Happy Birthday to meeee

It's maa birthday, It's maa birthday. Well it was my birthday on Sunday anyway ha. I'm another year older and still none the wiser!

I finished work last Wednesday and had a lovely long weekend. Me and Dan headed to Manchester for the day on Thursday for shopping, cocktails, lunch at Home Sweet Home, tea at Wagamamas, basically a day of food and drink. 

Friday we headed to Tittesworth Reservoir for a picnic and a wander around the lake, it was boilingggg. I took my new panoramic camera that I picked up in a charity shop the other week for £1.99, I'm curious to see how they come out.

Saturday I invited all my friends round and we headed to the big sports field near me to drink, play rounders/footy/frisby and eat lots of pizza (15 to be exact!). After an amazing sunny week it was only apt that the heavens opened as soon as we got to the field! (my birthdays are cursed with rain). Luckily someone had left a gazebo on the field which we gladly took cover in until the rain passed.

These pics are just a few taken using my Instax mini on Saturday and the cake one on my actual birthday on Sunday. I forgot to set the camera to Landscape on the above pic which is why it's so blurry booo.

My boss bought this Happy Fucking Birthday camera which I used over the weekend to, can't wait to see how they come out!

Once it was to dark to even see our drinks we headed to my local followed by some dancing at Bunker 13. I had a really fun night, it's great when you can get all your friends together in one place :)

On Sunday I had a pretty chilled day, Dan took me for ice-cream then we went out for a meal with my family. All in all a really good Birthday! :)

Film soup

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you've all been enjoying the sun/torrential rain. I had a super lazy weekend spent mainly in my pjs, sometimes it's lovely just to do nothing at all.  

I must admit I've not been very good lately in getting my films developed hence the lack of posts. I must have a least three different cameras with unfinished film in. I blame the nice weather, it's making me want to stay away from laptop and enjoy the rays whilst they last.

I did manage to get one film developed though that made me very very happy. The images below are the result of my first ever film soup experiment and I couldn't be more thrilled with them.

Film soup is pretty much dunking your film in a "soup" of chemicals in order create a reaction that produces awesome effects. You can make the soup from whatever the hell you want!

For my first soup I decided to use boiling water, detergent and lemon juice. Having looked up tutorials online alot of them suggested boiling the film before shooting with it, however I'd recently shot a bunch of flowers around campus that I thought would look great with some added effects. So I went ahead a boiled it after I'd finished the whole roll.

I boiled a pan of water, added a cup of detergent (Daz to be specific), added juice from a fresh lemon the threw in chunks of the leftover lemon to. I then left the film in the soup for over an hour.

I then removed the film and rinsed it under a cold running tap for a few minutes. I then left it to dry in my kitchen window for about a week before putting it in a bowl of rice for about 5 weeks. To be honest I kind of forgot about it but at least it was totally dry when it took it for development.

I'm really pleased with the results, I think you can tell some images have reacted alot more than others. None of them have come out to crazy but I think the results are good for a first try.

Next time I think I'll leave the film the stew for alot longer in the soup to see what a difference this makes.

Have you ever tried this, do you have any advice for my next try? I'd love the hear any tips and tricks :)

Clevedon Pier

After our day at Weston Super Mare we decided to visit Clevedon Pier. We were actually staying in Clevedon so it was only a ten minute drive from our accommodation. 

Clevedon Pier is the the only fully intact, Grade 1 listed pier in the country (according to their website) and if your a big One Direction fan you might recognize it from one of their music videos. After such a sunny day at the beach it went quite overcast in the evening which I think you can see from the the photos.(All taken on my Chinon CS)

I loved how the Pier is still in it's original state and hasn't been commercialised. It just has a tiny tearoom which was closed when we were there, it looked like it couldn't fit anymore than 5 people in at a time, very cute!

After we had explored the Pier we walked pretty much the whole length of the sea front. Watching people have massive BBQs all along the beach as we went made us all very jealous that we don't live anywhere near the seafront.

Although it was just a quick weekend getaway we all really enjoyed our mini holiday to North Somerset, it's only a few hours drive from Stoke we would definitely visit again. It made me realize I need to make the effort to visit more pretty places in England rather that spending the weekends moaning that there's nothing to do in Stoke!

Why I shoot film

1. No post processing. I never alter any of my film images, what you see is what I shot. Saves alot of hours slaving away in Photoshop trying to get a digital image to look like film. Just shoot film!

2. Surprise. You just never know what might come out, with digital I become abit obsessed with taking the same photo over and over to get the perfect shot. With film you have 24 shots per roll, make them count!

3. Choices. There is such a wide variety of film cameras out there it's a little overwhelming and amazing at the same time. You can pick them up so cheap these days to, I got a panoramic point and shoot at the weekend for £1.99 which I can't wait to try out.

4. Instant development. There's nothing better than shooting a Polaroid and watching it develop in front of your eyes. 

5. Excitement. The rush you feel when you've finished a roll and take it for development. The anticipation of seeing the actual images you worked so hard on. It never gets old.

6. Double exposures. Means endless possibilities!

7. Imperfections. Light leaks, scratches, blur ahhhh magic!

8. Makes you think. When shooting with a full manual camera you have to slow down and really think about the aperture, speed, ISO. There no auto mode so you have to know what your doing.

9. It's fun!

10. Tangible.  Digital files sit on your computer waiting to be printed but you just never seem to get round to it. With film you get to hold the prints in your hand and keep them forever. You can relive special moments without logging onto your computer.

Credits 
Image 1 taken at a shoot curated by Leanne Findler, Jessica Shaw and Daisy Thomas
Image 3 taken at a shoot curated by Leanne Findler

Weston-super-mare day trip

Last weekend I enjoyed a lovely little trip to the seaside with my family and we were actually blessed with amazing weather for once. It was pretty iffy on the drive down, we drove through a massive hail storm followed by torrential rain so I wasn't expecting the beach to be much fun. 

Low and behold when me and Dan reached Clevedon, North Somerset, where the rest of my family had arrived the night before the sun actually came out and stayed out! Wooop. So we decided to head 20 minutes down the road to Weston Super Mare. 

I'd never actually been before and have to say I thought it was a really nice beach. We started off with a wander up the pier, as you can see from the above pics we headed to the arcade so George could play on a few games. We didn't spend long in there though as we were all convinced the sun wouldn't last so wanted to have some fun on the beach before the heavens opened.

However the sun just kept shining, so after a nice lunch sat on the sand we spent the rest of the afternoon running around beach with George. He absolutely loved it and I was totally shattered by the time we left. How do kids have so much energy allllll the time!? 

That evening we headed to Clevedon Pier which lovely, I'm just waiting to develop that film so I'll be sure to blog about it once I get them back :)

All of the above images were shot on my trusty Chinon