Featured on VSCO weekly selects

Last week I was scrolling through my Twitter time line during a break in some Commonwealth Games sporting action and happened upon a picture collage. Inside that collage I thought I recognised one of my very own snaps. "Nah, it couldn't be! Could it?".

It was a picture collage posted by the @VSCO twitter account (above) and included a link along with the picture collage to a feature they do called Weekly Selects. I clicked in it and scrolled down to what I was sure was one of my snaps and YES, there it was. My name!! I knew it! This was the picture, below. The staircase from the Jim Lambie exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh.

Now, incase you don't know what VSCO is or who they are, here's some brief information. VSCO stands for Visual Supply Co. According to their website "VSCO is passionate about creating beautiful and efficient digital tools for the modern creative." Amongst the products they have is one of the many photography apps I use on my iPhone - VSCOcam. If you don't have it on your phone then I highly recommend you download it now as it really is a comprehensive photo app with many features and filters that you can use to tweak your photos to make them look their best. I tend to use it for the good stuff. The stuff I want to keep and post to my VSCO Grid - which you can view on the web version of VSCO. 

You can find and follow other people's VSCO Grids too but as far as I know you can't 'like' pictures in the way that you can on Instagram. I don't mind that though since you tend to get a better quality of picture over there. Well, less pictures of food and cats and certainly no selfies (yeeha!). At least I haven't seen any selfies on there.

I was overjoyed by this and RT'd it and thanked them very much for selecting me.

About an hour later I got a notification that I'd been tagged in one of their Instagram pictures too. (They tag all of the people they feature). That was very cool. But soon after that I started to get loads and loads of notifications of people 'liken' my pictures and following me there. I don't know how people with thousands of followers who regularly get millions of likes, cope. Turn the notifications off I suppose.

I thought I'd share my little brief piece of fame on the Internet with you. I know it's not much but I was thrilled and I've only been using it a short while. I've been on Instagram from the very beginning and still haven't had one of my photos featured anywhere by them.

What are your favourite photography apps? I'm always looking for new ones.

Angela x

Help! I'd like a new camera

BandW boy (Dan Rubin), shot and edited in VSCOcam on iPhone 4S, by me. Glasgow Photowalk, Jan 2014.

I need your help?!

Ever since I went to the Glasgow Photowalk workshop back in January, I've been trying to decide which camera to buy that will become my new companion. Most people at the workshop had some sort of DSLR camera and if i'm honest i always wanted one of those but was never sure quite why. I suppose I thought it took better pictures. Reality is that it's not the equipment you use it's the picture you take. Sure, I mean if you're a pro or even a semi-pro then I'm sure a DSLR is very useful. But for me, a hobbyist with a keen interest, I just wasn't sure what I was after. By the way, I like the way the subject in the photo above is not dead centre.

A few weeks ago I went to Jessop's. I was annoyed because about 1 minute after entering the shop and before I had the chance of a proper look, a sales guy was all too keen and eager at asking if I needed any help. I mean that is fine and all but wait a few minutes at least so I can catch my breath, tut. However, after a few minutes having a look myself at what was on offer I asked a girl for some more information. I told her i wasn't sure i wanted a DSLR. What I did want was something that was good in all light conditions, especially night time. I wanted something small, perhaps with interchangeable lenses. What I really wanted to say was that all I wanted was something that could take good portraits and those fancy schmancy torchlight word pictures in the dark! But you can't say that in a photography shop without looking like a twat. I had an idea of the kind of thing I was after. Someone had mentioned the Fuji X100S to me. Small, but not too small though. No interchangeable lens. But oh man, it looks great. The price is a little steep mind.

The sales assistant didn't once suggest it to me. Instead she showed me a DSLR (!) and a Sony compact model. Great in low light, she said. I had a play with both and took a few pictures. The Sony did feel better in my hand. I has small hands. However, she really pushed the DSLR and was banging on about all these bells and whistles it had and that I should take this as my first one. I let her go on. I probably shouldn't have. She priced everything up and recommended their photography workshops, the insurance, a scabby bag, a spare battery and a memory card. £699. I didn't have the heart to tell her i was just in to see it and i'd probably buy it off the internet for much cheaper. I mean the memory card alone was double the price in the shop. Why would I buy it there.

I left there none the wiser and not hopeful that I was getting what i wanted so i wandered to John Lewis to see if their choice was any better. After 20 minutes of hanging about waiting on the one guy from the photography section finishing with a fussy and demanding customer, I told him what i wanted. That i didn't want anything too big, probably not a DSLR, and guess what he showed me? Almost the same DSLR and the same Sony camera. Would you even believe it? I mean would you...

a selection from John Lewis

I uhmed and aahed again and was really hoping that he would have good solid trustworthy advice for exactly what I wanted. I left there after another few goes with the cameras.

Ignoring my camera-buying urge for a few weeks I managed to get my hands on a smallish DSLR to try out for a week or so. I liked it. I liked the pictures I took with it but there was something not quite right. I didn't now what it was until I decided to take it along with me on a trip to Glasgow, and then I realised. There was nothing missing. There was too much of it. It was too big. Even this small model was still too big for what I really wanted.

I LOVE my iPhone because it suits the type of photographs I want to take. Random, ad-hoc, on the move photos. Photos that just appear in front of you. I'm not a professional photographer. I don't feel I need nor do I want to be carrying a bulky DSLR around with me. I do however want the ability to take great photos. To be able to whip my camera out of my bag and take a picture. I don't want to have to carry an extra camera bag about with me, or extra lenses. Do I really need a zoom lens? No. My feet are my zoom. I am inspired by pictures on the Instagram or VSCOcam apps and those are photos that are mostly taken by phones (I hope!). That's the kind of thing i'm after. Mobile photography that isn't on a phone but a bit more advanced than my normal point and shoot - a 'compact system camera'? That's all.

I'd be really grateful if you could help me. Reading lots of reviews online about different compact system cameras and they range in price from £400 - £1000. I like this review of a Fuji X100S...

It's all about the picture, not about bogus sales features. The X100S has no BS HDR modes, yet its Voodoo sensor and electronics let it render insane dynamic ranges naturally and instantly, and its built-in flash is always perfect — and never needing to pop up or wait to recycle or any of the other hogwash that other camera makers spray out to get between us and a good picture. All the other baloney helps sell cameras to non-pro photographers, while the X100S is as perfect as any digital camera this side of the iPhone 5 has ever gotten.

I think that says a lot. I want it to be about the picture, not the size of my zoom or how many lenses I have. Talking of lenses. Whilst i was at the workshop for the Glasgow Photowalk I was surprised and glad that Dan recommended that you use one lens to take pictures for the first few months, to get to know your camera and how it works. Dump the standard lenses it comes with he said (or something along those lines) at least for a while. Then the 'nifty 50' was mentioned. It's apparently really great as this post mentions and a photography enthusiast colleague told me. Low cost, lightweight, great for travelling, killer bokeh, what's not to love. And look what she says on zoom lenses - great for sports or weddings but you can always just walk that two feet to get a new composition with your prime lens.

Not bad for an iPhone. Shot and edited in VSCOcam on iPhone 4S.

Having said all of that I'm still at a loss as to what to buy. These aren't cheap models by any means but i want something of quality, relatively new to the market as I don't want to find out that 3 months down the line they're bringing out a 'newer' version with more features. Although I gather that new cameras are always coming out. I want to take low light pictures, night time, inside, outside, portraits, fun torchlight word pics, manual setting, not fussed about a zoom lens, wifi connectivity might be an advantage but it's not a deal breaker. Buying a camera is a personal thing. It has to feel good in your hands too. You have to want to take it out and shoot because otherwise you're not going to take those pictures and capture those moments with all of your heart. I keep going back to this but i really do love my iPhone for this but now I'm ready to up my game and get a grown up camera.

Help?

Angela

Glasgow Photowalk

A few Sundays ago I headed to Glasgow not for my usual Sunday cinema trip but for a photowalk and workshop with a bunch of strangers. Standard. This was arranged by Ashley over at Girl With A Camera and since I couldn't go to the first one, I sure didn't want to miss this second one. Armed with nothing more than my iPhone 4S I made my way there.

I was late. Only by a few minutes and only because the queue for the car park was looooong, then i had to catch the underground. But I did make it and they hadn't started yet. Phew. When I arrived there was a room of people sitting in dim light on various shapes of seating, kinda like a house party! I took a seat and waited a few minutes. Then it began...

Ashley welcomed everyone and introduced today's guest, Dan Rubin. Someone I actually have followed in Instagram for a while. Great photos there. He gave a little talk about what we'd be doing, then about some of his favourite photographers, then techy stuff about cameras. Myself and one other person were the only ones using smart phones - iPhones to be exact. Yikes. Everyone else seemed to have huge all singing all dancing camera equipment with them. It was all very interesting though since I am in the middle of deciding which camera to buy and what use i would get out of it. (As is the norm for me, I'll have to go through my 6 month uhming and ahing research and gestation period before i nail the final one down. By which time a new model will be in the pipeline!). Anyway, I felt a little bad for just having my iPhone but then Dan said it doesn't matter what equipment you have, it's what you see that's the main thing - or something along those lines. He put a list of apps that were useful for phones and luckily I had almost all of them on my phone already.

After about an hour of slides and tech talk and pointers about what to talk pictures of we set out on our walk. It wasn't raining but it was dull and grey. No harsh sunlight though which was apparently good. We wandered out into the lane and everyone set about taking their pictures. It was good to see how other people worked and what they wanted to take pictures of. Some were portraits, others were buildings. Me? Well I like looking up. Buildings, skies, clouds, architecture. Portraits are quite hard on an iPhone unless you are able to use your elbows to get to the front. My elbows seemed to be out of action that day...

However, in the lane next to the workshop venue there was an old bike, a worn old crumbling painted door and a great wall. I took one of my best pictures there. What do you think?

I shot this on the VSCOcam app, then edited it later on at the workshop after a few hints and tips from Dan. It's my best picture form the day, or one of them at least. When I uploaded it to the Glasgow Photowalk Flickr group then opened it on my laptop, I loved t even more. The quality is pretty decent for a 3 year old iPhone 4S camera.

We walked around Ashton Lane, the headed to the University of Glasgow and back around in a loop to the workshop venue. I was glad as it was getting pretty cold and my hands were numb from taking pics on my phone. My battery was almost at zero too! Damn you iPhone and your rubbish battery.

Back at the venue we got sandwiches and tea and then were told to each pick about 3 photos to edit. I had a hard job deciding. In the end I opted for the bike shot above and the two below.

Not a bad days work and a great way to spend an early spring Sunday.

Hopefully I can make it along to the next one. And you can too! check out the website.

Angela x

Embedding Instagrams

Testing testing.
Testing out the Instagram embed feature. Hope the photos are of decent quality and size...
you decide...






Edit: I've just done a preview and the pictures look pretty nice (except for the user name at the top, but i'll forgive that).

Angela x

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No Words Wednesday

my new chair...perhaps

Angela x

Photo by me taken with my iPhone 4S. Edited using Pixlr Express app

No Words Wednesday

Rainy days and sunsets...

Angela x

Photo by me using iPhone 4S and Camera+ app

May Photo A Day Challenge

Tomorrow's the start of the May photo a day challenge. What with it being May 1st and all!
I am seriously loving this project and can't thank @FatMumSlim enough for the monthly lists.

You can get further information about the list and the al important hashtag over at her blog here.
And now for the list!

Angela

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Face-Stagram

Yes, that's right, according to rumours will be the new hip place where all the cool kids hang out on t'internet - Face-Stagram! Okay, okay so I lied but it's just over a week now since the announcement about Facebook buying Instagram was made and I'm glad the dust has settled.

my home screen: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Camera+ All the my fave apps

It was inevitable that someone was going to buy Instagram. We live in a more visual world than ever before and images are everywhere. Instagram made it easier to share lovely pictures with people across the globe. Adding one of their filters means that even the most kak-handed of us (not me btw!) can post decent enough looking pictures. Our brains process pictures in a different way than words. A famous example is the TV debates between Nixon and Kennedy. Radio debates showed Nixon in the lead, but when they hit TV Kennedy was an outright leader in the polls. He was a master at the little facial expressions, and I think he even wore make up! So you see people judge on site first and foremost and so pictures are real popular.

I've been an avid Instagram user since the week it went public back in October 2010. At the time I only followed a few people I knew on there but slowly over the 2 short years I've built up quite a good little visual playground for myself in the form of my Instagram feed. It's sitting at 205 just now, deliberately much less than Twitter. For you see I don't want to be bombarded with every Tom, Dick or Jason's silly pictures. I've collated a number of cool people and brands from a range of backgrounds and locations across the globe. Aside from Twitter, it's the first place i check each morning when I wake. I like to see what's gone on around the world via the varying images from numerous time-zones. I like to see the photos that have been captured lovingly or on the hoof. Maybe it's my natural nosiness inside.

Anyway, back to the deal. A Billion Dollars. $1Billion. Let's not think about that too much. After all it's not a truck full of cash delivered to the Instagram team is it. There'll be shares and the like. Maybe? But why did Mark Zuckerberg, seemingly on a whim, buy Instagram for that much money? Probably not data, let's Face it they have pretty much cornered the market with that one. Mobile Photography is more like it. Rumour has it (not sure where I got that from) that the deal was done in two days! Zuck to Kev: I wanna buy Instagram, how much will it cost? Kev to Zuck: Errrrr...(leans back in chair and plucks a number out of thin air) A billion?.... (laughs like a child who's just swore for the first time) Zuck to Kev: Okay then! Where do we sign?. Kev: (falls off chair, rolls over, does the dance - you know the one, scrambles back onto the chair, clears his throat) Deal!
And so the deal was done. I'd like to think that's how it went down. In my mind it happened like that. *winky eye face*

Everyone's gone mobile #SadDigitalCamera  ~ Taken on Instagram

So, why did he buy? Mobile! Mobile photography. Mobile. Much has been said about the rubbishness of the Facebook mobile apps and that the photo interface has, until recently, been pretty bland. But now, look what they have. Potential new Facebookers? (we'll come back to this later). I don't know about you but i certainly do hit share to Facebook on some Instagram photos. It even puts them into an Instagram album automagically. I mostly use this method because they're fab pictures of my nephews and my family only follow me on Facebook, especially ones who stay far away. So I like to share those moments I've captured on Facebook too. But it's easy now to with a smart phone and a decent app, enter Instagram.

Some people got a bit hysterical when the deal was announced. "I'm leaving Instagram" was the cry. Well I'm not. Some people were posting links to new photo apps, but the beauty of Instagram for me is the simplicity, the ease of use, the fact that you can follow people and they can follow you, you can share to most social networks (well that ones that everyone's uses lets face it), the filters are pretty (who remembers the astro filter?!) and it was the original. And I like that. It's not always about the next new thing, it's about the original.

One thing I didn't like was a i read a tweet from someone who claimed that 'creatives' like them would all leave and a certain faction would be left. Hmmm... Just because I don't work in the creative industry does not mean i am not creative. It was a silly tweet from someone who has posted no more than twenty photos, if you're lucky! Grrr. Sometimes the downright snobbery in social networks gets right on my nerves. There's a lot of it around.(another post maybe).

mobile photography

I'll end by saying Congrats to the small but perfectly formed Instagram team! I hope that the statements from both Instagram and Facebook are upheld and they don't tinker about with it too much. Perhaps a few extra filters? Perhaps a better Facebook mobile service? who knows. But just like Darcy told Jones in the movie... I like it just the way it is.

ooh! Before I go perhaps you might want to have a watch of this video I found about 6 weeks ago. It's Kevin Rose interviewing Kevin Systrom (co-founder of Instagram). Interesting, inspiring and well worth a watch. Love his thinking behind Instagram - hits thoughts about the early days, focusing on photos only, with XProII being the first filter. Turns out that was a great move!

Angela x

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Blogging mobile-ly

So my attempt at going totally mobile to blog didn't quite work. What am i talking about you may ask. Well, if you check the post right before this one Photo Week 1, you'll see that I'm going to start blogging my iPhonography photos on a weekly basis. Photos taken that week on the iPhone using various apps such as Instagram, iOS camera, Camera+ and any other decent apps i come across.

After figuring out that my best option to transfer photos from the phone to the iPad using Dropbox i set about with that post. I put a few photos together into frames using PicFrame app and published the post. It looked good. Yay.

Except not yay. I looked at it today on the computer at work and on there the pictures are fuzzy and out of focus. Why? Maybe i need to make the settings 'high def' when putting them into the frame app? If you know shout out.

So my attempt at doing everything mobile didn't quite work out. I'm currently typing this on the laptop. Which is fine but when i attempt to use Photoshop to do the framey thing where there are loads of pictures in one picture, it takes an age. Approximately 45 minutes for one simple photo. Reason being this is a 5 year old laptop with hardly any free space. It runs really slowly now although cosmetically it looks new. Grrrr....

I thought i'd broke the mobile blogging ducks back but i can't upload fuzzy pictures. I'm leaving them on the previous post so you can see what i mean. But for next week i must try to find a solution to this. I could always do a post with separate pictures in it but that would be mega long. You'd turn off.

If you've got any tips, leave me a comment. Please, thanks!

Angela x

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PhotoWeek 1

It's a bit bare around here these days. No photos. Lots of words kinda bare. So I thought what I'd do is do a post once a week with photos from my week. Now, you all know that I love taking pictures. Mostly on the iPhone these days so...the photos that I'll put here will probably all be from my iPhone. I can't even tell you the last time I got my digital camera out. I must do that soon. Also, whilst we're here. I'll tell you that the pictures will be a mixture of my Instagram images, standard iPhone camera app images and images I've taken and edited using the Camera+ app (I love this app). I've been a busy bee yesterday and managed to figure an easy-ish way to get photos from my iPhone to the iPad without too much hassle or without waiting on my five year old laptop heating up. It's really very slow.

The images will be bunched together in little groups, again using apps on the iPad like Picframe or Diptic and I may further edit them using Snapseed or something like that. Just to shoosh them up a little.

Without further a do. Here' set number one. I hope you like them.




A cupcake, sticky toffee pudding, clouds, curry.



Lanolips new lip balm, matching nails and shoes, cinema toilets, new Zara bag.



The sunset sky as I came out of spin class on Wednesday. Top is blurry effect from raindrops on the lens, bottom is with a clear lens.



The sunset in my car mirror (I had stopped when I took this), cloudy sky, hills on a clear morning.

Let me know what you think!

Angela x

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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I Love Instagram: let's play nice

So Instagram's android app was released yesterday. Yay. More people to join the community. Or so you would think. But today and even later last night, I read tweets and stories about how 'iPhone' people are angry at the thought of 'Android' people being on Instagram. How very fucking idiotic can you get eh? There's also those who just criticise it without taking the time to have a look and see what it's all about. Granted, there is loads and loads of shite on there, as with every other social media platform you get. But the cream always rises to the top and you can choose who you follow, so if you don't like their photos don't follow them. Simple. In the same way that if you are seeing Instagram links in your Twitter feed, because the natural thing to do is to share these photos in several different ways, well if that bothers you then don't click the link to view the photo. Simple too.

In saying that there are a few tiny things that bother me about Instagram. In fact it's got nothing to do with the Instagram app itself because I love it and have been on there since day one, but it's the way people are using it. Kevin Systrom (Instagram CEO and co-founder) said recently "We've been very careful about making sure that Instagram photos are about what's happening right now in your life, and we want to allow for more of those photos to end up on Instagram regardless of where they're taken."

And therein lies the thing that niggles away at me. More and more people seem to be taking the instant nature away and are uploading photos that are not in the moment nor are they happening in your life right. In fact they are most probably scenes that happened months or years ago. And more often than not they are photos that have quite obviously been taken with a digital camera or SLR, tweaked, uploaded to Instagram and tweaked even more. And that bugs me. It just niggles away for some reason. The pure, instant, happening right now nature is then taken away and for me so is a little bit of the magic in most of those photos. I mean they are quite good photos (most of them), there's no denying that, but the fact that Instagram is a mobile phone app, whether it be an iPhone and now an Android phone so to me I couldn't think about taking a pre-shot photo and loading it. Use Flickr or something for those shots! Maybe that's just me though.

Whilst we're here I should also add that many many many many lists and lists and lists of hashtags (#) is a bit naff, to say the least. I know that you tag things so that other people can see them but how many actual #Instagram hastags do you need on a photo? Here are some examples #Instagram #IG #Igers #Ignation #bestphoto #igdaily There are more but #popular is also used too. Now, there is a Popular section on Instagram. I'm not sure if using #popular tag gets you on there or how they pick them. Edit: i've just checked the Popular section and can confirm that none of the photos i checked had used the #popular tag. Surely it's up to your followers (or likers) to make your photo popular?.... Less is more people, less is more.

Anyway, I've gone too far on the things that bug me. Rest assured that Instagram along with Camera+ are my two favourite iPhoneography apps. Love them. And let's not start little cliques of Android versus iPhone users. That's just plain silly. We are all in this together. Play nice.

Angela x
Instagram ID: Ange77H

April photo a day challenge

It's that time again for another photo a day challenge from Chantelle over at Fat Mum Slim blog. I actually love this series and cannot wait to see the whole collection at the end of the year. I'm trying to keep them all on my flickr account but i mostly upload them via Instagram (@Ange77H is my username there).

Anyway, enough talk, here's the list. Join in. #PhotoadayApril is the tag.

Angela x

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Photo A Day Challenge: March 2012

I cannot thank Chantelle from Fatmumslim enough for highlighting the Photoaday challenge. What started off as just January has now made it's way into March and she says will last all year. I am so loving this project. In mid February over 250,000 photos had been uploaded using the tag. Fantastic.

Last year i did try to do my own photo a day challenge but i didn't have a list to begin with so i kind of lost my way. I love that it's there on a list that i can check every day and compose, take and post my photo. I love different people's interpretations of the daily topics. It's great to see things through different eyes.

I'm trying to keep my Flickr page updated with my daily photo and mostly posting the photos via Instagram too, which helps. Why not join in too! Here is the list for March. My birthday month and the month the clocks go...forward? backwards? i always forget.

Happy snapping.

Angela x

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iPhonography with Camera+

As you know I'm a huge fan of Instagram, the app for iPhone that lets you capture moments and upload them straight away and share across your social networks. In all truth I'm just a big fan of iPhonography itself and if you ever get near my iPhone you'll discover 3 folders (which contain 16 apps) filled with lots of different photo apps. There's cameras, Adobe express, framing apps and generally anything to do with enhancing and taking pictures using the iPhone. On my home page, nestling in the corner beside Twitter and Instagram you'll find Camera+, another amazing iPhone app. It cost me 69p about 2 years ago and for 69p you get a whole bunch of iPhonography lushness. The app is produced by Tap Tap Tap and was given an overhaul last year. Introducing new filters, a better zoom and focus and for me it's just so easy to use. I currently have 200 photos saved in the app itself in the Lightbox, so good they are I can't bear to get rid of them once saved to the laptop.

In the app there are different camera settings such as...
SCENES - including clarity (love this one), portrait, scenery, auto, flash, fluorescent and more.
ADJUST - to rotate and flip the picture
CROP - to crop
FX EFFECTS - this is where you'll find 3 different folders. Color. Retro. Special, and another called Analogue that you have to pay for. Inside each folder there are 9 different filters. They are all great in their own way. A few of my favourites are vibrant, tail fins and Lo Fi, fashion and so emo.
BORDERS - are just that white, black, thick, thin, viewfinder, grit and the list goes on. All nice borders.

The camera has a stabilizer and burst setting. Admittedly I've not used that one that much but I'm getting there.
Lastly you have the Lightbox where all the photos you take are stored. You then have the option to save to the iPhone camera roll. Of course there is the option to share your pictures to your social networks (Twitter and Facebook), SMS, email and Flickr account.

Over on Mostly Lisa's blog (Lisa Bettany, co-creator of Camera+) I read a great post before Christmas about how to make the most of the app when capturing Christmas memories. Read it here. These are a couple of pictures I think I managed to capture quite well.

cute Santa ornament and tree

a little bokeh effect on the tree lights

And here are a few of my favourite photos I've captured on Camera +

before

after adding filter

Christmas present ceramic cupcake

before: no filter

after: Fashion filter

One of my all time favourite pictures. The detail on the droplets is amazing. 

I love a cloudy sky picture

Again clouds, just before a summer rainstorm hit

And so if you really love iPhonography, my advice to you would be to go out and spend 69p on a fabulous app, Camera+. You won't regret it. You can see more of my photos on the Camera+ website HERE.

Angela x

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Photo a day challenge: January 2012

Yes. That's right. I'm going to do one of those photo challenges as mentioned in the title. Simply because I love taking pictures. I may not be a photographer with all the equipment but I have an iPhone and a digital camera and that'll do me nicely. We all know i post loads of photos everywhere.

The challenge is over on Fatmumslim blog. See all the details here. What I'll do is post my daily photo on Twitter, Instagram, with Camera+, on Google+ but I'm going to collate them in a set in my Flickr account. See the wee box on the right hand side of this blog. The hash tag to be used is #JANphotoaday so that everyone who's taking part can see. And now for the challenge.
Listed below.

photo credit: fatmumslim.com.au

Hit that link above to Fatmumslim blog and you'll see more details.

Hope you enjoy.

Angela x
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Five Things...

So I opened up twitter this morning and there was the usual mix of morning/breakfast/exercise/travel/weather tweets. If you can navigate your way through this river of greige, you can always find a few gems hidden. Like, there was also the much tweeted link to the little ditty played by Zoe Dechanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I decided to watch it and it was sweet and nice. I've followed both people here, well over on Twitter, for a while. They're quite good value.

In addition there was a post over here by @Whatleydude. Have a read. I decided that I'd try the five things list on this blog, after all, yesterday in my Mission 2012 post I did say that I'd like to get this blog going again, make it huge, and we all know I like a list! So here it is... Except it's not quite five things, it's from the past year so it'll be a little longer than five. Next week will be the five things list. Ok enough. Let's go...

•  Multicolour trousers - mostly from Topshop. Awesome. 
• Ryan starting school and getting on fine, what a relief. 
• Meeting Miss Laura Woods. An amazing person and friend. Also on that same trip south in February I met lots of Twitter people who really we're lovely. It can happen. 
• Getting fitter and losing weight. 
• Hello size 8 little black dress. Okay dresses. Plural. I bought two! 
• Three beaches in one day with Surfpunkian. Awesome awesome day. Thanks dude. 
• Finally meeting MisAKis. Fun, bubbly and lots of great stories about social media 'darlings'. Haha laughed so much. 
• My first Illegal Jack's. I'll be back. I did. A few times. 
• Loving painting my nails. With glitter! Me! Glitter! WOWSERS how times have changed. 
• Cycling 55 miles from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Fantastic feeling. 
• Giving blood for the first time. 
• Becoming unofficial aunty to baby Kai. Gorgeous. 
• Weekend cinema trips. A sanctuary. The cineworld card has been a godsend for me. 
• Favourite movies: Drive. Sherlock Holmes. 50/50. The Hangover part II (obviously). 
• Elemis skin nourishing body cream. Smells gorgeous and keeps my skin soft and err nourished. 
• Twitter. My love affair with it will never end. Not for the foreseeable future anyways. 
• Baking cupcakes. Several good attempts. 
• Seeing brilliant Twitter friend @pyllon finish one of his races. I was going to say "for the first time" but what I'd mean is I saw him race for the first time. He's raced loads. And done very well, thank you very much. These are no ordinary races, oh no, they're across tracked up and down hills and are usually never any less than about 50 miles!! No mean feat. 
• Meeting Miss Karlie MacGregor. A wonderful person. Damn straight. 
• My love of spin bike class. I can't miss any now. Except I am right at this minute missing one, but you get what I mean. 
• Seeing Mr Neil Fox (@drgonzolives) perform at the Edinburgh Festival with his fab Great Brain Robbery comedy mates. What a laugh! 
• Finding fabulous blogs to read, like Whatleydude's. I've nearly finished reading all the away back James!
• New Red Converse. Only my second pair in two years. I think I deserve another and I think I found them today! 
• Buying my iPad 2. Finally. Although it may be going on sale soon. I love it but... The screen thing still irks me a little. 
• The joy I had doing my walk with Instagram back in October. Me, my iPhone and Instagram. Walking around Edinburgh. Good day. 
• Taking the boys and my sister to the National Museum in Edinburgh. They had a ball. 
• Seeing Kings of Leon at Murrayfield in June. Sounded just like the cd. Great gig. 
• The Killing (Danish version). I love that programme! 
• My trip to London in April. Three days exploring that fab city. The weather was brilliant too. I'll be back.
• My trip to Philadelphia in August. Ok ok it wasn't the real Philadelphia but Glasgow. The film set for a new Brad Pitt movie. Hope it's good when it comes out. 

So that's a few of my most memorable good things from the past year. Next week it'll be just five things from the week. It'll hopefully be a regular post. If not, shout at me!

Angela x
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My Hipstamatic Week

Hipstamatic in case you don't know is a really cool iPhone photography app - commonly known as iPhonography. I've had it for ages and i love the different film, flashes, lenses and camera cases you get with it. I've amassed quite a few pictures. I love playing about with different iPhonography apps and with this one you can even get your photos printed off and sent all the way from America. I've had a pack, they're pretty cool. Here's my week in Hipstamatic photos, Saturday 24 September - Saturday 1 October... enjoy! (picture heavy post ALERT!!)

New Converse RED - my sparky shoes

Edinburgh Castle - from behind

Princes Street barriers

jewel encrusted tiger in Harvey Nichols

favourite drink

navy nails

poorly Connor

new gym programme

Castle silhouette

what?...

Those feet again

too much Coke in Illegal Jack's

Dumyat

for you...

dangerous tree?!

yum

Halloween window

Angela x

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