partyin', partyin', YEAH.

The last few weeks have been pretty hectic! After Lewis & I got back from Hevy Fest I've been caught in a flurry of parties, gigs and other more stressful things such as A Level results.

Those two photos are of myself & Katie and myself & a nice lad called Chris who we met a week ago.. It's odd how my social life works, because the people I meet on a night out are normally then the only people I end up going out with for a good week or so, I've been sat in the Folly all week with Chris and Callam!

last night was ANOTHER Kids Cant't Fly gig at the George- the fourteenth time I've seen them.. The once again played an awesome show, little bit gutted they didn't play 15th time but got to dance along to some old favorites and have another listen to the new stuff. Unfortunately Brom got way to drunk- something he promised he wouldn't do after the Ruins Of Earth gig- but it happened and it wasn't nice to deal with.

I also had to go and collect my A Level results yesterday, not a good start. Thankfully I wasn't depending on them to get in to university or anything, it was just a kick in the teeth that I've failed both Photography + English Lang. But Rob thinks I'll be able to resit English in January :)

In On The Chase @ The George, Andover

I'm opening this post with a photo of me and the beautiful Hannah Bolsover, In On The Chase vocalist extraordinaire! She's a wonderful musician and knows what she's doing behind a mic.

I think I got pretty lucky being good friends with a local band that are doing well for themselves- even luckier that they like my work.

As always they put on a brilliant show! Hannah gave me all the shots I was hoping for... It's just been so long since I last photographed a gig that I forgot that you don't always get to fully enjoy a show you're photographing. When I was a bit younger than I am now, about 14/15 and I decided I wanted to get in to music photography, one of the main things that swayed my decision was that I'd basically be being paid to go and watch shows. Once that's happening (minus the pay of course as I'm currently being paid in booze and soon ~hopefully~ merch if I can twist some arms) you quickly discover that you don't always get to enjoy a set as your mind is definitely on other things. I was thankful to my friend Katie though as she offered to photograph a song or two so I could have a nice little dance with Sav :) .

This is one of my favorite shots I've edited so far... unfortunately there was an issue with my camera battery so I didn't get to sort out the settings as well as I had hoped, that paired with the fact I was using a Nikon instead of the Canon I'm used to also didn't help. I was stressing out and panicking some what as I had planned to use the opening bands set as a chance to sort out camera settings + levels etc but when the battery died and I had to leave it behind the bar to charge I had to make do with the fact I'd be using a flash as to not miss the first two/three songs of IOTCs set as these were the songs that really got the crowd going and that's what I needed to get the shots I was hoping for.

Haven't finished editing yet though and I've still got a mountain of images to go through and edit... so here's hoping they all turn out satisfactory!

This first photo was taken by the wonderful Marianne Harris, a music photographer I absolutely idolize. I almost died when I saw I was actually a little bit in one of her photos- okay, I understand it's nothing but the corner of my head in the bottom left corner but I love it anyway purely because of who took it. That and I definitely enjoyed this bands set (Polar) more than most others I saw this weekend... They played an awesome set and this just put the icing on the cake for me. You might not understand my obsession but go check out Marianne Harris' work (www.marianneharris.co.uk) and you might understand it a little more?

The second photo I'm actually posting, with myself in it, and it's one of my lovely lovely boyfriend swearing at me! Poppy took this of us at Hevy Fest at the weekend, I remember being told to lean in to Brom to get a photo of us, and Brom & I doing everything but leaning in just to be awkward... I'm not sure how we ended up with this photo though! It was such a mental weekend though!

"who IS the ketamine cow?!" - hevy fest 2011!

I had an incredible weekend, after we queued outside the fest for 4 really hot yucky hours. But once we finally got in at about 7/7.30 we had to hurry and sort out our stuff + tents etc so we could catch Giants(who were just brilliant may I add)then got a lil bit merry and watched Tek One. Unfortunately I didn't really get to see them and I’m totally gutted but from what I could hear they were awesome!

Zebrahead, Four Year Strong + Defeater literally blew my mind. I’m so glad I’ve finally got to see Zebrahead and they were amazing! So much energy on stage, it was ridic. FYS were amazing, they really got the crowd going… and I’ve just got no words for how brilliant Defeater were, I am honestly lost for words.

Polar + what I saw of Ghost Of A Thousand were awesome, but I got really really ill a few songs in to GOAT’s set so I missed there last show :/ and I missed Architects aswell because of how ill I was… but bless Brom for staying in the tent with me during Architects set :( and NO, no I didn’t see Touche Amore & La Dispute because I to busy watching Zebrahead.

Proper list of bands I saw;
Giants, Tek One, Polar, Ghost Of A Thousand, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Hang The Bastard, Bastion, The Afterparty, Defeater, Zebrahead, Funeral For A Friend, Four Year Strong, Heart In Hand.

Yeah, all in all I had a really good weekend.. met some awesome people, went to the zoo with Andy and Adam which was rad ‘cause me and andy just spent absolutely ages in the gift shop playing with all the little toys.. :3

The nights were ridiculous! One night I was woken up by a pretty large group of yoofs chanting about finding 'Milky' and 'Little Kid Do Something' then we woke up the next morning to Brooks tent covered with Red paint or something down one side with 'THE KETAMINE COW WILL STRIKE AGAIN' it was pretty weird to say the least!
Then on the sunday night there was a thunder + lightning storm so Brom and I hid out in our tent til it passed then went on a rather intoxicated hunt for Chris for AAAAGES- only to find out that he was passed out in his tent.

All in all I actually had a really good weekend, I'm real glad I was convinced to go... best weekend I've had in a loooong time!

Festival Food

Yesterday was the day Brom (my boyfriend) and I had to go in to Asda to buy all our stuff for Hevy Fest this weekend. Considering I've never been to a festival before it was pretty exciting, even if a bit stressful, particularly towards the end when we had a trolley full of shopping and no way of getting it from Asda to my house, then from my house to Amesbury.

It all worked itself out though and Max was nice enough to come and pick me, Brom and the shopping up and we spent waaaaay to long getting lost trying to drive back and then trying to find somewhere to get some food.
All in all it was a good night though, seeing as I got to spend the night with Brom and it's got me quuuuite excited for the festival.

:)

New blog? oh go on then...

This is my least favorite part of starting a blog- and trust me, I've started a few in my time. I never know quite what to write, should I tell the few of you that may read this about myself? Or just leave it because it's all stuff you'll find out by reading my blog... But if I don't then what else am I supposed to write?

I guess I'll go with your standard brief overview...

I'm Ash and I'm your typical 18 year old girl. I drink, smoke, party, I like to pretend I can make music, take photos + make films.

The best things in life are free. Apart from the really good gigs- those are always worth a few quid.
I just like chillin' out with the people I love basically.

Yeah that's about it.

So this new blog of mine is just going to be me talking about what I want to talk about, nothing to do with my tumblr unless I take photos from here to there etc... Hopefully some people might be a little bit interested in what I do so on and so forth :)