Things That Made Me Smile This Week

Some of the Fun Things From My Week

Music: Whether it was on the bus at full volume on the way to school; whilst writing this blog post or during photoshoots at school, music has been occurring a lot lately. From Hozier to Halsey, My Chemical Romance and Blur. The choices have been endless thanks to the new earphones I kindly received. Fancy a listen?

Photography.  Halsey - Drive, this one is a great tune for long journeys and has inspired some of the pictures that I'm using in my photography exam. These first few photographs were not taken by me, but of me. Captured by my talented sister, who's idea it was to take the pictures like this. She was inspired by similar images on the internet. Kate used a bright hard light with thick red tissue paper over the top, it was precarious and shot in the school corridors because the studio was in use. Not at all glamorous, with this particular shoot being in a double lesson it meant half way through there would be a flood of students walking past us. Halsey - Hold Me Down, this song is one of Halsey's classics that came from her first ep Room 93. Halsey - Colours, when you listen to this imagine it, all the colours, painted in my photography book. That's what I've done, the starting point of the exam that I chose was called, 'Here and Now'. I chose it because out of the seven or eight there was to choose from this one gave me the most freedom. Halsey - Young God, this one is fitting because I had the opportunity and creative freedom to pretty much do as I pleased, with in reason of course. So I quickly got to work painting my passions and capturing the world around me. For the Here side of the exam I was going for 19th century mugshots and trying to display the lives of the people who were less privileged than myself. Also showing that these people in history that have shaped our past, that they exist. This is because the people examining my work may have forgotten the lives of those who came long before them. As for the Now I've gone for a more modern and colourful tumblr song lyrics approach like the photographs here. All of the inspirational images come from pinterest and instagram for now, but I haven't seen tumblrs offerings yet so some might come from there later in the exam. Credit for anything that isn't mine of course goes to the original owner/ photographer.

Hidden Gems. Center Parcs the annual adventure into the woods. This year I took my camera, I've only just looked through them and here are some of my favourites. Halsey - Strange Love, have a listen to one of my favourite songs to go with these different photographs. The second one was a portrait photo but they always look better landscape, so if you really want it the other way round - just turn your head and look at it. Halsey - Is There Somewhere, because I couldn't care less if you think I should have turned that picture around and it's a song that doesn't seem to care. as well as a very good song, Well Done Halsey!

Badlands. It's been one of the biggest inspirations for my mocks, photography, the mood, themes, the emotion and all of it. Take a look.

"Hello, and I'm sorry

A salutation and a farewell

I don't have much time

This Times New Roman is going to fly from my fingertips like a plague of moths

The hollow black letter shells crunched into the ground like the skin of a cicada

This is all that's left, and you can do whatever you want with it

Keep it to yourself or let it serve as a warning

This city is disgusting; a corpse of what it used to be

The people are filthy, gluttonous

Ruled by the power exchange of sex from the hands of the proletariat to the bourgeoisie

The tops of the skylines buzz with the lacklustre enthusiasm

The ground level is caked in dirt and rust and grime

And the people that dwell there wake and rub the filmy layer off their lukewarm eyes

There are some here I love

Some who fear me

And some who wish I was dead

I didn't ask for this

No one asks for this

You're born into it

You grow up oblivious and sheltered

And one day the evil realities of this place hit you square between the eyes like a perfectly aimed bullet

If this were a movie

I would ride off in some blood red sunset down a stretch of desert road into the wasteland that keeps us captive here

But this isn't a movie

These are the BADLANDS...."

More photoshoots coming your way, soon.

Joyfully Light

Into the Wild

Our Secret Hideaway | Center Parcs | The Annual Adventure

I'm writing this on Sunday and today we have 14 days/ 2 weeks until we go away. Ever since we were born we have been going to Center Parcs. Our parents even went with Grandma when they were dating, but technically the first time Kate and I went was many moons ago when Mum was due to have us. 

We have been with them when we were little, cute and blonde. Back then we had to wear orange jackets to help us float/swim in the pool and will have been pulled around by Mum and Dad in the back of there bike, sat in a small tent like seat with blankets and fluffy coats to keep us warm. At this age we would go with our Auntie, Uncle, Grandma, Grandad and Cousins the whole lot of us from Dad's side.

We went when we were older, less cute and not blonde anymore. Definitely older so we could go on the activities with Mum and Dad like tree trekking, climbing through an assault course in the trees, that has now become one of the annual traditions, like night swims and forgetting the goggles. Other activities we could now do well but still not great was pottery painting. As we got older so did the family we used to bring so rather than all of them came just our Grandparents. Later on our Family friends came with us, once we even got a large four bedroom villa for all of us to stay in. The year before that they came to Center Parcs and surprised us for our birthday.

Two years ago we started a new tradition for the holiday. Kate and I made lunch for the four of us. That first year it started with a chicken salad and a french stick/baguette as we call it and some ice-cream in the sun, but despite our best efforts I think they were hoping for a bit more, something better. So the next year we stepped it up a notch with dinner, not too over the top though, a tasty pasta dish with a tomato sauce and mushrooms and for pudding it was pieces of chocolate and vanilla fudge from the Parc Market.

Center Parcs has everything for an outdoorsy holiday: a beach, lake watersports, bike trails, giant outdoor board games like connect four and drifters, the best pool I have ever been to with an even better outdoor pool, rapids and freezing plunge pool. If you go late summer or at the end of the six weeks holiday, beginning of September time then the sun will be shining all day. A perfect way to enjoy the ice-cream they have there, the main brand they sell in the restaurants and just around the parc is movenpick. Its the best ice-cream I have ever had. In the classic vanilla, strawberry and chocolate flavours as well as fancy ones like creme brulee and bubblegum. Mmmmmm.

Swimming and cycling take us the vast majority of our stay because, lets be real, the only time I go swimming or go on a bike ride is at Center Parcs. Come rain or shine we are there either in the pool or cycling to the pool. For the times that we are not swimming we are either swinging across the trees, sipping our way through strawberries and cream frappuccinos at Starbucks,playing air-hockey, laughing, pretending celebrities are here in the pool like Harry Styles and Little Mix when really they are just strangers enjoying their holidays too, rock climbing, not even thinking about what I'm eating because we will swim/cycle/kayak/run/hop/skip/jump it off, eating roast chicken salads with french sticks, playing crazy golf, splashing in the lake after falling out of our kayaks, sleeping, scanning the fancy locks for the villa's and lockers or soaking up the sun.

Center Parcs is the best place to escape to for a week, it flies by and is jam packed full of smiles. If you ever go or have been in the past you know the feeling of the first day knowing you have so much fun ahead. Oh and they journey home is not something that we want coming anytime soon. Although if you don't go home you can't come back.

Not long now because at the beginning September you, Center Parcs will be home to Me. (Kate, Mum and Dad too) As you are reading this we are on our way home from Center Parcs.

Enjoy the rest of your holidays, have you ever been to Center Parcs?

Joyfully Light