personal-related things when I don't have any projects. I'm also at a place where I still can't claim to be above amateur, and so calling myself a 'photographer' is always a bit shameful.

But sometimes you just have to stop thinking too much, they say, and in the meantime you can take things slowly but sure. So here I am giving a preview of what hopefully will grow into a realistic creative outlet.

For those who didn't know, my name's Florentin Riyanto, nicknamed Olen since a few months old, and so that should explain the 'f' and the dot above.

I'll be seeing you all soon with new updates!

inner being.

Four months ago I took a set of pictures that I have been editing occasionally until now.

The whole idea came from Coco Rocha's French magazine cover crossed with my random bump of Bella's torso x-ray picture that she uploaded on facebook. For some reason I ended up deciding to 'practice' with these pictures and didn't stop experimenting from the lighting aspect, but also the polishing aspect of it. I had a LOT of fun working with these pictures because I have more liberty to make them even more fine-arts-looking.

This is my last batch of pictures that I did during the summer in Jakarta. Hopefully I'll be inspired during the Christmas break and update a bit more frequently. After all, there's a lot of beautiful things I would love to share here from New York!

Special thanks to Brea, Melia, and Michella for being such a great prep team that day.