Spring = colour!

Although I haven't been taking many photos lately... I have tried to capture as much of Spring as I can on my phone. I just love the yellow trees that are dotted around at the moment. 

 This weekend I intend to take some photos and finish the two rolls in my cameras since February. Yup.

Have a great weekend!!

p.s. Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment yesterday, it meant a lot to me, I'll reply when I can read them all without tearing up and feeling incredibly grateful that you all didn't think I was crazy/attention seeking/crazy...

Scared of myself...

This years word for myself was considerate...

I didn't actually realise what that would mean when I chose it, I thought it meant that I would have to be kinder to myself , stop beating myself up for things I couldn't control but what has actually happened is that I've been tougher on myself... tougher on the things that I can control, the things I can change and I've made myself do things that I wouldn't have done before. I'm being considerate to what I actually want to do and rather than just thinking about it, I've worked past my fears and I've done it. Today I am wearing a dress to work... and it's the third day that 'I've flashed my legs' (thanks male colleague) this week. Get me.

I've made myself face my insecurities, I've made myself write a book, I've challenged my 'I can'ts' with 'I can's' and heck, so far this year I've done all right...

But I haven't been very considerate of my blog and it's future. 

Last week I had a post with no comments on, and I'm not going to lie,

I cried a little.

It's pathetic, I know, I still have more posts without comments then I have ones with them, but my blog is me, and it hurt my feelings a little.

I was having the worst week at work 

(to say I was in a flap would be an understatement)

and I hadn't realised that I needed my blog and the interaction so much until it wasn't there.

The thing with blogs is that even if your blog stays the same, things change around you... you get more followers, you lose some followers, you get more hits, you get less... everything will change no matter what you do. And I've been pretty stubborn about evolving with it, I guess I like to dig my heels in about change as much as the next person (C) haha. 

Anyway, this week I've been trying to find new blogs and I also reread a lot of posts in Kat's Green Room on Rock n Roll Bride... Have I ever told you that Kat is my one of my blogging heros? She is and so is her secret weapon Gareth...

 they love what they do and in doing so, they do it so very, very well. 

That is what I want to do. I want to love what I do and do it so very, very well.

And I realised, I know how to do this - two years ago I was even brave enough to write a 'Blogging Tips' post. I know how to blog and do it well... so what is happening?! What am I so worried about?

Over the past two years I've somehow lost myself and my confidence (again)

... and I've lost the contact with you.

I'm sorry about that. I really am.

The only person who's been holding me back with this blog is me. 

But I think I'm ready to come back to it, to push it, to nuture it, to believe in it and myself... 

to share more of me than just my photos, to write.

Side note: I actually really love writing - which I guess makes sense, as I love talking and really, I'm talking to you here through my words so a massive thank you Diana for giving me the chance to remember that with Gadchick, truly, its more than I ever expected when I bullied myself in saying yes to your offer.

Of course, I still have no idea what I'm going to do... I thought about a Toy Camera E book or course... a lot actually, I would love that - but then I let myself think

"who would want to take part in that with you? who do you think you are? there are more knowledgeable people... "

 but I won't let myself do that anymore... 

I am me and I know these things, I can share them. I want to share them... somehow.

I also realised that I really love blogging... so I need to incorporate that somehow, but I don't want a seperate blog... so really, I have no clue what I want to do still - perhaps a toy camera newsletter with tips? Perhaps a seperate sectionfor tips, camera over views? Perhaps maybe even earn a bit of money somehow with affordable e-courses or books... I really don't know.

But I do know that I am more than my day job... so much more, I have more to give, more to do than to be sat at this desk everyday, wishing it away until I get home and I can do things that I want to do.

The only one holding me back is me... I've been scared of myself for too long and now I need to do something about it... and keep doing it.

So here I am, being considerate to myself, letting it all out, hitting publish (eep)

and then I am going to do something. 

I just don't know what that something is yet :)

 

Overexposed in Scarborough...

It is so sunny in England at the moment - I'm mostly confused by this if I'm honest, but glad too - we had our first meal in our garden last night and I've been wearing skirts  and dresses (yup, me, Frocktober seems to have banished any previous worries I had about baring my legs lol) and generally enjoying the warmth and sun. I really, really hope it lasts over the weekend, or me and the weather are going to be having issues.

Anyway, with all the sunshine, it seemed right to share a bit of the winter sunshine we had in Scarborough last month... I frequently manage to over expose this film normally by accidently having it on the bulb setting but this time the overexposure is caused by having to open the back and give the film a little nudge to do as its told (the diana mini is famous for its winding on issues...) however, I actually quite like these results. It really was very bright that day and these photos definitely show that.

This last one isn't really that overexposed in comparison to the others, but it fits well with them. I really loved seeing the snow on the castle, so I took a few photos of it.

The sunshine this week is really making me look forward to going back to Scarborough in the Summer, it doesn't seem that long since I took my holga for its first ever visit there but I guess it has been a while since then now, lets hope its as sunny.

Location: Scarborough
Camera: Diana Mini
Film: Ilford XP2 iso 400

Pinterest revisited...

After my rather heated little rant earlier this month about Pinterest I thought I better clear the air about how I'm feeling about it.

This week Pinterest sent an email stating that they were updating their terms and also The Window Seat have updated their involvement in the matter with a clear post about these changes.

 Essentially Pinterest have made one change to their terms
 they won't be selling your images.
I think its fantastic that they changed this - I didn't think they were anyway but as I said before, just because it was unlikely, it doesn't make it right and it wasn't hard for them to remove a term that they didn't actually need, so some brownie points for them for listening to that concern.

However, everything else is still essentially the same - when you upload an image under the terms
 you still either claim to own the content, or it is content that you or Pinterest will not get in trouble for using.

This is still the game changer for me - to use Pinterest correctly, the only images that I would be 100% sure that I could use/pin, would be my own... and I don't want to use it like that. A lot of people commented on my last post that Pinterest is a great tool for bloggers - just like other sites - and I agree - if you use it correctly and for your own promotion in a tasteful way, it is a great tool.

But I don't want a marketing tool for my blog - I want a site where I can bookmark things that I find on the internet without claiming these images as my own or risking myself, or negatively affecting the rightful image owner in any way.

One statement from The Window Seats response was:

"Pinterest provides an online platform for sharing content, and you must be comfortable with the possible risk that comes with using the site."  Kyle from The Window Seat

And after much consideration, I'm not really comfortable with Pinterest or the risks that come with it anymore. I had a go at pinning just my images last week but it felt silly, all my photos are on Flickr, or on here... having them in another place just seemed pointless to me.

I think the real reason that I'm so upset about Pinterest is that it felt so right.... it felt safe, it was fun, I had everything I wanted in one place, I enjoyed pinning the things that I had found to share with people (I rarely repinned, it's not as much fun as finding things yourself is it...) and I felt like I was doing everything correctly but I wasn't.

In many ways I know that I'm quite idealistic, I want the internet to be nice, I want people to respect other people's property (digital or otherwise), I want to see credit where credit is due... but the world isn't always like that, I can't control people and neither can Pinterest so I understand that they have to cover their own backs (everyone does these days right) but honestly, I don't like it...

However, I can control my own actions, so I won't be pinning anymore. Whilst this seems to be a topic about law and risk, for me this is also about morals and what's right and wrong and although the risks may be lower now, it still doesn't feel right to me anymore... which is a shame.


Note: Carrie has asked me if I mind people pinning my images and weirdly, I don't mind that at all (especially now that Pinterest can't sell them) but if you do, please do credit back to my blog - the law in the UK states that 'The law gives the creators of literary, dramatic, musical, artistic works, sound recordings, broadcasts, films and typographical arrangement of published editions, rights to control the ways in which their material may be used.' automatically and I am happy for my images to appear on the Pinterest site. I would not be happy however if they were edited/sold/misused/reprinted so please pin responsibly :)  If you are happy with your pinning morals, then so am I!

Note 2: The above note may change if this comes about... that would be bad.

Some photos from the Hen Party weekend...

 

I think I can deem my lickle sister's hen party weekend a sucess! We rented a house at the coast for the weekend, had an afternoon tea party followed by hen party games, food and drinks. I had so much fun and I'm pretty sure everyone else did too.

Can you believe that I took hardly any photos though - I took 4 cameras down with me and they all stayed in my bag - in fact half of these photos were borrowed from another hen (thanks Ellen!). I particularly love the photo of me, my sister and our Nanna at the bottom in our tissue dresses, so much fun! 

p.s. The mug is a thank you gift from my bride sister :) she knows me well!

Hey girl...

...I know I'm not as cute as Ryan Gosling...


 ...But I can sure try to be...

 ....Squirrel!!

This weekend is my lickle sisters hen party... I've been organising it for a while now and I am very excited. As well as partying, I also get to see this little pup (as well as my sister and family I guess... haha) and I can't wait to squeeze his little face!

Have a great weekend!!

p.s. I crack myself up with the Hey Girl and Up references, haha.

p.s.s. On another note, I finally 'get' Ryan Gosling, um, yummy! Seeing him in Crazy, Stupid, Love may have been a deciding factor, how cute is he with Emma Stone.

I need some colour!

Dear this weekend,
Please be sunny
I need to soak up some light
and take photos of pretty colours,
Thanks, I can't wait for you to begin,
love Rhianne

p.s. these are some photos from Scarborough from my Exacta 135 (I was finishing the roll) 
and from my LC-A before it died... sad times.

Spinning on the beach!

After all the excitement of the family beach video that I made during Mum's birthday weekend in Lancashire, I completely forgot about this roll of film and the videos I got from it at the beginning of February.

 You can just see the snow on the beach whilst I'm spinning around
(like you do on the beach).

Snow on the beach...

It seems a bit odd to be posting photos of snow on the first day of Spring - and even odder that these were from the first week of February but at least I'm starting to catch up with my photos on here.

These were taken in Scarborough, I posted some phone photos last month and I've finally got around to starting to post the Diana Mini photos I took there too. Unfortunately all my LC-A photos (apart from 2) were lost :(

 

I had a little bit of trouble with my diana mini at the start of this roll (ironically after talking to someone else about theirs giving them trouble...) but luckily all the photos turned out, even if some were overexposed and rippling a little.

Camera: Diana Mini
Film: Ilford XP2 ISO 400
Location: Scarborough

Heysham Diana Mini's Part 2

{That's Thomas relaxing at the bottom, I love this photo} 



I'm always amazed by the different feelings you can get from photos depending on your mood - after a sucessful stress-free weekend (hurray), I find these photos quite relaxing and calm in comparison to the photos that I posted last week, even though it's the same camera, film and location. 

Camera: Diana Mini
Film: Ilford XP2 ISO 400
Location: Heysham, Lancashire

Heysham in colour...

 {I had to take a photo of the yellow of course}
Hi Mum, Dad and Harry :) 
No idea who the boys below are though and we actually didn't see them after that either... weird. It's ok though because I'm populating my photos!


I always like to take two (or more, haha) different cameras with me to new places as they capture things so differently, the Yashica Samurai can zoom so I could capture the birds in the distance as well as the delicate flowers, whilst the Diana Mini seems more suited to tones, light and atmosphere than details.

 I do think they are both important to capture somewhere though - and also represent you and how you see things and sometimes one camera or film isn't really enough to do that...

I'm so relieved that it is Friday, this week has been busy, a bit stressful and I've sulked about things beyond my control a fair bit... but as my good friends have told me - you can only worry about the things you can change... so this evening I'm going to go home, spend the evening with my love and have a nice bottle of wine and hopefully that will be a good start to a worry free weekend.
See you next week!

Update: Before I forget - Susannah Conway's registration for the next Photo Meditations and Unravelling opens tomorrow, I can highly recommend the Photo Meditations and I have no doubt that her Unravelling course is just as amazing, so don't miss out.


Camera: Yashica Samurai
Film: Lomography Colour Negative 400
Location: Heysham

Heysham Diana Mini's Part 1

I really wanted to write something about how I'm feeling today... get it out there, out of me. But the words feel clogged inside, like I'm scared to actually say anything, because then I'll have to think of ways to resolve them... and I don't know how or if I can. Luckily these photos seem to be quite suited to this feeling, so perhaps they'll say the words that I can't seem to say for me.

p.s. Heysham is a lovely little village (in spite of its Nuclear power plants...) just down the coast from Morcambe, I'm really glad we went, we had a great walk and I loved taking photos there.

Camera: Diana Mini
Film: Ilford XP2 ISO 400
Location: Heysham

More snow...

Looking at yesterday's photos with this camera, I don't think they actually do it any justice... especially when you compare them with these photos in the snow on my way to work.

When I first looked at these results I wasn't too thrilled with them, and to be fair there are a few stinkers in the roll (you can see the entire roll here), but the good photos are really good I think and perhaps I've underestimated this little cameras abilities.

I can't wait to use this camera again when its sunny as I think the results then could be absolutely stunning!

Camera: Exacta 135
Film: Kodak Elite Chrome ISO 100 - I need to stock up on this!
Location: Walking to work (again) in the snow.