April Roundup & 365

A Spot of Tea (110/365)

After three months of not doing much (seriously, why is everything closed during the beginning of the year?!) I actually got out of the house a little more during April.

Very little more.

Still, I have things to write about in this roundup that go beyond rambling about April's 365 Project photos.

As with March, unfortunately some of my plans this month had to be postponed or cancelled, which seems like a fact of life at the moment!
However, I'll catch up with people soon enough.

Despite the cancelled plans, I had some fun this month, both with activities and with photography!

So without further waffling, here's how my April went...

Queue (92/365)

I started off the month being a Boring Adult Person and dragging out a bunch of spring clothes from storage. I store out of season clothes in vacuum bags to save space and keep moths a bay, which unfortunately means everything needs washing and/or ironing before I can wear it!

I wasn't sure what to photograph this day, until my sister said, "Photograph the washing!"

So I did ;)

Spring Morning (96/365)

Usually when it comes to not knowing what to photograph, I've found I often end up taking pictures of flowers!

At this time of year there are quite a lot to choose from; looking back it's interesting to see how the flowers and blossoms have changed over the month, from daffodils to cherry blossom, to apple blossoms and a heckload of bluebells!

Open Up (91/365)	Open Arms (97/365)
Mirror Flowers (104/365)	Face of Stars (105/365)

I photographed Mirror Flowers in response to a tag challenge on 365 Project. The idea is to take a photograph based on two random tags found on the browse section of the website. I got 'mirror' and 'flowers', and wasn't particularly inventive...

Blossoms (101/365)

Apple Blossom (109/365)

April was the month that I bought a new lens for my camera! It's a Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 DG Macro lens, and though I'm still getting used to it, I've taken several shots with it already, using both the macro feature (as in Face of Stars, above) and the normal settings.

Twenty (93/365)

 I ended up going shopping to Brighton twice in April, once to buy some things for photography (little army men, balloons, googly eyes...) and once to spend some birthday money!

Special Ops (94/365)

Eye on You (106/365)

Herbie-vore (107/365)

The googly eyes have been the most used of all!

Alongside the army figures, in April I also received an order of 100 1:50 scale model figures (once again, for use in photography) and spent an entire day painting some. My eyes felt so weird after focusing on these tiny people!

Dino Discovery (115/365)

Predation (117/365)

I shot the two images above with different lens setups. Dino Discovery was shot using the macro feature on my new lens, whilst Predation was shot with my 18-55mm kit lens and a macro conversion kit. Each setup definitely has its uses!

When it comes to Actually Doing Stuff, my middle sister and I did our first boot fair of the year towards the end of the month. Unfortunately she doesn't have a lot of Sundays off this year, so we won't be doing them as frequently as before, but we did make around £100 between us! 

My share is almost enough to pay for a half-decent tripod, but I'm putting it towards the summer's anime convention!

As if I'm some kind of glutton for punishment, after wearing myelf out at the boot fair, the next day I met up with a friend and we went on a long(ish) meandering walk in the Sussex countryside.

As it's spring, a lot of the animals on nearby farms have their young, so we were treated to the sights of lambs bouncing around the fields, and the occasional calf (though I didn't manage to get photos of baby cows, only big cows...)

And of course there were alpacas. Who are always super-cute and fun to look at, and always hanging around near the footpath.

The Dust on Your Feet (111/365)

Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye (99/365)	Sun Dozing (113/365)
Curly (114/365)	Visitor (116/365)

Aside from flowers, nature in general is definitely one of my 'fall back' subjects when it comes to photography. It's all around me, so I don't have to look very far to find a cute pet, a tiny insect, or a visiting goose!

Oh Balls! (118/365)

It was my birthday at the end of April, and my middle sister had sneakily arranged a surprise bowling party, inviting along our parents and one of my friends! I'd expected a day out somewhere with just her and her boyfriend, but suddenly people started turning up! 

It was fun; we went for a meal after the game (I was second to last. Hurrah!) and I swapped bowling balls for meatballs!

 My parents had to leave after the meal, but the rest of us went back to the bowling alley to take full advantage of the arcade there, where we gained not-so-many prize tickets (I won a slinky!) and my friend and I made fools of ourselves on the DDR machine. Great fun!

Tiny (119/365)

As for my birthday itself, I went shopping again and spent some of my birthday money, on things I don't need, but wanted (like donuts, and manga). 

I was totally spoilt on my birthday, and received lots of awesome gifts--makeup, chocolate, cute bedding, and books! A friend gave me a clip on lens kit for my iPhone, which comes with wide angle, macro and fish eye lenses. I was eager to try it out, and took the photo above using the macro lens (it's the smallest coin I could find, a remnant from a long-ago holiday). 

It's really impressive how well it works! 

A Gate to Another World (120/365)

I took this photo with the clip on kit too. This is a piece of moss agate I've had for a while. I love it because it looks like there's a seascape inside! 

Daydreamer (100/365)

As I wrote previously, in April I started on a new photography project, State of Mind. I won't write all the details again here because it's in the other post, but as I included these shots as part of my 365 project, here they are again:

Inflated Ego (102/365)

Discombobulating(103/365)

Poisonous(108/365)

Idealist(112/365)

I still have more ideas for this project, but they need developing further before I shoot them.

So watch this space!

Bubbles (98/365)

Thanks to gaining new photography equipment, this month I was able to take photographs using a wider range of setups than before, adding my new DSLR lens and my even newer smartphone clip on lens kit to my photography stash! It's nice to have a choice of things to play with, and the clip on lens kit will definitely come in handy for when I'm out and about, but don't want to lug my camera along.

Gathering (95/365)

That's pretty much it for the things I 'did' in April. 

It's not much, but it's still considerably more than previous months. 

Now we're in May, I have Brighton Fringe Festival to look forward to, and have tickets booked for several events over the course of the month, running into July! 

I will have things to blog about, yay!