Through the Lens

I've always really been into photography and even more so now I'm back to blogging regularly and wanting the perfect photos to accompany my posts, also through using Instagram about 204 times a day to upload quality photos which I carefully work on to capture.

I remember once a group came into school to teach us photography and I fell in love with it and really put the tips into my photos. Actually, from that lesson with them, they picked one of my photos I took to be entered into a competition and placed in a local gallery and I actually won the competition which really boosted my interest.

I have this thing where if I see something I imagine how it will look through a lens and in a photo, how to capture it at the right angle and save its beauty.
For me it's not all about sharing it over social media for attention, it's an interest, a passion.
And now something I'm going to take up even more regularly to capture things I see daily of any interest and find the art right in front of me. I plan to spend days taking off outside with my camera exploring through the lens and capturing whatever catches my eye, especially now as I moved and have a whole new place to explore. I also want to learn more about actually taking photos, what all the little buttons and settings on my camera actually do and how to capture light, darkness and everything in between.

I recently took out my camera and tried many settings and lighting and positions, playing around with what I could see and how it comes out through the lens. It also helped I have a poser of a boyfriend and the most adorable dog.

I hope to share my journey of photography here on my page, as even at the beginning if you look closely enough the first photos that may seem blurry/unedited/out of focus, well they can still be art.

My Birthday in Paradise

After the most hectic 6 weeks of college, I was glad my birthday came around as it's on Halloween so always on holidays, perfect for a chill day. My parents had brought our car up to us during the week (long story but so instead of getting a bus home I could drive) and I was dying to get back on the road and just go on an adventure outside of town. We heard quite a few recommendations of Glenveagh National Park which turned out to only be 30 minutes from us and I knew that is where we had to go.

Every single year, EVERY year, without fail something goes wrong on my birthday with friends canceling either the night before or the morning of my birthday so it's always been a bit of letdown, and of course it happened again this year a friend who was meant to come with us canceled but it wasn't his fault and I was determined to not let it spoil my day so me and my boyfriend headed off early to enjoy our whole day there. 

I can not speak enough words of how incredibly beautiful this place is. I really felt like I was in a completely different country (picture national parks in America) with huge stoney mountains outlining the breezy cool lake with trees covered in all of the autumn colors. That's what really popped for me was the colors, we were lucky with the time of year we went, autumn was everywhere. 

What I mainly went there for was the castle, which is insane having this castle in the middle of nowhere... I mean hello Hogwarts. So we choose the 4km walk to the castle which says a lot about how incredible this place was as I hate walking with a passion but did not want to miss a second of this beauty by getting the shuttle bus from the carpark, although we did on the way back because we were so wrecked. 

After the magnificent walk, we finally got to the INCREDIBLE castle and it was like stepping back in time as musicians played old medieval tunes and we walked the wall gardens, pleasure gardens and around the courtyards.  Every corner of the gardens was beautiful from little Indonesian statues to carved wooden huts to view the grounds from above while we sat like the Lord and Lady we are. We took lots of little paths around the grounds including one that led up to 167 (more or less I can't quite remember) steps which was closed off but still you could walk around it and it gave an amazing view down on the castle.

Sitting in the wooden hut with my favorite person in the middle of the Donegal countryside surrounded by magnificent mountains, a chilly Autumn breeze, smoke billowing from the castle chimney and an accordion player in the glasshouse was one amazing way to spend my birthday.

After discovering the boathouse down by the lake on a map I knew I had to see it because (sorry letting out my inner nerd here) it just screamed the Harry Potter games where a lot of time was spent at the boathouse. This one was incredible as it looked out on all the mountains and it seemed like it was a rooftop swimming pool. Nearby there was also a bird display with a white Tawney owl... Hello! Hedwig.. for Halloween which was really interesting and incredible on the castle grounds (just like a Hogwarts lesson). 

To make the day that bit more incredible, as we sat in a long wooden hut (just like the bridge that Neville destroys) a little robin sat directly in front of me for quite some time checking us out. I have always believed robins are your loved ones in heaven letting you know their nearby and my nan always used to sit and watch them so I believed this was her coming to wish me a Happy Birthday 

Apartment Tour

I knew as soon as we moved in I wanted to do an Apartment Tour Post, to share our lovely little home as we made it our own and also to look back on in years to come at our very first home together. Our little apartment is on the top floor of a 5 story block and we're very lucky (minus all the stairs) of how it is placed so high as the ceilings are all high (needed for 6ft+ Richard) and spacious and were kind of tucked in up here, not as you would expect it.  Now we all know of room tour videos on Youtube (I actually did one back in the day) and they look amazing and more easily done but I'm gonna try fit all angles into photos.. leaving the messy corners out of view of course. 

I'll start from the very beginning, although I guess technically the very beginning is outside the front door but just inside the door is our hallway which I've really been destined to be a proper hallway where we take off our shoes and hang our coats.  One thing you will notice a lot in these photos is a number of mirrors, I think we counted about seven in the whole apartment, but they were hung before we got them were not actually being vain, and they do make the rooms seem bigger. Beside our mirror, I have a gorgeous little buddha I was given for good luck and some candles.

Off the hallway to the left is the kitchen/living room/ dining area. I do love this space, it may seem small to some but to us its cozy (once we keep it tidy). We're starting to spend a lot of time in here now doing computer work in the evenings or cooking dinner and it really is a busy little room. 

 The kitchen is possibly the most organized area as there isn't much actually storage space everything needs to have somewhere to fit. We won the lotto with our amazing Landlord as he had bought all brand new applicants for the kitchen and they do really make it look more modern.  A lot of what is in this area would be in some of my previous posts on the Homeware Haul and Home Organizing.






The Living Room/ Dining Room area, including Richard, is just off the kitchen. Again the redecorating aspect of this area is in a previous post but I haven't really shown the layout. We moved the armchair to be a sort of divide between the living room and dining area and make it a bit cozier along with the little coffee table.

 In the window space where the armchair was when we moved in, I've set up my study desk. I'm an organized person I think everyone knows that at this stage and I like to have a designated area to study and keep my college work.  I think I'm possibly one of the most relaxed students in the country with this little study area right beside a window for fresh air and fresh mint plant growing beside me, relaxing me. We only actually finally got the curtains hung up today and I had this lovely blue sash to tie it back with. Along with some nice photos and candles in the window the desk its self is pretty self-explanatory with college notes, folders and stationery. 

From the hallway to the right is the Bedroom.

The bed, of course, is the main thing here and is really the center of the whole room but as we are the top floor we have this statement windows which are quite nice little areas of the room too.

One little area I love has these small drawers and I immediately thought of it being a Book Nook, an area to sit back and read in while the daylight shines in on you. I've laid our spare blankets and pillows on top of the press to sit on (and also have nowhere else for them) and I think it's just a cute little seating area looking out over the busy town.

Across from the bed, I hung some little decorations on the wall just to brighten it up a bit and it makes it a bit more of a statement wall, also in the corner is Rich's guitar (yet to learn how to actually play it). 

By the other window is another set of drawers which I use as my vanity table and the window ledge as our bookshelf for now as its the biggest window ledge that books can fit in. The view from this window isn't as great but it does bring in great light (gosh sounding like a right old one now).

Of course, we also need a wardrobe, which is by the door followed by another mirror which is great for full-length, seeing that outfit you just tried on, and we keep some spare shoes on top. 

Next up is the adorable bathroom which I really love as its perfect size for both of us and actually has a bath which is amazing for after stressful college days. If you're wondering about the picture, it was in the living room but we had our Family picture to hang up there so we found this screw in the bathroom and put it there as a joke, but it actually makes it look quite fancy. 

The apartment was kind of laid out like a showroom when we moved in and there was all of these drawers, laundry baskets and even little soaps laid around so it was handy for us not needing to get very much and also having the place looking really nice. I really like the storage unit in the bathroom as it's handy to keep towels (not very tidily in the photo) and also use the top as you need it, I usually place candles along it when I'm having a bath. 

So that's our little home, what do you think? I really love it here, it suits us both so well and were really lucky to have gotten such a nice place for our first ever home without our parents.