Bonjour good people I hope you are well. I know this should be the first of a few festive posts but not only do I have one last instalment of Paris photos to share with you but I'm also aggressively unfestive. I still have my Christmas shopping to do and decorate the house - but when I do I will have a last minutes Christmas blog next week for all you festive elves.


Now that you've seen Paris by day, the sun shall set and I have a few images of night time Paris, which was truly beautiful. Before going, I didn't know it was officially nicknamed the "city of lights" but it was very evident why as the city seemed to sparkle at night - quite literally in terms of the Eiffel Tower which actually had twinkling lights every night. Anyway, lets get to it and see all the loveliness of nighttime Paris...


The first night the three of us decided to venture onto the metro and see the Arc de Triomphe, which towered over us and we spent some time photographing it. I took to experimenting with angles and shutter speeds...


The street lights were very detailed and I experimented with it in the foreground using my cameras built in flash.


I like this shot because you can see the Arc, Eiffel Tower (which we concluded wasn't that far away and proceeded to walk to it) and the Moon, an image I first though had no composition but on reflection i think it shows the golden spiral so it's not to shabby after all.


I had taken all my lenses and decided I ought to use all of them at some point to make use of all the weight I was carrying each day, so I put on my telephoto lens to capture the detail of the Arc. I wish I had used this lens again when up Le Tower but it was simply just too cold and my fingers were beginning to turn numb.



I quite like this shot as it makes the Arc look very large with dramatic lighting from below.



I liked this building because of it's grand-ness and fancy gates, I later spotted a sign that said it was home to Abercrombie and Fitch, fancy!


I'm such a sucker for slow shutter speed photos. I stood here and waited for the lights to go green and the vehicles went into action so I could get this busy shot. The lights in the trees twinkled beautifully and you can see in the background the Eiffel Tower we were slowly slowly making our way to.


Over the road I found Brandon Woelfel's home (if you know you know) with fairy lights smothering the outer fence and bokeh everywhere, I couldn't not capture it!


This was in the restaurant we all went to as a full group, it was a very atmospheric place but they didn't half take their time to serve their expensive food...


There is definitely no reason in particular that I photographed this hotel on the way back from the restaurant... Absolutely not...



The candles at Notre Dame, which we all stopped and took a little moment to light one each, I practically threw my coins at the box to light one for my mom, which I photographed but they didn't come out too well, this is a different cluster of candles.




I don't know what the window reads but I like the soft lights and reflections of this bakery window as we walked past it on the way to yet again, the Eiffel Tower.

After having read a photography book much more recently, I would have liked to try a trick it gave of having a slow shutter speed by a river to get a smooth surface of water, I think the effect would have looked pretty cool with this shot. Unfortunately I didn't have the idea myself so I'll have to experiment with that technique somewhere else.


I love this shot because the buildings and tower point you to the guy with his brolly, which I think is a nice touch. It also made me think of my dad as before I left he reminded me of an artist I had studied at school - which I asked him to print images off for me so I could copy them for the homework - who painted Parisians in the rain, usually with the tower in sight too.


On the first night in Paris we got the metro to the Arc de Triomphe and saw the Tower in the distance and thought "oh that's not too far" *commence the longest walk of my life* - yeah... By the time we got there it began flashing, or as I called it "sparkling"... and then raining intensely.


We didn't stay too long before going to find a cabbie that spoke English to take us back to the warm, dry hostel but with some raindrops on my lens, I got this really beautiful bokeh effect which I love. When we did get back we all sat and gave our cameras some tlc after the rain and thankfully no cameras were harmed - ofcourse I shared my scarf with it before tucking it away in my bag but I gave my lens a good clean once I had changed into dry pjs.


The day after the raining walk to the tower we had Paris Photo, then the day after that we had a free day which consisted of much more exploring, finishing with actually going up le tower...


It was a long wait in the queues but this made for some time to get pictures of the looming structure and more importantly chatting and bonding with Layla and Tayla, who I shared a dorm with (the dorms we well fancy, with a power strip above the headboard including USB and plug sockets and a red curtain just for your bed like a tour bus. It's safe to say I loved those dorms.)


You know me, when there's a tourist telescope, I take a photo of it. And the Eiffel Tower telescopes were fancy af, so of course there were no exceptions. I quite like the line up of this shot too as "the Paris Eye" is kind of aligned with the eyepiece, looking through it, ya get me?



Just before we headed into the lift I spotted the telescope through the structure, and I took the opportunity to hurriedly take the nicely framed shot.


I spent quite a while at the top - until my fingers began to numb and it slowly became harder to use my camera. I remembered me and my mom freaking out over the height and feeling it wobble, standing with our back firmly against the wall inside.




I walked around the top level a few times, taking in the view, photographing different areas with different settings, and of course getting in a bit of bokeh. It was very impressive at night and really showed off this "city of lights"



I have more photos of Paris at night, as well as some of Paris in the day from walking around, which I shall share with you soon. I hope you have liked this post, do let me know which images are your faves.

ALSO I hope you like my new blog layout, which I lovingly worked on instead of writing last week. I attended to every detail, from a little "B" icon for the tab, down to links and a brand spanking new logo - ooh get me! Do let me know if some things don't work so I can fix them if need be but I hope everything runs smoothly for you and it's much less busy for your eyeballs :) I like it very much.

Hello my good friends and how are you this rather sunny Saturday. I have been dreaming a lot lately, and by dream I mean that life you live in your sub-consciousness while lying down in a fortress of comfort when there is no blue in the sky. One time I thought about the whole concept of sleeping too much and now it seems insane. Like when you say a word over and over and its as if you've just made up the word. Think about it now for a moment... You dress yourself in special clothes just for this one activity and lie down on a platform padded with comfort and warmth, just to lie unconscious for hours. It's just a bit bloody bizarre isn't it?!

Anywho, yes, I have found myself waking up to my alarm, the loud noise stealing me away form this second life I was living. And when I turn off the irritating sound I get confused. Why was I in that place - that looked like three different places merged together, doing that thing with those people? Most times I tell my dreams to my best friend Gemma, but ALWAYS I type my most elaborate dreams that I remember the most into "notes" on my phone, to write up later in a notebook I own. I have a few to transfer to my notebook but it's strange how even after that morning as I'm rewriting the events of my dream, I can still picture it in my head.

Dreams fascinate me. What they mean and how they make you feel. And most of all how real and tangible they feel in the moment, but then you wake up and it's totally disappeared. Blows my mind! Sometimes I like to search what my dreams mean online to find out why the heck a volcano made an appearance for example. (turns out I was due an emotional "explosion" - I cried over college two days later so that was pretty accurate) I'd love a book about dreams, either explaining them or even a dream dictionary so I can search up the meanings of my dreams there, who doesn't love a book to hold?

I've had a few recurring dreams - and nightmares - in my life, which I find all the more odd because your sleeping mind takes you on the same adventures twice. I shan't go into my childhood nightmare as it still creeps me out to be honest, however one recurring motif of some dreams has been me, my mom, and aeroplanes/airports. We're either running around the airport looking for our flight or my dad and brother. Or actually sitting on the plane that's taking the strangest route, including going in between mountains and trees. Apparently airports signify birth (arrivals) and death (departures), I interpret this as the departure of my mother and the arrival of a new life without her. These air related dreams happened in the first year or so after she passed. I still don't like the D word

Anyway... I encourage you to write down your dreams. The ones you remember and think about all morning and the ones that are wild and elaborate and feel so real. Even short ones or random ones you can only remember snippets of, because it's interesting to read back on and have those images flooding back to you. Seeing the randomness of your thoughts and stories that you mind makes up for you like a movie for your sleeping self is amusing. I like to laugh at my subconscious logic, like when I took off the break of my car (which I don't have in real life) so it would crash down the hill and make a loud noise to distract the zombies from where we (myself, Coleman, Gilligan, Annie and Gemma) were walking through the forest. Or the casual swimming pool in the middle of an arena, which I had to wade through to get on stage and dance with All Time Low. I literally have no idea, but I find it so interesting what adventures your sub-conscious takes you on while you're in between days.