Photo Every Day #244

This evening has been awesome. We had a leaving meal at Nandos for one of the girls at work, then went to the pub for a drink. It's really good to see people outside of work where we're not trapped in such a microcosm of a world! I had a real laugh and really enjoy their company, it was a shame I couldn't stay out longer with them. However, Pixie wasn't impressed that I'd been out for so long and she was sat in the dark when I came back. Poor Pix.

Not Impressed:


Song Of The Day: Nicki Minaj - Pound The Alarm
Reason: A song that makes me feel like dancing.

Highlight Of The Day: Seeing Pixie's happy little face after a good evening with the girls!

Photo Every Day #243

Today I finally got my first roll back from the Spinner 360! Some are a bit naff, some are good and some are just crazy! I also won some piggy points the other day for my Diana Baby 110 blog post, so I'll be purchasing my next batch from the Lomography film subscription service as soon as I've been paid tomorrow so I can take some more. Here are the good/crazy ones!

Foursome:

Photo Every Day #242

Just a quick one today as I'm super tired. Today I officially became a student again! This time at Salford City College on the Photography Level 3 course, it's actually called something fancy along the lines of image capturing and something or other, but it's basically photography. I'm super happy to be back in education and can't wait to start on the 12th September!

Mixed Weather:



Song Of The Day: Queens Of The Stone Age - Never Say Never
Reason: Just a great song, such an effortlessly cool band.

Highlight Of The Day: Enrolling at college (again).

Photo Every Day #241

Today has been a busy day! It's a pain in the butt to look after a million different things that aren't in the same place. However, it was a nice change to do a 10am-2pm shift at work! Tomorrow is enrolment day for the photography course I want to take, so fingers crossed they let me on! I saw these shoes up a tree whilst out with Pixie today, I know that shoes over a telephone wire mean that a drug dealer is nearby (or something along those lines apparently!), but I have no clue what shoes up a tree mean!

Shoes In A Tree:


Song Of The Day: Stooshie - Black Heart
Reason: Love this song, but have been singing it to myself all day!

Highlight Of The Day: Getting back in bed.

Photo Every Day #240

Today we went to the Cheshire Game & Country Fair. The weather wasn't so nice, but when it stopped raining it wasn't too bad apart from all the mud! We got to see planty of things as we walked aroung. We saw some gorgeous show hamsters and rescue ferrets, lots of tasty food, tons of outdoor clothing, birds of prey, chainsaw carved statues and plenty of dogs! We watched several displays including scurry driving vs car, gundogs, birds of prey, chainsaw carving and lurcher racing. The best part by far was watching the horse boarding racing. I'd heard about it before going but hadn't ever seen it. It was amazing! Definately a sport I could get into following and would like a go at! For those who don't know, horse boarding invloves a horse and rider pulling along a person riding a sort of giant skateboard. It's fast so I imagine the buzz must be amazing! You can find out more here if you're interested. I managed to take a few photos on the Mini Diana and the Oktomat but I'm not sure how well they'll turn out as it was so wet! When we got home we took Pixie on a good long walk as the rain had temporarily stopped, it was quite windy and she had to be carried part of the way as she was getting blown about all over the show!

Wind In My Fur:


Song Of The Day: Alanis Morissette - Crazy
Reason: Classic song, I miss it being on our radio at work!

Highlight Of The Day: Discovering horse boarding.

Photo Every Day #239

Today was a nice day and I spent the early afternoon at the Walled Garden with Pixie. We saw a young heron stood in the middle of one of the ponds for ages, but sadly I hadn't brought my camera so could only take a rubbish iPhone one! As a result of missing a photo opportunity, I spent the rest of the afternoon playing with my Canon 550D and my Diana lenses which consist of; telephoto, fisheye, macro, super wide and wide angle lenses. I love the fact that I can use the lenses with my Canon as I feel like I can practice a bit more with them first, before I start wasting film by not using them correctly! I was just in my Mum's garden, but I think I've got some decent photos, I'll upload some after some minor editing.

Pond Life:


Song Of The Day: Jay Z & Kanye West - No Church In The Wild
Reason: I love the chorus; "Human being to the mob. What's the Mob to a King. What's a King to a God. What's a God to a non-believer, who don't believe in anything".  Writing that makes you think.

Highlight Of The Day: Getting some decent photos from my new lenses.

Domestic Sluttery: Wallpaper Wednesday: Merci's Brooklyn Tin Tiles

I often read the articles on a site called Domestic Sluttery, so I'm going to start sharing the ones I like the most! So here goes, the first one is about some gorgeous wallpaper that gives the old, decaying urbex look that I love so much! 

Domestic Sluttery: Wallpaper Wednesday: Merci's Brooklyn Tin Tiles: Sometimes I like wallpaper to be wallpaper. You get to play with motifs and fool around with colour and quirky design. But then there are...

Photo Every Day #238

From today we are spending the week looking after Pixie whilst my parents go away. It's going to be a mad week, what with looking after Pixie, the rats, the geckos and my friend's hamster, working, trying to sort my portfolio, enrolling at college and starting a distance learning business and admin course! It'll all by worth it in the end though and is making me look forward to my two weeks off later in September even more!

Best Friends:


Song Of The Day: Taylor Swift - White Horse
Reason: Really good lyrics, I can definately visualise the story unfolding. Rings true with parts of my life too!

Highlight Of The Day: Seeing Pixie

Diana Baby 110 - New Lomography Release!

 The clever people at Lomography have released a new product! I really want one to add to my growing collection, just because it's super cute! Read on for more info straight from the horse's mouth!

                                  

The Lomographic Society Presents

THE DIANA BABY 110

PRETTY TOT!

Inspired by her bigger sister, the Diana F+, the Diana Baby 110 is one of the chicest 110 cameras on the planet. It defines miniature in a stylish new way by looking stunning and shooting square format pictures on 110 film. The camera even comes with two lens options to assure that the Lomographic fun has no limits.

Photo Every Day #237

Today is mine and the boy's 2 year anniversary! We've not done anything special but we are hopefully going to the Cheshire Show on Monday so we can have a nice day together then.

Happy Anniversary:


Song Of The Day: Katy Perry - Teenage Dream
Reason: It's our song!

Highlight Of The Day: Managing to coax little Elmo the hamster out so he could have a good run in his ball.

Photo Every Day #236

Today my friend's hamster arrived to spend the week with us whilst she is away. His name is Elmo and he's super cute! He's also so tiny in comparison to my ratties. He's just settling in this evening, but I'll be able to get him out tomorrow so hopefully will get some cute photos to send to his Mummy! The rats have been a bit wild tonight, running about like mad and naughty Jacques has bitten the boy's eyelid! Luckily it's only a graze but it's definately bad behaviour we're going to have to work harder to solve. In other news, I managed to parallel park my car into a tight space this morning. I usually parallel park along this road and normally all is fine. However, this time I managed to lose concentration and park right up alongside the curb. I tried to get the car moved over for a good 5 minutes to no avail, all whilst trying to be subtle so the group of people stood 5 meters away wouldn't notice. I eventually gave up and spent my shift wondering how exactly I was going to get it out and had visions of me having to get the bus home instead. Luckily, the car in front had moved by the time I'd come out of work and I was free! How embarrassing!

Sniff:



Song Of The Day: Megan McCauley - I Realise
Reason: She's an amazing singer, one of my favourites by far. Definately in my top 5 female singers I'd chose to be/be friends with!

Highlight Of The Day: Returning to find my car free from it's tight space!

Photo Every Day #235

Today's PED is of the flowers we bought for the bargain price of around 60p from Asda. We don't usually shop in Asda but we have been a couple of times recently as it seems to have some good deals and it makes a nice change from buying exactly the same stuff all the time.The last bunch we bought were rather disappointing. They were nice lilies but they never opened properly and all the heads fell off. I'm guessing we were just unlucky and picked a bad bunch as these seem to be looking in a much better state. I'm not sure what kind they are but I would definately get them again as they are very pretty. It was a shame I had to cut them down quite a bit as we only have shorter vases, all of which were kindly donated by relatives cos I like having flowers in the house. I also keep forgetting to water the new plant we got from Ikea last month and some of the flowers have ruined and turned brown and crispy. It seems to dry out very quickly, so if it does end up getting into a sad state due to my lack of attentiveness, I'll have to pick something a bit hardier.

Red Flowers:


Song Of The Day: Megan McCauley - Tap That
Reason: A fun song from an album I love every song on!

Highligh Of The Day: Watching an interesting documentary on Broadmoor high security psychiatric hospital.

Photo Every Day #234

Today we got some more rolls of film back! Both rolls from the Lubitel Lovers workshop, one from southport and two from blackpool. I haven't had chance to sort them all out yet, but will get them into a post asap! Here's one of my best ones from the workshop with Einav Leshetz. She was great and really helpful! I'll go into more detail when I post more shots!

Lomographer:
 

Song Of The Day: Sheryl Crow - If It Makes You Happy
Reason: Just a great song, great lyrics. 

Highlight Of The Day: Getting the film rolls back! 

Photo Every Day #233

Today's PED is of a little pigeon who we saw sat in a doorway. He was soaking wet, even though it was only raining very lightly, and seemed to be asleep. After a minute or so watching him, he still seemed asleep but did hop about a bit and yawn so I'm hoping he was ok, maybe just a little cold from being so wet. I actually really like pigeons, I think they're a very under-rated animal. But I hate seeing the ones who have little stumps instead of feet, I can only imagine how much pain they were in when they had their toes or feet ripped off. I walk under a railway bridge when I walk to and from work and there are a group of pigeons that live under it. At the moment I've been hearing babies in a nest, but so far haven't managed to spot any babies or nests as they seem to be hidden further back in the bridge construction. Hopefully I'll spot them when they're learning to fly!

Cold:


Song Of The Day: Rammstein - Engel
Reason: Such a massive booming song. It was amazing when I saw them live a couple of years ago.

Highlight Of The Day: Buying some lovely flowers for 60p

Photo Every Day #232

Today we went to the Lomography store in Manchester to use their trial rent-a-camera scheme. I decided to rent a Lubitel again and my friend decided on the LC-Wide. Firstly, we walked down to Canal Street as they were holding some family events before Pride next weekend. It was a doggy day and there were stalls and competitions for the dogs. It was a really nice atmosphere and there were some gorgeous dogs! I now definately want an Italian greyhound. After we'd finished there, we walked around the Norther Quarter and China Town. We walked down plenty of alley ways, including on with a lovely 'sauna' facility. I think we've ended up with some good shots, but it was a great day despite it being a bit rainy on and off all day. I definately want to invest in a Lubitel, I just need to save some pennies!

Prize Winners:

Photo Every Day #231

Today I have been working on editing, or rather tweeking, some of the photos I want to go into my starter portfolio. I've mainly been playing with the ones taken at Blackpool and Southport on the Diana F+ just to bring out the colours a bit more. I've also started looking through some of the ones from when we went urbexing in Salford. So this is a sneak peek!

Footprint On The Moon:


Song Of The Day: The Rocky Horror Picture Show - Dammit, Janet
Reason: The best musical film in the world, plus the only one I've ever liked!!Even typing the song title makes me want to burst out singing it at the top of my voice!

Highlight Of The Day: Just having a chilled evening working on my photos.

Photo Every Day #230

Today I finally got the prints back from 3 rolls of film I took at Blackpool and Southport earlier in the month. They photos have turned out super well! I'll be doing a longer post with more in when I have more time, but for now here is a sneaky peak!

Round It Goes:


Song Of The Day: Marina & The Diamonds - Living Dead
Reason: Loving this album!

Highlight Of The Day: Getting my prints back!

Photo Every Day #229

Today was my review at work, it all went really well and I've been nominated to be accounts champion for our floor! Which basically means I'll be helping our store trainer when she's training on accounts. I love training people so I'm really looking forward to it. I also went out for a drink with my best friend and discussed various life decisions, as you do.

I'll Drink To That:


Song Of The Day: Katy Perry - ET
Reason: One of my favourite Katy songs, was playing in the bar tonight

Highligh Of The Day: Being made account champion!

Photo Every Day #228

Today has seemed like a long day as I appear to have got more than usual done! Today's PED is inspired by a friend from Leeds who was watching the film Audition in our old haunt Fab Cafe.I really miss uni and Leeds and especially the people I was so close to, especially during the summer between 2nd and 3rd year. It still makes me feel sad that I ended up losing those people as my close circle of friends but I'm glad to have met them and that they all seem happy with the way life is taking them. Thanks for the memories.

Audition:


Song Of The Day: Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah
Reason: Hauntingly beautiful song

Highlight Of The Day:Watching Gosford Park curled up in bed, really enjoyed it and it didn't feel like 2 hours 20 mins at all! Plus I love Kelly MacDonald, she's amazing in every role I've seen her in, my particular favourite being Boardwalk Empire.

Photo Every Day #227

Today was a nice chilled day off, until I started trying to pick photos for the portfolio I want to take to the enrolment to ensure I get a place on the college course I want to do. I've narrowed it down to 30 photos that I can put in or can work on and then add, ideally I want to end up with 8 since it's just a starter portfolio. I feel I'm lacking a good self portrait so I'm going to focus on trying to get one before I need it finished. I will be reading the following religiously until that dated too, and after too, but maybe not so manically.

Manual:


Song Of The Day: Paloma Faith - Picking Up The Pieces
Reason: Added to my playlist!

Highlight Of The Day: Realising I do have some decent photos considering I'm only a beginner

Photo Every Day #226

Today was my first day back at work in a week and already I've got my day off tomorrow! If only it was day-in-day-off all the time! Had my Dad and his girlfriend over for tea and I made them my signature dish, fajitas with honey chicken! It seemed to go down nicely so it's all good. We ended up watching a documentary about some POWs attempt to escape from Colditz by building a two man glider that they managed to hide from the German guards! They never got to actually try the glider, which was hidden behind a fake wall in the attic, as the war ended when Germany surrendered. Really interesting stuff! Today's PED is of my new phone case that the boy got me, which has a scene from Alice In Wonderland on it! Very cute.

Alice Meets The Caterpillar:


Song Of The Day: Faderhead - Houston
Reason: One of my favourite Faderhead songs, makes me wanna dance!

Highlight Of The Day: Catching up with the work girls.

Photo Every Day #225

Today we looked after Pixie whilst my parents went out. We took her to the Walled Garden, a Sunday tradition, to see the birds of prey that they had there for the day. I was also showing my Grandad my Spinner 360 camera and we took some photos in the gardens. In the evening we went to a family do as one of my uncles in emigrating to America. It was suprisingly decent and nice to talk to family members I barely know. The boy starts his new job tomorrow and is off to the Lake District for a few days for some training, so will be strange having the flat totally to myself! I doubt I'll do anything to make the most of it, just watch crime documentaries all night as usual!

Boy:



Song Of The Day: Uberbyte - When Something Gets Hard (Fuck It)
Reason: Just such a clever song title, even if you don't like the song!

Highlight Of The Day: Seeing family!

Photo Every Day #224

Today has been a good day! Firstly, we went on the Lubitel Lovers with Leshetz. The Lubitel is definately the camera now at the top of my list! I'll give a full run down of the workshop once we get the photos back. After the workshop, we went walking round the run down, abandoned buildings of Salford. I took a fair amount of pictures even though we only managed to get into one building. So this is a sneak peek.

Falling Down:


Song Of The Day: Alex Clare - Too Close
Reason: The live lounge version is amazing! Such a talented singer.

Highlight Of The Day: Being inspired by an awesome photographer

Photo Every Day #223

Today my Lomo goodies arrived! I got all the Diana F+ lenses, the Canon adapter and 8 rolls of film! I'm going to be taking my Canon and the lenses when we go to the workshop tomorrow, so will give a better run down once I've had some practice.

Lomo Goodies:


Song Of The Day: Marina & The Diamonds - Bubblegum Bitch
Reason: Quirky and catchy

Highlight Of The Day: Lunch with the best friend

Photo Every Day #222

This is the cute snow leopard cuddly toy the boy managed to win for me from a grabber machine on my birthday. He's set up camp on my bedside table for now. He's super soft but tends to malt everywhere which is quite annoying!

Snowy:



Song Of The Day: Nickleback - Someday
Reason: Just randomly remembered how good this song is, in a cheesey sort of way

Highlight Of The Day: A nice day to myself just chilling, catching up on chores and working through my to do list.

Photo Every Day #221

Today we went to Southport. It was a last minute decision, but has been a really good day out. Firstly, we walked around the Pleasure Land fairground, we didn't go on any rides as we're trying to not spend a bomb!

We did go to see a palm reader who had a booth at the fair. I was skeptical and a bit scared of hearing anything bad or that I didn't want to know, but in the end it was quite good really! She told me that I was in a good relationship with the boy, we'd get engaged when we were ready, possibly get married overseas and we'd have 3 kids! Not sure about that last bit yet, maybe just have one and see how we get on from there! She also said there would be no serious illnesses for me in the future, I'd be lucky in my career and it would start to take off and I'd be much more settled in my career in the next year, which sounds great to me! She said I was straight forward, I say my opinion and am a very up and down person, which I think it dead on really. She also said travel would be a big part of my life, my lucky colour is pink and my lucky number is 9. I'm not sure I believe it 100%, I can definately see why it sucks people in though, it really is nice to hear someone who doesn't know you say nice things are going to happen to you.

After the fair, we went for a walk on the beach and walked about a mile to get to the sea. It was a super warm day so half way down we decided to go barefoot! When we actually got to the sea, it was surprisingly warm, so we had a good paddle whilst taking tons of photos with the Oktomat, Spinner and Diana F+. It's still my first time using the Oktomat and second roll of film for the Spinner so I'm praying they turn out well!

We went for dinner at Frankie & Bennys, then drove the scenic way home looking for photography locations. So all in all a good day. however, I am, once again sunburnt! Good bye beautiful pale skin, sad face!

Under The Pier:


Barefooted Boy:


Song Of The Day: Katy Perry - Electric Feel
Reason: Really good live lounge cover

Highligh Of The Day: Paddling in the sea.

Photo Every Day #220

Today has been a chill out day really. I did drop off a roll of film at the photo place though, ordered envelopes to pick up my other films to send to the lomo lab and ordered a new film subscription pack and the Canon adapter pack with all the Diana F+ lenses! So excited to get them! I managed to wear my Butler & Wilson lizard necklace finally. It's been quite hard to match it with things at it sits just on the collar bone so can look a little too high with most outfits.

Jewelled Lizard:



Song Of The Day: Boom In Shot Theme Song
Reason: You can download it from here for free: Boom In Shot Movie Theme Song and don't forget to check out the trailer too!


Highlight Of The Day: Ordering things from the Lomography online store!

Photo Every Day #219

Today was my birthday!! I've had a really good day and definately one of the best birthdays I've had. I started the day by going to Blackpool with my two super good friends and my boyfriend. We went to the pleasure beach for most of the day and I managed to get the boy (who doesn't like heights) to go on a couple of rollercoasters! Very impressed! We had a nice Burger King for lunch and donuts later on. Once we'd finished at the fair, we walked down to the piers and took loads more photos on my beautiful new Sahara Diana F+ and my Spinner 360! We've gotten through 3 rolls of 120 film plus 2 35mm rolls. Cannot wait to get them developed! We finished the day with a ride in a horse and carriage back to the fair. Once we got back home, the boy took me to the Chilli Club, a Thai restaurant in Lym, for a nice meal. So, a big thank you to everyone who got me a present, money, card or left me a message on a social networking site! I'm off to spend my 10% birthday discount in the Lomography webstore!

Happy Lomographer:

Photo Every Day #218

Today is the day before my birthday! We had a party at ours with family and a few close friends. It was really good but so stressful making sure we had all the food ready and that there was enough! Definately won't be doing that often! Everyone dropped off my presents and I can't wait to open them!

Presents!:


Song Of The Day: Flo Rida - Good Feeling
Reason: Been listening to dance/club type stuff all day to get me in the party mood, this is just a highlight

Highlight Of The Day: My party!

Photo Every Day #217

Today was the Hog Roast at the Walled Garden. I've never been to one before and it was very tasty! The meat was a bit tougher than I expected but I washed it down with a nice piece of fudge cake so it's all good! Tomorrow is the day that my family and a couple of friends are all coming over for a bit of a party for my birthday. I've been super stressed out about making sure there's enough food and there's things that people will enjoy so fingers crossed it all goes well!

Hog Roast:


Song Of The Day: Diplo vs Tiesto (Featuring Busta Rhymes) - C'mon
Reason: Tune! Puts me in such a good mood!

Highlight Of The Day: Seeing my little Pixie after the hog roast!

Photo Every Day #216

Today I finally got round to watching Secrets Of The Shoplifters on Channel 4. This is obviously of interest to me as I work in a department store and we obviously do get thieves! It was interesting for me to see it from the security/loss prevention side of things as usually I only see things from the shopfloor. I've personally been involved with the process of trying to catch or at least deter shoplifters, and it is of great importance to my job. After all, they said secretly taking a few sweets from the Woolworths pick and mix section wasn't really that bad, but now we have no Woolworths! (Although I'm sure it wasn't purely for that reason that they stopped trading!). I think the documentary has made me appreciate our staff members who work in this role more and has also brought out my fierce loyalty to the company. Whereas it isn't the best job I've ever had, it's sort of like having a younger sibling. You can be horrible to the sibling, as it's your relation, but there's no way you'll stand there and let anyone else be bad towards them! So, even though I'd rather be doing something film related, I'll be damned if I let people get away with stealing from our store!!

In lighter news, I recieved my first pack of films from the Lomography film subscription service. I ended up with 7 rolls of film for £30, around £4 a film!! Which is great considering I've ended up with 3 rolls of 120 colour neg 100iso film, 1 roll of 35mm Kodak black and white film, 1 roll of 35mm Fuji colour neg 160iso film, 1 roll of 120 Fuji colour 160iso film and 1 roll of 120 Fuji chrome film! Not a bad selection really and I'm particularly looking forward to using the chrome roll!

Film Supply:



Song Of The Day: Lana Del Rey - Dark Paradise
Reason: Seriously hope she makes a video for this one!

Highlight Of The Day: A really nice customer in work who was very appreciative of my customer service and gave me a nice compliment!

Photo Every Day #215

Today has been a strange day. Firstly, all my random days off have thrown me off my usual track and then going into work at 11am and staying until 8pm has also messed with my concept of time and I've gotten quite used to Mon-Fri 9-5. Anyway, nearly my week off and my birthday!

Snuggle Bunnies:


Song Of The Day: Nachtmahr - Tanzdiktator (Modulate Remix)
Reason: My favourite remix of one of my favourite Nachtmahr songs. Uniforms are super sexy!

Highlight Of The Day: Learning that shooting is an Olympic sport! You learn something new everyday!

Photo Every Day #214

Today my new skirt from Mary Jane Fashion arrived! It's a long wiggle style skirt with an aztec type print. I bought a short top from American Apparel which goes with it perfectly! I wore it with my necklace from Sillycut on Etsy, I did post a blog about it waaaay back if you're interested!

Aztec Skirt:


Song Of The Day: City & Colour - Day Old Hate
Reason: Beautiful album, so full of emotions

Highlight Of The Day: Drinks with friends