Moore Nature Reserve

Today was an absolutely beautiful day for photography.

I visited my grandmother today, I don't get to do that very often and it meant an extremely early morning. Following this my mother, sister and myself then had time to waste before picking up my brother from the train station once he had returned from work so we decided to take an adventure to Moore Nature Reserve.

The weather was absolutely divine, apart from the occasional little spit of rain, but that didn't stop us having a wonderful time. We sat on a bench, eating a little picnic enjoying the beautiful views, which was just lovely.

I hope the future brings more memories like this, it's lovely to enjoy the weather (when it's not too hot) and to take in some beautiful scenery

With weather like this, why not pick up your camera, click the shutter and see what you get?
xo

Lionheart Liverpool

Over the past year I have been working very closely with a paranormal team located in the city of Liverpool. Lionheart Paranormal Investigators are a paranormal research team whom specialise in investigating people stories, finding the truth behind them, as well as offering various events.

During the time I have spent working with this team, I have found it to be a very different experience for myself, I've found it rather fun and interesting to be working with a team like this as it's something I've never really done before, but have always wanted to do. Being a person who enjoys anything to do with learning about the paranormal, I've grown to be quite fond of these events.

It was quite awhile ago that I was contacted by Kevin Hale, the man in charge, and asked to join them on one of their paranormal investigation events. I was asked to come down with my camera to St James Gardens, located behind the Anglican Cathedral, and create a short film of the event. Whilst there I got to enjoy the stories being told whilst still working, I found it to be very interesting and informative, it really opened up my mind and helped me to delve into another world.

For anyone who's interested in this kind of thing and has considered attending an event something like this one, I would really consider doing it, even if it's just the once, I assure you, you may get hooked!

Following this i have become quite good friends with Kevin and have attended various other events, including one at the Pilgrim Pub and also being involved with creating short documentaries.

Recently I was contacted again about a Halloween event as The old Great George street Chapel and Graveyard for an overnight event. This event will be a live paranormal investigation at one of Liverpool's most famous buildings. As well as having a live paranormal investigation there will also be a medium on site and various equipment such as EMF Meters available for use.

I'm looking forward to working at this event, creating an in depth video. It will be extremely interesting to see what happens, even if it is through my camera lens.

I have a feeling this is going to one of Lionhearts best events yet and i urge you to all join us!
xo

This is me

I've spent so many hours, days and years of my life trying to love myself, who I am and who I am always going to for the entirety of my life…I find it so hard.

This is always going to be me, I'm never going to change, maybe one day I will be skinny, maybe even pretty but I find that one of the hardest things to believe. I'm never going to be the skinny, beautiful girl who is amazing at everything. This is me. I am always going to be me, I need to learn to accept myself. It's so hard looking around me at everyone else, realising that I'm never going to be like them, I'm always going to be me, I need to accept it. I try so hard, some days I think "Hey, you don't look half bad" Then I take a second glance in the mirror. I hope that in the future I don't hate myself as much as I do now, I hope I learn to accept myself.

When I look back at my life, to this time last year, one thing I realise is that although I have never liked myself, I liked myself much more then than I do now. I have spent the past year of my life trying to improve myself so that I can love myself…so why do i hate myself now more than ever? I hate so much about myself, I do like my eyes, it's possibly the one thing about myself that I do like and that's just because they are different and looking back, I used to hate those too. Its good to like one thing about myself right? But there are still so many other things that I have spent my life wanting to change, wanting to be different. 

I'm not going to lie, I am quite scared that I will never accept who I am, I will never accept how I look and that this if my face, the only face I will have, these are my legs and this is my stomach, and perfect is the last thing I am. I know that some things can be changed and I will do everything in my power to change what can be changed, but what do i do about the things that cant be changed? Do I just hate them for the rest of my life? I hope not.

I'm scared that I am always going to be socially awkward. I never used to be so awkward socially, not until my accident, until I feared leaving my house and having any form of human contact. I find every situation awkward, people think I'm stuck up or just rude because I don't talk to them, I can't stress enough that this isn't the case. I have genuine fears of talking to people, I can't handle the pressure, people are too judgemental and I hate it. I can't even talk to my university tutors properly, not without getting hot sweats resulting in me almost having panic attacks, I just can't handle it, I find it so overwhelming and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how I will ever be successful in myself and my life if I find every situation awkward. 

I can't stand the looks people give you. Maybe they aren't aimed at you, or you're seeing something that isn't really there, maybe you're reading into something too much, but you don't realise that and they don't know and it hurts. People hurt people more than anything else. People are the cruellest species. I would rather be a cat spending my days eating and sleeping, not caring if I was fat because a fat cat is cute…in fact a fat anything is cute, apart from humans. If we are fat we are ugly and we are made to feel the lowest of the low. 

I see people, who aren't perfect and they love themselves and I have spent so much of my life wondering how they do it. Why can't I do it? Why do I find it so hard? Some days I just want to be someone else, I just want to look like someone else. Some days I accept myself a little, I think about how much I'm going to love myself in the future and how it's just going to take time, but I'm unsure. 

I spend so much of my life pretending that I am happy with myself, no one else needs to know that I'm not, positive energy reflects upon everyone and as soon as one person acts negatively, everyone does.

I hope one day I look back and laugh at how stupid I was being, I hope I learn to love myself because how and why do I expect other people to love me if I can't even love myself.

xo

Stillia

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of going down to The Red Lion located in Sutton, St Helens to photograph a band. The band in question was Stillia, a local and recently signed band whom are looking for a photographer to travel to their gigs across England and photograph them.

So naturally we went along, took some pictures and here's a little bit of what we got.

I wish the band all the best on all future endeavours and I hope to work with them in the future.
xo

Pictures speak a thousand words

I think Liverpool is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, the architecture is absolutely amazing to look at and not a lot of people really notice it.

 here's a few reasons why…

Pictures speak a thousand words
xo

The future is so bright, I gotta wear shades!

I cannot wait for my life to begin properly.

As someone who is now 20 years old, I find that I don't feel like my life has properly began yet due to the fact that I have never been out of education. So many people at my age have full time jobs, some have houses and some even have children. I haven't really found myself thinking about this. I personally still don't feel like I'm old enough to even dream about having a child anytime soon.

I have experience so much in my life, but there is still so much left to experience, I haven't experienced half as much as I want to.

I have so many goals in life, maybe too many, but it's nice to dream big.

One thing I never want to do in life is ever leave behind people whom I love, and as my life moves forward I aim to do everything in my power to ensure that doesn't happen.

I've always thought about the future, for as long as I can remember and it always ended with the same scenario and ideas, living abroad.

Now that I am 20 and I properly understand all the implications of this, I have realised I don't think I would move abroad in my young life, I'd like to spend a few months here and there, maybe even a year, but never a permanent move, not whilst I am young anyway.

I have had so long to think about my life and to figure out what I want from the future and what I want to put into it, so many things have helped me to understand what I truly want.

I cannot life to start my life properly, by going into university I have taken an extra 3 years to work on my education and to figure out what I want. I do believe attending uni was the best decision to me and knowing that I am now going into my third year makes me so proud and I don't think I have ever been proud of myself.

Although moving abroad whilst I'm young is a bad idea, I do want to move across country, I don't want to be stuck in a little town for the rest of my life, I belong in the city.

There will come a time in my life when I feel although I have done most of which I want, which leads me to where I want to be when I am much, much older, when I have travelled the world and spent many years doing what I love, I aim to be living in Venice, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Don't dream small, and don't ignore your dreams…live them.

xo

Stakeout Festival 2014

So much has been happening recently, and I’m just so excited! It gives me faith in my career when things like this happens, it gives me faith in people to know they appreciate my help and actually want me to be involved in something huge! I was so excited about this that I absolutely had to post for the second time today.

A few months ago, both my boyfriend and myself were working at an M.S charity event at Osqua’s Bar/Event space in Liverpool, when a man named Paul Lloyd approached us. He owns a Liverpool based company called Unsigned City whom works with unsigned musicians and bands around the local area, helping them gain gigs and much needed promotion. After talking for a while we exchanged contact information and kept in touch and actually all became good friends.

We are now working alongside Paul to create a Liverpool based music festival called Stakeout festival. This will be taking place on the 28^th and 29^th of November and will be spread across 5 unique venues across Liverpool, consisting of a growing list of amazing bands. We are aiming to provide unsigned musicians and bands the promotion they require on a large scale, as well as providing a platform in front of a large audience, including talent scouts.

I personally am in charge of bringing together the best possible videography team to film the event to allow us to create an amazing promotional video for future stakeout festivals. As well as this I will be photographing the event, this may include being on the stage to get the required shots

I am absolutely blown away already by what’s been happening with this festival, with all of the bands messaging us asking to be involved, it’s just insane that I am a part of something that hopefully will end up the biggest festival in Liverpool, or if not the biggest just very successful!

When I look back to the last few months I cannot help but think about how different life would be right now if we had never attended the charity event. It’s crazy how one small moment can change everything. How one conversation with a stranger, something that seems so insignificant at the time can actually impact your life so much

I cannot wait to see what the festival bring us and I couldn’t ask for a better team of people to be working with. We are going to face so many obstacles and challenges along the way and do you know what? I can’t wait because we will overcome every single one of them and this festival will be amazing!

I’m going to continue posting about my progress and the progression of the festival, especially for those of you interested in attending

It’s time to have a stakeout!

xo

The Girl With The Red Hood

In previous posts I have talked about how in September I will be entering my third and final year of University. It has been a really challenging and life changing experience and I am happy to say that I did make the right choice by going to Uni. I think it made me grow as a person.

During my final year I will have numerous large projects to work on, the biggest of the lot being my dissertation. Every part of uni is important, but I would say that this project is the most important because it's worth the most amount of marks, is essentially the biggest project and I will get to do exactly what I want to do for this project.

I have spent my entire summer so far thinking about this project, trying to figure out what is the best idea to go with. I have came up with ideas of both documentaries and short films.

The idea I have chosen to go with, and will not be changing whatever the cost, will be my own adaptation of the children's story Little Red Riding Hood…The only thing is my interpretation of this story will not be suitable for children at all.

As a huge horror fan I have always dreamed about bring my own horror creations to life in the form of films, and I have never really had my chance to completely shine, but with this, with God as my witness I will shine. I love the idea of taking children's stories or even fairytales, twisting them and tuning them into something quite gruesome and bloodthirsty.

So getting back to the topic of focus here, I will be naming my short film The Girl With The Red Hood. My version of this story will be a lot more modern and realistic, with the entery of things such as phones, modern costumes and the biggest difference of all will be there will be no appearence of any wolf at any point in my film. The bad guy will actually be a psychotic stalker who stumbles upon a personal item belonging to the girl with the red hood, which sparks his dangerous obsession…

The ideas I have came up with for this film will clearly be rather bloody and gruesome as I want to twist the original story and make my creation the complete opposite

I look forward to sharing my journey of creating this film with all of you and I will post anything from weekly to monthly updates with my progress on this project

Remember never stumble through a forest alone, you don't know who's watching…
xo

Today was a fairytale

As a little girl, I grew up loving Disney. The outfits, the prince and princesses and the castles, it just amazed me.

Growing up you realise that these fairytales aren't exactly realistic you can try to believe as much as you want, but when it comes down to it, life isn't like that.

That doesn't stop you from dreaming. Nothing can stop you from dreaming.

So I decided to bring these dreams to life, to recreate the disney princesses in the art of photography.

And here's what I have achieved so far...

Nothing lasts forever

I've just this week applied for my student finance, for the last time. It's actually really scary knowing that this is my final year at Uni.

I'm really worried about it to be honest, not just because I'll be finishing my degree and entering the big bad world, but because of how important my final year it.

I'm scared that I won't come out with the degree I want, I don't want to disappoint myself and most importantly my family.

The month of August is just around the corner and I haven't yet got a solid idea for my dissertation. It's not that I am short of ideas; it's more that I have far too many ideas and just can't settle on one. I need to choose the best one, the one I can do the greatest and it's the hardest thing choosing, especially when I'm not really a decision maker.

I need my dissertation to be the greatest work I have ever created. I want it to be something that makes me proud to call it my work, The film length must be at least 20 minutes; I find it so hard working with such specific lengths because it just means I can't do specific things.

I hate having all of these worries, the worrying of University, money and life in general. The future absolutely terrifies me. I am so afraid of the unknown. I mean don't get me wrong, I am excited to see what the future holds for me, but I'm so scared of filming out at the same time. I wish that I didn't have all of these worries. I wish I was still a little kid, running around without a care in the world. I don't think we knew how lucky we were. I'd give anything to go back, to not have all of this stress on my shoulders. I wish I had never grown up.

As a child all I ever wanted to do was grow up, but now I have reached the stage where I would give anything to go back. How were we to know that life would be like this? How were we to know that it would be so hard and challenging? I miss the freedom, seeing my friends all of the time and nor caring about how much money was in my pocket.

WHY CAN'T LIFE JUST BE SIMPLE?

I mean, I'm not complaining, well maybe I am just a little, but life is good right now, it really is. It's better than it has been in a long time, but I'm still so scared. I'm just a natural worrier. I can't help it, I worry about anything and everything. I'm actually quite a negative person, although not a lot of people will notice that. I'm really pessimistic. I can never look forward to the good things because I always worry about it going wrong, surely that's better than being disappointed? At least if I think negatively then I wont be too disheartened.

I hope to enjoy life more in the future, I just need my life to pan out the way I want it too, I need to know what's going to happen in the future, then I can start enjoying it.
xo

3…2…1…CHEESE!

So, like I said in my last post, I love photography!

I've noticed a lot of people, noticeably a lot more recently, actually take part in some form of photography, quite a lot of people whom I would have never expected it from.
I think it's a wonderful thing to photograph things around you! Such as experiences and memories, it's amazing to take that one moment in time and capture it forever. That image will never change, one day you could look back and no matter how much time has passed and how much things have changed, the image won't have, the memory will still be there and it will take you back to that one moment in time.

Photography is a beautiful art form, there is so much that can be done with it.
The average person spends their days capturing memories and uploading them to instagram to share with the world, this is still a form of photography, it's on the lower side of the scale, but essentially it's still photography.
Then you get those who take this to the extreme(serious hobbyist or working professional), with the expensive equipment and the models and creating images that look like memories when essentially they are just staged.
I've found one of the funnest things in the world, for me at least, is to hold you're very own photoshoot, to have an idea of what you want, to get the models you want, throw in a few props and crazy ideas and the photos you can end up with are just truly remarkable.

For me photography is more that just a hobby, it's something that I absolutely adore, It acts as an escape from the real world. As soon as you're creating your own shoots with staged memories, it makes you feel like you're someone completely different, whether that be for just a few moments as you press the shutter.
There is just so much that can be done with photography, if you go out into your local city centre right now, I can guarantee you'd see a bunch of people taking photographs, whether this be with a phone, a digital camera or a top of the range DSLR.

One thing that has never failed to amaze me is the fine detail that you can achieve with photography, take this picture for instance...

The detail on the face of this insect that you can see is truly amazing…

You could look at this insect and you won't be able to notice any of it's features, you won't see it's eyes or even be able to describe what it's face looks like, but as soon as you grab a standard DSLR such as my Canon 600D, attach a quality piece of glass to the front of it, such as the 100mm Macro 'L' Lens which was used for this shot, the difference in what you're going to see is going to leave you gobsmacked.

Just think, without these cameras and lenses, how could we capture images of someone or something so small and show the world it's beauty…or ugly-ness dependant on your own opinion of insects!

It's funny when I think about it, all of the years I've been working with camera gear(mainly big TV and Broadcasting video cameras) , it never occurred to me to get into photography, I have no idea why. it's weird really, I decided to buy a DSLR a few months back, mainly to use to create short films in my spare time and I found that i just couldn't stop taking pictures, I just love it.

I honestly think that apps such as Instagram are shining a new light upon the world of photography because a lot more people are getting involved with it now, especially because everybody now owns a mobile phone that has a camera built into it. Given the recent technological advances regarding mobile phones from companies such as apple and samsung, camera technology has improved to a point where your iPhone takes better quality photos than an entry level DSLR from 5 years ago.

I look forward to continuing to learn more about the art of photography, until next time, Adios!

xo

Howdy!

Hey guys! so this is the first post on my nice shiny new blog! This is just a quick one so that I can introduce myself to the world of blogging.

I've never had a blog like this, my past blogs have always been quite silly and random, just rambling about things I love, but this time I wanted to do it differently. I wanted to do this seriously. So again, hey there, I'm Ashleigh, I guess it's good for you to know my name right?…

i'm a 20 year old University student, I'm currently studying Broadcast and Media Production at Liverpool John Moores University…and that's well, interesting to say the least.
I'm a film fanatic in anyway possible...
I'm actually just about to go into my third year, this course has been really challenging so far, I've almost gave up multiple times, but I' still here and I'm determined to get to the finish line

I have a love of journalism and photography, I bet you would never have guessed?

So…I'm going to be blogging once maybe even twice a week, about random topics

I'll be basically reporting on a topic and then supporting with photographs, it will be quite an interesting thing to attempt.

As well as this I'll be commenting on various obstacles I go through during my day to day life, such as Uni, work and what life is like trying to become a Videographer/Photographer as well as any obstacles I encounter completing my dissertation. 

Well, this is me and I will see you again shortly! 

xo