Iceland was
like nothing I had ever seen before, truly magical
and I definitely visited at the right time of year. Everything was
covered in a crisp white layer of snow, and it made everything so much
more beautiful.
I've never felt cold like it, but still dream of it to this day. I took multiple boat trips on the hunt to see the northern lights, which I kind of saw, but also not really. Other boat trips were whale
watching trips, again I wasn’t lucky here either, but found it was of
course due to the freezing
temperatures and cloudy skies. I walked endlessly through the streets
of Reykjavik, finding amazing things I never would have otherwise, like
little museums, churches and quirky
Christmas shops that are open 365 days a year. I went on a Golden
Circle tour that took us to see the Gullfoss Waterfall, the geothermal
area in Haukadalur which contained huge geysers and Thinvellir National
Park where you can see the boundary between the North American and
Eurasian tectonic plates.
There are times when I go through phases where I don't blog, I don't even think about blogging. Sometimes I just completely forget, whereas other times I have writers block. Sometimes I leave for a few days, sometimes for a few weeks, and sometimes for a few months, but I'll always come back, always. I have a little bit of news...I actually have a pretty little job! That I imagine after working 40 hours a week will soon lose the pretty part. Although it's going to mean ridiculously early mornings, long bus journeys, and ridiculously long days, I think I'm okay with that, for now anyway. The time is fast approaching where I can SAVE, SAVE, SAVE! My inner traveller is just excited to burst out, and I can't wait to take myself and my camera away on wonderful adventures where we can take beautiful photos and write blog posts. The last 3 years of my life have been incredibly long, painful and stressful, and every bad descriptive word that you could ever possibly think of. For the entirety of University I was stuck in such a bad place, and I don't mean because I was involved in a car accident or any of the other bad things that happened during this time...I went through stages of hating everyone and the world around me, but I've made it to the end of that era of my life and I believe myself to be a much better and happier person. I will always consider that to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life, I will always hate that I let society and the educational system determine which direction my life would go in, but I will learn from these mistakes. I can be the most inspired and determined person in the entire world, but for that I have to have passion, without the passion the determination and inspiration is not going to be there. I won't seek a career in movie making, I will however try to reconnect the passion I once had, I will try to learn to love media the way I once did. I do hope to somewhere down the line pursue a career in photography, or travel blogging, or writing. The two biggest things in my life right now are writing and photography, it would be an absolute dream come true to gain a career in these industries, all I can do is work at it, maybe somewhere down the line I will make dreams come true, but for now I will make my dreams of seeing the world come true. My story doesn't end here, my story begins here...the future is a wonderful thing full of mysteries. All I can do now is send my CV out everywhere in the hope that someone wants me, in the hope that someone sees my potential and believes in me. Life for me right now is about being happy. I'm going to go on some wonderful adventures, hopefully with my camera in hand and the man of my dreams stood by my side. I'm going to take beautiful pictures because that's what I do best. I'm never going to stop dreaming, I'm never going to stop blogging, I'm back and I'm not going anywhere. Ashleigh xo
A few weeks ago we were asked to go down to Shimmers hair salon to take some fashion hair portraits for an international competition. It was something completely different to anything we had done before, but it was most definitely a great experience and I would love to do some more stuff like this in the future! Here's a little taste of what we got…enjoy!
I love photo shoots like this, when we get to really experiment and do something completely different to anything that we have done before! xo
Sept 11th: How do you stay inspired? Who inspires you the most? "When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too." - Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Everyone should be inspired by someone or something. To have something that inspires you to work your hardest to achieve great things is a wonderful thing to have.
Something that keeps me inspired is pinterest. Whenever I am about to be doing some form of photo shoot the first thing that I do is head on over to pinterest to check out what other people have done that's similar to what I want.
Pinterest
My Interpretation
As you can see, pinterest really does inspire me, I got the entire idea for my fairytale themed photoshoot from pinterest, you can see more of these pictures here.
The first collage of photos were taken from pinterest, these were the pictures I originally liked and wanted to create for myself. The collage below is my interpretation of the pinterest photographs, i took certain elements and created me own photographs with them.
As a photographer, just looking at other photographers work can really inspire me to go out and create something worthwhile, that's all it can take.
As a videographer, watching films directed or written by those I look up to in the industry really gives me the inspiration that I need to go out and create something meaningful.
I'd be nothing without my boyfriend, friends and family though (Although they could all be considered as family). They are the biggest inspiration for me. I do everything that I do for them, to make them proud of me. These are the people who have made me who I am today the people who have stuck by me when I have needed them, they are the reason that I have done all I have and the reason I will strive to become better than I am.
When I really think about this though, when I really take a good hard look, I can honestly say that lifeinspires me. Everything I see, every little thing, anything can inspire me. The world inspires me.
Sept 10th: List 10 things that you love about yourself! Let's kick that negative self-talk outta here! I was actually debating skipping this post. I've been siting here for a long while just staring at a blank page, this is by far the hardest post so far. I am constantly at war with myself, there's not that much I like about myself, never mind love about myself. I have tried everyday to love myself, I thought that maybe one day it would just happen. I have vowed to try harder to love myself do things that make me happy, dress in a way that makes me happy and hopefully that positivity will rub off on the way I feel about myself, so I sort of felt like the first step was to take part in this post. "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind" - Bernard M. Baruch
I'm socially awkward, self conscious and have far too many anxieties to count.
Ten Things That I Love About Myself
1. My Eyes, I have heterochromia and I spent so long thinking I wasn't normal because of it. Since I've grown up a lot of people actually comment on how much they love my eyes and how jealous they are, it makes me feel quite thankful to be honest.
2. I'm a good person…everything I do in life is with the best intentions and I would never do anything to hurt anybody, I care a lot about people. 3. My tattoo, although I only have one (for the moment) but ever since getting it I have felt a little bit more confident…people tap me on the shoulder just to tell me how amazing it is, they don't know how happy that makes me feel.
4. My photography and videography skills. There aren't many things that I believe to be good at but, I know I am good at this, I feel extremely thankful to the first person who introduced me to cameras because I haven't been able to put them down since that moment, and I have progressed so much.
5. My imagination. I try and escape reality all of the time, I much prefer living in my head…I often get a little lost, believing in fairytales, forgetting what's reality and what's not. I like getting lost in my own imagination. 6. I crack a mean joke: I find myself funny, most people laugh at how unfunny they find me but, I think I am hilarious… "Why did the skeleton go to the party alone?" "Because he had nobody to go with…" "Why do daleks eat apples?" "Because an apple a day keeps the doctor away…" There's plenty more where that came from!
7. I love my own company. I love nothing more than to spend a night by myself playing on the xbox, watching Netflix, blogging and reading. 8. My ability to see the good in everything and everyone, this pretty much speaks for itself. No matter who you are, everyone has the ability to be good, they just choose whether to be or not to be. 9. I love my music taste. Whenever I am feeling down I just listen to music and it cheers me up straight away…tell me that these beauty's wouldn't cheer you up!
10. My love of the world and all that's in it. I love the world, I think it's the most beautiful thing that's ever been created, I can't wait to pack up with my camera in my bag and go and explore it. It's nice to look at yourself and think about all the positive things, what do you love about yourself? xo
On Friday the 5th September, I was asked to join a lovely couple on their wedding day as their photographer. The wedding took place in a small but beautiful reception room located in the St Helens Registry Office. This wasn't a large wedding but that didn't make it any less beautiful…
The room rose for the entrance of the beautiful bride who appeared linking arms with her father with tears of joy falling from her eyes. The whole atmosphere of the room completely changed, the room was filled with some of the biggest smiles I've ever seen.
The ceremony was beautiful and following this we moved onto another location where the bride and groom were to celebrate their wedding with a small selection of their family. Before they sat down to eat, we took the couple across the road to a spot that overlooked some beautiful rolling hills that were covered in fine mist, which provided the perfect backdrop for some beautifully taken wedding photographs.
Congratulations to the beautiful bride and groom and may the future hold happiness for you both
Sept 5th: "I am passionate about ______________. "
My truest passion in the entire world is capturing moments and documenting life. I as an individual consider myself to be nothing without a camera in my hands.
"To be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work." Sister Mary Lauretta
For my entire life I have spent so long trying to find something that I am truly passionate about. Something that truly sparks the creativity inside of me and makes me want to achieve great things. I felt this passion the first time I held a video camera in my hands. Ever since that very first moment I haven't been able to live my life without the ability to create art in the form of the moving image.
Just under a year ago I purchased one of my most prized possessions, my DSLR. Purchasing this (mainly for videography purposes) sparked a new passion inside of me, that passion being photography. Ever since that moment, I have grown so much as a photographer.
I used to look around me at people enjoying life because they had found their truest passion, and to say I was jealous of this would be an understatement. Now I look around me and see the world in a different way, I see all of the beauty and opportunities that the world has to offer, and I'd hate to see it any other way.
What am I passionate about?
- Freezing time in the form of photography.
- Documenting life.
- Bringing my imagination to life in form of videography.
- Learning about new cultures.
- Traveling the world.
- Watching as many films as humanly possible.
- Living life to it's fullest
- Being happy.
Everyone is passionate about something, no matter who you are…what's your passion?
It's crazy to think that it's now September, August and the whole of summer has just flew by, it's just passed me by without a notice. Looking back on the previous month it's so weird because some parts seem like they happened forever ago, but some feel like they happened just yesterday.
September beginning means the beginning of the next educational year, so the return to university. I have spent a lot of the summer period feeling bored and just like I haven't really been doing anything worthwhile. I mean, don't get me wrong, there have been some days where i have worked my ass off doing various freelance work for clients and I've really enjoyed that, apart from that I have just been so fed up.
When it's the end of the university year I get really excited for summer, but after about a month I feel really fed up with it. So I'm pretty much excited to go back to university, I can't wait to start feeling productive again.
I would be lying to say that I am not terrified about the fact that this is my last year at uni, this if the first time in my entire life where I don't know what the future holds, I don't know where I am going to be a year from now. The ideas of entering the real world terrified me, yet excites me at the same time, it's all I have wanted for so long. This year is going to be the year I work my hardest and truly make the most of the student life.
My dissertation is by far the most important part of my degree and it's going to be a really different project to take on, especially knowing i can create anything and bring one of my ideas to life.
Aside from university, over the past few days I've actually been getting a lot of freelance photography and videography work for the future which I can't wait to do. Some of it will be really different because it's something i haven't done before so I can't wait for the new experiences. I'm actually photographing a wedding on Friday, i find weddings so magical and being such a hopeless romantic I find weddings to be the closest thing possible in life to a fairytale and I just cannot wait.
Here's my showreel for 2014 so far!
I've really been enjoying building up my portfolio, it's nice to know that I am doing something that makes me happy but makes other people happy too.
In a world that's not often the nicest to live in, one thing that we should always try and do in life is be the best we can be. That includes being the nicest person we could ever possibly be and always having the best intentions at heart. We should always try and spread a little bit of happiness around wherever we go because you never know who needs it.
I have always done everything in my power to be a good person, to always do the right thing and I have always made sure that everything I do it with the best intentions.
Sometimes I look around me and notice all of the cruelty and hate in the world and I wonder why I try to be a good person. So many people don't care about others. When you bump into someone in the street, do you apologise? Or do you snarl and walk away? Apologising is the decent thing to do, it's just common courtesy really. I realise that I am who I am and live how I do because being a good person costs nothing and it can really put your life into perspective.
Everyone in their life has probably hurt someone, some purposely and some believing they were doing the right thing. Purposeful hurt is a lot more painful than accidental. I'm so scared of hurting peoples feelings or doing wrong in life that I tip toe around everything, unfortunately, sometimes it cannot be helped.
People are sensitive, and you might not think it, but your actions can hurt someone a lot. Words can hurt, people take things to heart and that means you can hurt someone without realising.
I will continue to live my life being a good person, apologising when I do wrong.
Spreading happiness and living life with the best intentions could make you happier than anything else.
