CAMPING ON FILM

Hello there and welcome to a little bonus blog post on this fine Sunday afternoon.
I hope you've all had a bloody gorgeous weekend!
If you follow me over on Instagram you'll know that last weekend I went camping to the gorgeous Shell Island in Wales with a great group of pals for a little weekend getaway.
Having never been camping just for fun before it felt like the perfect weekend to take full advantage of the gorgeous weather we've been having here in the UK.
Typically, when we arrived the heavens opened and we had a rather soggy tent situation for the duration of our stay, but it was still a bloody fabulous weekend regardless.

I took this opportunity to dust off my passion for film photography and have a bit of a practice run with my new film camera, the Olympus Mju II, the camera everyone recommends for beginners.
I used to shoot on film and develop my own images in a dark room a hell of a lot back in college when I was studying photography but haven't played around with it since.
So, with that I picked this baby up on eBay last week and took it on it's first outing to Wales.

I thought I'd share with you some of the shots that I captured whilst in Wales. They're not brilliant, they're certainly not perfect but they're raw and real, they feature real life in the moment moments and they bring me such joy to look at, truly capturing our fun weekend getaway.

Shell Island is a beautiful coastal town in North Wales, just a 3 hour drive away from where we all live in Manchester. We loaded up the car, the new Mercedes A Class A180D that was kindly loaned to us to test drive for a week, something George was naturally extremely excited about. It really is a great car and pretty damn gorgeous too, it was insanely comfortable for the long drive to Shell Island filled with all our camping gear, two dogs and four humans(!) As I am still yet to learn to drive, the driving was all down to George and he assures me that it really is a belter of a car, he's actually pretty heartbroken to see it go, boys and their toys hey!?

But anyway, I'd highly recomend Shell Island for a little weekend getaway if you're into camping. It's a really adorable place with everything you could need on site. It's right by the beach which was important to us all when selecting somewhere to spend the weekend and we actually struck gold with the rest of the weekend's weather with everyone (aside from me *smug face*) getting a little sun burnt...

We explored, we played games and we ate A LOT of BBQ food and ice creams washed down with Prosecco and IPA, it really was the dreamiest of weekends with the best company, aside from Peter & Nancy being a little out of sorts and in turn YAPPY AF!

Sometimes it's really great for the soul to get away from everything and do something a little out of your comfort zone. To ware barely there make up, have no access to hair straighteners and mirrors and to simply dress for comfort and for the weather, with no real styling involved.

I returned home feeling so wholesome, full-filled and happy and I really feel these un-perfect shots document the weekend so beautifully.

I'm really excited to get a photo album or a scrap book and set to work at starting to create things to share with my future family.
I've wanted to get into film photography again for SO long in order to document key moments, trips and experiences in a way that is more physical than a quick iPhone snap.
I want to have photographs in my hands to share with my children one day and I'm SO excited that I'm finally doing it!

I truly hope you enjoyed this rather impromptu bonus blog post and I'll see you on Tuesday as usual for another one.

x M