Choices

In our lives we're faced with a multitude of choices, from little ones to life changing decisions that can turn your whole world upside down. At the moment a lot people in my life are making momentous choices and decisions, from changing jobs to moving houses. My personal decisions recently haven't been out anything as important, but instead it's been my choice whether I stay sorry with myself over being ill, or if I get up, dust myself off and get on with things. Today, I choose, and accept the later.

This past week I've had an appointment with an eye specialist to see if my dizziness was down to a brain tumour or a blood clot affecting my eyesight, luckily it wasn't. So, it's an inner ear 'thing' as suspected, I've chosen to be booked in privately to see a specialist and I have an appointment on Tuesday to get a proper diagnosis and to start physiotherapy, otherwise known as VRT (Vestibular Rehabilitation Therapy). I'm so happy I've made this decision, especially as I can't walk at the moment. Can you believe your vestibular system controls everything from anxiety, heart rate as well as your balance?! It can also bring on symptoms such as weakness in your arms and legs making it hard for sufferers to walk or even hold on to anything, blurry eyes and fatigue. It is horrible, but you have to accept what you have and move on. It may all seem incredibly over the top to anyone reading this, but believe me when I say dealing with these kind of dysfunctions isn't easy, all we can do is choose to accept our fate or choose to fight it and live as much as we can with what we have.

I choose to accept what I have, and then move on, there's too much life to live than to be dwelling on dizziness and all of the other symptoms that accompany this rubbish.

If you want to know more about these somewhat unheard of invisible disorders then please, look on this website. But from here on out, I'm feeling positive and I'm determined to get better.

Wordless Wednesday

 



 

Water, Water everywhere.

I love being by the water, I've spent my life growing up on the South Coast of England. I live 10 minutes from the Thames Estuary, now it isn't the most beautiful beach, but it has its charms and some days when the light hits the river it glitters like a thousands diamonds on those days you feel so incredibly lucky to be in this part of the world. Since I was little I have been in love with the water, any type will do from the great big expanse of ocean to tranquil lakes, from babbling brooks to raging rivers. The following photos are from my trip to Wales, where we found lakes, rivers, brooks, water falls and finally my true water love, the ocean. 

There's a quote I love, it goes something along the lines of The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea" Now, I love all types of water, but the sea, oh the sea, will always hold a special place in my heart. Seriously is there anything better than being by the ocean? From big quiet beaches, loud roaring waves to the hushed 'wooshes' of the tide. I couldn't be too far from the sea, I love it too much.

And let's be honest... who doesn't love a waterfall? This is the falls that we walked behind, after clambering over rocks and walking through the river with little rainbows springing up from it we got to stand behind the curtain of water. It was the most amazing experience, I loved being behind such a great force, the noise was extreme but we couldn't help but laugh and smile as the spray hit us.

Photos taken on my 

Polaroid SX70 and Impossible Project Color Shade COOL film.

And my Rolleiflex and Kodak Ektar film.

Summer Holiday

Just a short post to say hello...

I'm back from my ten day adventure to the Welsh mountains. I've had such an amazing time, every day was beautifully spent, we (we being my parents, my boyfriend Ant and my two dogs) were outside every day, come rain or shine. A few of things we done included:

1. Climbing up into the black mountains
2. Going on a mountain railway
3. Going to the horseshoe falls, where you can walk behind a waterfall. I walked through a rainbow to get there and once I did it was the most beautiful, exhilaration feeling.
4. Went around the bookshops of Hay on Wye.
5. We went White Water Rafting.
6. Explored forests, rivers and brooks (see photo above).
7. Went on a 15 mile bike ride.
8. Went to the top of Mount Snowdon, the photos are to come since they were on medium format and 35mm, we stood in the clouds and from the top we could see Wales, England, Ireland and heaven.
9. We went on a hike on a mountain ridge, which wasn't more than three feet wide and with a sheer drop to the side of it.
10. We spent nights in the hot tub looking up at the milky way.
11. We also went to lakes, mountains, tiny villages, beaches and to the village where The Prisoner was filmed.

There will be blog posts to come to explain more in detail what we done and how amazing it was, I have 32 Impossible shots, three rolls of 120 film and two rolls of 35mm so there will be LOTS of photos. I can't wait to share them all with you.

The photo above is one of my absolute favourites from my trip, it was taken in the woods behind our lodge, Ant and I spent ages at this fast flowing brook, walking through it, trying to get the perfect shot. Ant took a few which I know will be corkers, one I'm awaiting for on his pinhole camera, it was a four minute exposure, that made us excited!

I hope each of you has had a magical end of summer, Autumn will soon be upon us and I am ready to embrace her with a full and happy heart.

Holiday time!

It's no secret to the people that know me best that I love travelling and adventures, I love the planning and the excitement of going somewhere new, experiencing different things and making new memories. It doesn't matter to me if I go to the end of the world (although, one day I will go there) or somewhere closer to home, to me an adventure is an adventure. I'm excited to say that I'm going on a mini adventure tomorrow, I'm off to the Welsh Mountains for 10 days with my boyfriend and my parents; I am so excited, I love being in the mountains. Last year I went to the Scottish Highlands for three weeks, three wonderful weeks I spent exploring mountains, lochs, forests and the ocean, it was the most magical place and I fell in love with it there. I can't wait to go see what Wales has to offer, I hope to love it as much as I loved Scotland. I truly love being out in the middle of nowhere, I love the mountain air, sitting under the night sky with no lights around, surrounded by thousands of stars, under the dark shadow of earth's giants. 

Of course, I have packed a suitcase full of cameras and film. I am itching to get over there and start photographing the amazing sights that I'll see with the people that I love. But, as with my family who are all travel nuts, we have to stay in more than one place, you know, to get the true experience of where ever we visit (everyone does that, right?) before we go to the mountains of the Snowdonia National Park we'll be spending a few days in the beautiful town Hay-on-Wye, a town nestled in the south of Wales on the River Wye where almost every shop is a book shop, I am so incredibly excited! I love books and reading, I love exploring book shops and the smell of old books, the feel of the paper and the creases in the spine of a good book. I'm going to get payback to my boyfriend who has dragged me around more record stores than you could shake a stick at; I'm not sure if he's aware of how much time we will be spending exploring the book shops! Sorry, Ant in advance! Also, sorry to my bank account that I'm sure will get a beating whilst there. I hope I can photograph a couple of them inside, I have a feeling they'd look beautiful on Impossible Project film. 

I'll be back on the 8th of September, with lots of stories and photos. Hopefully with all of my bones and limbs still attached from doing all of the white water rafting, wild swimming, mountain biking and canoeing we'll also be doing. 

Another one bites the dust

I woke up to news today that Kodak are selling off their film and paper division. This is another area of film photography which is rapidly slipping away, I'm sure quite a few of us film photographers will be buying up films such as Portra and Ektar over the next few months. As a photographer I love their film, Ektar is a firm favourite of mine for landscapes and nature shots, while Portra is the king of the portrait world. It's so sad that such wonderful film is being sold off, my only hope is that another company buys it and continues to manufacture it.

It makes me sad to think that another era of film photography is coming to a close, I know that photography has moved on, but there's a magic in film (or so I think). It's so nice to shoot with a beautiful old camera, to hear the clunk of the shutter like on my OM2 or to hear the click of it like on my Rollei, to wind on the film (or not to double, triple expose it), each shot with film demands your time and attention.

I love old photos on some beautiful film and paper, one of my favourite things to do is going through old family albums, and seeing the memories of the people I love the most. Thanks to film and real albums, I've seen my nan and granddad when they were younger, I've seen photos of my mum growing up, memories of my brother and I as children and days that I would have forgotten if it wasn't for film photography. I find that the photos I take of my friends and family now are lost in a sea of online photography, once taken they're almost forgotten about. We're in the age where everything has to move so fast, we take photos with our phones within seconds our friends can see them, now I love that as much as the next person but I can tell you this for a certainty, there is no better feeling than waiting for a roll of film to develop and to finally look at your shots. I think that feeling is where part of my obsession lies (as well as shooting with some amazingly beautiful cameras).

I implore you to go find an old camera, if you can't then you can pick one up cheaply enough and try to shoot film for yourself, capture some beautiful memories you can hold in your hands before the most amazing film gets sold off and another part of the film photography world dies.

All over for another year

An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.

Edwin Land

Well, Roid week is over for another year. Every year previously I've watched people participate in 'Roid week, and every year I've felt inspired by their creativity and felt inspired to create my own images using instant film. But it's only really been for the past six months that I've truly embraced instant photography, I started with my polaroid 600 landcamera, and one pack of Impossible Project film to eventually getting my SX-70 (now my most favourite camera) to shooting a pack a week (almost) of Impossible Project film. So imagine my excitement when I finally got to participate in 'Roid week, I excitedly uploaded my images every day (apart from one day when I was too ill), I commented and favourited images faster than my computer could keep up, flickr was a sea of gorgeous colours and tones, it was as though everyones imaginations, dreams and memories exploded into images, they were dreamy, mind blowing, and totally inspiring. I loved sharing my first 'Roid week with a few of my flickr friends who were also experiencing it for the first time, Deirdre for example had some of the most beautiful shots I had seen all week, and to top it off she's still knocking them out of the park. It's so nice to see a type of photography that I'm so passionate about to be shared and embraced throughout flickr, it was truly the most amazing week. Thank you to the founders * cate * & gardengal for making a wonderful week on flickr, and thank you to The IMPOSSIBLE Project for making the film that I and so many others love so much.

Now on with the rest of my photos from the week....

And two that didn't make it into the week...

And my favourites from the week.....

1. London, April 30th, 2012, 2. Q is for Queechy Lake, 3. friday!, 4. Polaroid SX-70 Sonar and PX-70 COOL film, 5. reflection, 6. ., 7. ROID WEEK, FAREWELL..., 8. Roid Week: Day 5, 9. Untitled, 10. Untitled, 11. thursday**, 12. Untitled, 13. Rodeo Horse, 14. Untitled, 15. held, 16. Roid Week: Day 4, 17. Feral Pete & Gang, 18. Untitled, 19. Polaroid Week - Day 5, 20. Who among us hasn't envied a cat's ability to ignore the cares of daily life and to relax completely?, 21. Untitled, 22. I capture the [sand]castle., 23. ‎"The journey is my home.", 24. Untitled, 25. Full Moon Over Downtown, 26. and now for something completely different..., 27. Untitled, 28. mystic docks, 29. Big Ben, 30. Roid Week: Day 3, 31. in lieu of absent muse and honor of roid week, scanned archived polaroids: jd, 32. glas, 33. olivia, 34. Untitled, 35. Light drip., 36. Roid Week: Day 3