New York 2016 // The Four Ellenments

While browsing travel vlogs the other day, I was reminded my own vlog from my birthday trip to New York was still sitting unloved in my iMovie library - so I had bit of a marathon editing session, and here we are!

New York 2016: Vlog

As well as vlogging on my digital camera, I also took quite a lot of photos on my DSLR while in the city, many of which I've incorporated into my A Level Photography Coursework, which I'm aiming to post a summary of once all complete. However, until then, here is a selection of my favourite shots:

thanks for reading! :)

A Festival Playlist: 2016 // The Four Ellenments

Hello!!

So it's been a while ay... A Levels have been keeping me busier than I anticipated, but I'm pleased to say I managed to get AAAB in Art, Photography, English Lit and History which I was absolutely thrilled with!

I'm aware that realistically no one actively reads this / cares about my life, but for the sake of making this post flow better, I thought I'd do a *very* brief life update:

I've mostly spent the summer getting myself caught up on work and going on various days out to the beach / London etc, as well as going on a little camping holiday to France. I've been doing art and photography bits on and off throughout, so I'm hoping I'll maybe do a little 'holiday photography' post before I get too bogged down again :')

But, as summer draws to a close it's time again for my one of favourite parts of the year - Reading Festival! This will be my 6th time attending the festival, but only my 2nd year camping with friends. I really enjoyed putting together a playlist / blog post of my picks from last year's line-up, so I thought I'd do the same this year - so here's a little playlist of my 'songs to see / hear at Reading Festival 2016'.

There's also a couple of vlog-style videos from my trips to Normandy this summer and Japan last autumn on my YouTube channel, but I'll probably talk about those again later / with the holiday photography.

I can't say I'm sure how much I'll be active on here in the next year - I'd like to continue posting, but equally I'm really interested in getting myself a website up and running, which would have similar things to this blog but would hopefully be more frequent / easier to navigate.

So, until next time! (which hopefully won't be in another year's time my bad lmao)

Photography - Initial Shots and Thoughts // The Four Ellenments

It's been a bit quiet over here recently...

I do kind of have a reason though - A Levels are officially in full swing, and a fortnight or so I got a little behind on work due to having tonsillitis :( so i've been working a bit overtime to try and get caught back up, especially on Art and Photography - but now i'm feeling a lot more on top of everything, I thought I'd share a couple of things I've been getting up to in the last couple of weeks.

Predominantly, Photography - i've been enjoying it as a casual hobby for a couple of years, but as my school didn't offer it as a GCSE, this has been my first taste of Photography as a subject, as opposed to just as a bit of fun. and I'm really loving it so far! My only issue so far is being a biiit of a perfectionist setting out pages in my pad tends to take me about 12 years at a time :')

For our first couple of weeks, we've been doing 'mini projects' - small scale explorations that are allowing us to get to know our cameras, and learn a range of techniques that should be helpful when we start our independent projects. So far, we've looked at Abstraction and Aperture, but as we aren't quite finished with aperture I'll just include the abstraction ones for now, and maybe add the aperture shots later.

A couple of individual shots I liked from a shoot I did in my bedroom / bathroom involving acrylic paint:

 I really enjoyed taking these - although I did end up with paint on basically everything i've ever owned.

These are the pictures as they were taken, without any editing - here's how they looked edited and mounted in my pad:

So, that's how my first A Level Photography project went - as mentioned, I might add some more in later this week when we finish up with aperture.

Until then, thanks for reading!

Constellations - NOTW // The Four Ellenments

Ooh it's a Nail of the Week post...

So I went back to school last week, and as I'm now in Year 12, I'm allowed to wear my own clothes - and by extension, I can't get told off for having painted nails anymore :D 

I was in a bit of a rush last week to get everything ready, so I just did my nails a solid black - but last night I had a spare 10 minutes, so I touched them up and added a bit of a design. 

I'd seen these on Pinterest previously, and they seemed pretty quick - plus they matched my lamp: 

These were done with: 

• OPI Start to Finish Base/Top Coat 

• OPI Nail Laquer in Lady in Black 

• Uni POSCA Marker in White PC-5m

• Uni POSCA Marker in White PC-1m

I think I mentioned something in my last post about doing an outfit diary for Reading - having now camped for the weekend, I can confirm I looked like a tramp for 90% of it, so that won't be happening :') but I have been taking photos of my school outfits since going back, to make a post out of those once it's been a full week. 

Thanks for reading! 

A Festival Playlist // The Four Ellenments

I can't remember if i'd mentioned it already or not, but i'll be attending Reading Festival for the full weekend this year to celebrate finishing exams, which i'm super excited about as i've been going for the last 4 years, but only ever for single days.

Since the lineup was announced, i've been trying my best to listen to as many bands playing as possible, so I can get the most out of the weekend - so I've put together a YouTube playlist of all the songs I'm most excited to see played live, which can be found here:

'Songs to see/hear at Reading 2015'

If the weather's good I'm hoping to do an Outfit Diary sort of thing across the weekend, so that might be up here soon :)

Thanks for reading!

Photo Diary: Brighton // The Four Ellenments

here's something a little bit different today -

A couple of friends and I went down to Brighton for the day, and I took my DSLR with me to try and get some photos for my A Level Photography summer task - so I thought I'd share a couple of my favourites, as a sort of "Photo Diary" of the day.

11:02am // the weather wasn't the best this morning...

12:16pm // arriving at Brighton station

12:56pm // the Classic :')

13:01 // tickets in the arcade - expertly focused there...

13:09 // surprisingly blue sea???

13:21 // prepping for A Level English Lit :')

13:30 // Gulls

13:41 // another of the Pier

13:49 // Brighton Wheel (which oddly enough is identical to the Liverpool Wheel...)

13:55 // guuurls

14:15 // very much in love with all of Brighton's tiny art shops 

14:20 // and another (with a mirror this time)

14:32 // finally a bit of sunshine!

14:38 //  managed to get super close to a group of (what looked like) nesting seagulls 

14:56 // Urban Outfitters

15:42 // Another thing I really loved about Brighton was the amount of colour!

15:45 // The Lanes

17:02 // the direct train home was cancelled, so we ended up taking a route that had 2 changes and took nearly 3 hours :( Hannah took this one of me and Abi on the platform.

18:46 // One of the plus sides of taking the long train was the fact that it ran near parallel to the coast, which was still nice, even on a grey day.

So that was my day, summarised in photos :) Thanks for reading!

Camden OOTD, 28-07-15 // The Four Ellenments

just a quick one - a friend and I did a spot of shopping today in Camden, which is one of my all time favourite places. 

As well as for the shops, I love going to Camden because I've always seen it as a place where anything goes in terms of fashion - so it's always fun to experiment a little bit, and dress a bit more out there than I perhaps normally would.  

 

nice American Apparel changing room selfie there :') 

I'm wearing:

• Black Vest (Primark)

• Black Jumper (Primark)

• Black Skater Skirt (H&M)

• Black Knee-High Socks (Topshop)

• Demonia Trashville 208 Boots 

• and a variety of accesories, from various markets 

Thanks for reading!