Festival Of Angels - York

 This weekend (15th and 16th December) was the Festival of Angels in York city center. Basically It involved lots of ice sculptures and ice bars and fake snow being around York town center. Also with it being the penultimate weekend before Christmas it was very busy. You would be walking round the city center and stumble across the ice sculptures

I really liked the ice sculptures  they feel more personal then other sculptures as they don't survive as long and are constantly changing. Also here's some fake snow. It was a warm(ish) day so the fake snow felt a little odd but it worked. It was really good seeing all the ice sculptures  I saw so many more then are above but I felt there was to many to put all in one post so I may put the others in another post.

Last Weekend

I normally don't do blog posts like this, I usually just post pictures I have taken when I have been out walking. However this weekend I have actually left my bedroom and done a lot, so I thought I would blog it because, well I can.
So to start things off I went out to a party on Friday, and I wore exactly what I wore to see Micheal McIntyre the other week. 

On the Saturday I went shopping, but there's no pictures of that because It was cold and so busy as everyone was Christmas shopping. However when I went home I opened my advent calendar as it was the 1st December and now its officially okay now to mention Christmas and watch films and listen to Christmas songs. I have a lindt advent calendar which it the nicest thing ever.

Also I had a really nice hot chocolate because its been -2c all day and has been really icey and horrible so it would have been a good day to stay inside but I spent the majority of my day outside!

On Sunday I went to Whitby with my Dad. I live really close to Whitby, this is the place that Dracula got shipped wrecked and had to climb up the 199 steps to the top where there is a church. However due to the recent monsoon of rain we have had, the cliff edge is falling down and these house's;

are now having to be knocked down because their gardens fell 20ft below, onto some flats that my best friends Dad built.
Also there are 2 piers  one you can walk the whole way down, the other only partially  Normally you can just walk up a steep bank to get back up however this time it was so frozen we would have just slid down so we decided to walk along the beech in the harbor as the tide was out and came across these seagulls having a rest. These seagulls are horrible as they come up to people and eat their fish and chips out of people's hands and are pests.

In the evening I went to a winter wonderland charity ball and it was for charity for a girl in my year's gap year next year so she could go to Ethiopia. The theme was prom wear but my prom dress is really summery so, as it is December, I had to get a new dress. Also this was taken in my best friends bed room, which is why it is in a different place.

 However now it is the weekend after and this has taken so long for me to put together and edit as I have been in a mock drama exam all week. It's better late then never! I enjoyed my weekend despite spending all day Monday feel exhausted.

Typical British Weather

These pictures make me laugh. They show typical British weather. These were taken at the beginning of September. Me and my Dad had walked to the church near his house that is from the medieval times, we were going to go and see the Medieval lake that is not far from here, but the rain came, and boy did it fall! The second picture here is grainy because that's rain. It was so heavy that we couldn't see across the grave yard, as we'd had to take shelter in the porch of the church. My Dad went down to the crypt of the church but I refused to go down because it looked really scary. Also on this walk I hadn't brought a coat as we were 15 minutes from my Dads house. We waited half an hour for the rain to subside before we decided enough was enough and started walking back, everywhere was flooded and we had to walk down the middle of a very busy road as we were dodging puddles, all in all quite an eventful afternoon!

The Park in St Alban's

These were all taken at the park in St Albans. I really like the town and last year we went around Christmas when the market was on, but this year we went at the very end of October. The park is really pretty, In it there is the Cathedral where there was a tiny door around the side to (picture 2) and trees and a golf course. Also there is a pond however we did not walk down that far as there is a very steep hill to get down and to get into the town center from the train station we had to climb that hill. It is a very steep hill. After these were taken me and my Dad went to Starbucks and I had a salted caramel mocha (don't mock it till you try it, its actually really nice.) I do really like St Alban's its really pretty and only a short train journey from my Nan's house.

Autumn

As much as I would love to take the credit for this photo, I can't. This was taken by my Dad, but I felt that It should be on here. He spent ages trying to get no people in this picture and he almost did it! I just really like it because the orange contrasts against the greens in the background. It's really pretty. I think that this is such a nice photo. Autumn is my favorite time of year. I love the crispness of the air and the colour of the trees.

Woods in Watford

I took this picture in late May this year. I really like this picture because the gate in the middle gives it some focus. Instead of just focusing on a tree or something, to have in the middle. Due to the time of year, it is very green an you can just see the purple in the left hand side in the center. I really, really like this picture.

My First Try At Editing A Photo

So I have just tried my hand at editing a photo that I took of me on Sunday. I had never given much thought into editing my photos as I thought that the only Photo Editing software out there was PhotoShop. There are many free downloadable ones from just the first page on Google. So I am going to put the original up and the edited one up. I am going to start to edit more of my  photo's before I upload them here. I am going to teach myself how to edit photos through trail and error, so bear with me. I will put up some more landscape Photos this evening but for now, I thought that I would show you my first ever attempt at editing a photo.

The Original 

 The Edited

I think that although I look as If I have been 'tangoed' in the edited one, I think that the colour's of the picture stand out a lot more and the lighting looks a little better, I have three lights in my bedroom as the lights are in odd places, one on my bedside table, one on my desk (that's why there is lens flair) and my actual ceiling light which is over the other side of my bedroom from this picture. I also think that the edited one shows the curls of my hair better because of the dark and light aspects of it. I will practice a lot more at editing and hopefully I will improve. Later tonight I will add some more of the pictures that I have taken out walking, I just really wanted to show you my first attempt at editing.

Loch Tummel and the Surrounding Rivers

The first of these three images was taken at our lunch spot, someone had laid pebbles out on a branch and I zoomed right in and took that picture. I really like that picture because It looks like one that you buy from places like IKEA.
The second of these images was taken from a bridge over a river that connects Loch Tummel and Loch Faskally, I really like this picture because you can see the reflection of the trees in the water and the river flows all through the middle. 
Down stream on the same river there were these small waterfalls as you can see in image 3. I don't think that they could be referred as waterfalls, more like a rapid. These were really pretty, this whole walk that we took was very picturesque. 
All of these pictures were taken with a Nikon Coolpix L310

Walking; Keswick and Kenmore, Loch Tay

The First and Second of these images were taken from a walk I did with my Dad in the Lake District, it was just out side of a beautiful little place called Keswick which we did in June earlier this year. The walk started by taking a ferry across the lake to the last stop where we got off into some trees, I wouldn't really call it a forest! Then in the trees there was a water fall (image 2) as we were walking next to a river, we walked up stream until we can to a crag, where we climbed up. The top of the crag had been mined so there was a lot of slate at the top. In amongst the mounds of state there were the plants (image 1) which gave it a lovely sprinkling of colour!

The last of these images was taken in central Scotland where I holidayed with my Dad. This walk wasn't very long and on the way up to see the waterfall there was a hermits cave that you could go and explore! Then out of the hermits cave there was an other water fall.

Out Walking

The first of these three pictures is from a walk around Gunnerside Gill, it is rich in its mining history however now it is full of ruins and sheep. I like this picture as the sheep is looking right at me. This was taken on a Nikon Coolpix L310.
The seccond and third pictures were taken in the woods near my Nans house in Watford. The third is of a concur case being opened and the third is of some keys that were hanging off a tree. These were taken on a Panasonic Lumix FZ62.

Why Hello there

Hello, my name is Abbey. I am going to start a blog all about my photography. Photography is something that I have been interested in for a while. This peaked when I bought myself my first camera at the age of 17. I am going to be posting the pictures on when i take them! I have been taking pictures before I started this blog so I shall upload a lot over the next few days

This is what I look like. I shall get to faffing with my blog to make it look pretty and then i will upload lots of pictures to it.