Birthday v.25

Mid twenties. Officially. Bit weird. Am I a proper grown up? This time last year I had a proper grown up job but now I’m a student again… except for when I’m teaching, because that feels really grown up, you know? Anyway, this is getting a bit deep – I’d much rather tell you about all the fun birthday stuff. It’s a bit long, so hit the jump if you’re interested…

For some reason, this birthday was very camera-oriented. For a start, I treated myself to a Nikon fit adaptor and Diana+ 20mm fisheye lens during my pre-birthday session in Manchester. The Lomography shop was closing down, and had everything marked down for clearance… kinda kicking myself for not buying a film camera, but the sensible part of my brain knows I was better off being a little restrained and only getting fun bits for the DSLR. I’ve yet to play with this lens, but it’ll be coming to Barcelona in April that’s for sure.

Along similar, plastic lines, Dan got me a Holga turret lens and let me have it a day early so I could enjoy messing around with it before my hectic birthday week of extra teaching and self-imposed deadlines. It’s a fun plastic lens, with magnetic turrets that give me crazy coloured effects, and really cool split and close focus abilities. The photo of me above was taken with one of the colour filters, but check out this triple-image shot of Iggy –

She’s holding a miniature Diana F+ Glow camera, also purchased from the Lomography store in Manchester. It’s the perfect size for Blythe!

The final camera related gifts came in the shape of a Lensbaby Composer Pro (with the Sweet 35 optic) from Dan, and a Creative Aperture kit from my sister Victoria. I’ve not been able to play with the aperture discs yet, but my god… the Composer is incredible. I have a lot to learn, but it’s already very enjoyable to play with. Here’s a quickie of Astrid (who is waiting for pull rings) and another of Dan’s cat, Pumpkin.

Loving this lens so much… though animals (and children) are super-hard-mode subjects. Like I said, soooo much to learn with Lensbaby, but loads of fun doing it.

Dan baked me an incredible almond and nutella cake too, in the shape of Battlestar Galactica. Turns out soft cake and very wet frosting don’t necessarily make for the best cake for carving into shapes, but are super delicious. The cake was sprayed with edible metallic paint. Boom.

The hangar deck was most delicious, much like the birthday meals I had with my parents on the Monday night and with my darling Catherine later in the week. Catherine spoiled me with a bag of many delights, including perfume and nail polish. Girl knows me too well.

It is late now, and I am tired. Well done if you read this far! Normal doll-related service will resume shortly, I assure you. Lots of PhD stuff keeping me busy at the moment, so much so that I’m behind with A Doll A Day again. Whoops! 😳