10 for one dollar

Culture Of Cambodia




















Street Kids- we were told not to give the children who were selling things money or buy anything from them because it keeps them on the streets. It was very difficult when they came up to you and started to beg and not leave you alone. I found it difficult not to photographs them but I tried not to encourage them to beg. These pictures above are of my tour group being told "10 for one dollar" by two street kids. the girl on the furthest left was so persistent she followed us for about 10 minutes repeating "one for one dollar" "no thank you" "10 for one dollar?" She ended up trying to get on our mini bus smacking at the doors as they closed.

The People

So i have been traveling for 3 months around south east Asia and the U.S.A and thought I would have the time to write this blog but when ever i was on the internet it was contacting home so I didn't keep up with myself. So I'm going to catch you up on the best and most exciting moments of my trip. from the beautiful scenery to my favorite nights out starting from the beginning.


Cambodia was our first stop with our travel tour group through STA Travel Indo China trip. Me Ellie and Bean all set off to meet our group of 15 to be confronted by all lads, we suddenly looked at each other with a bit of panic thinking this was going to be quite different then we imagined (us being the only 3 girls,) we where relived when Niki, Lottie and Puja (three other girls joining us) sat next to us at the table made things feel a little more even. So we where all ready to head of to our exciting adventure to Cambodia...We crossed the border and where smacked in the face with a bit of a culture shock, it was so different from what we were used to, the place suddenly looked a lot poorer and everyone seemed t stare at us a lot.We saw a lot in Cambodia and crammed a lot of culture in a short amount of time.

• Land mine museum- A guy who was bought up as a kid solider who made and planted land mines everywhere during the Civil, now spends his life dismantling them for free (seeing as the government charges thousands of dollars to do one.) He's now disarmed well over a million with a very low budget and the museum is there to support land mine victims.
  
• Children's hospital benefit- a Cellist speaking and playing to raise money for the kids and to bring awareness to the massive need for people to give blood.
  
  
  
  
  
• Angkor Wat- Temples, We saw A LOT of temples, very interesting. I soooo wanted to do a fashion shoot at them but whilst having a tour guide taking you around in what can only be described as unbearable heat! it was a little difficult to organize. I would go back just for those backdrops to have in my photographs. They where all so rustic and interesting.
  
  One of the buildings even had what looked like Picture Framed doors. Each Temple was so complex and beautiful; I would have Loved to stay there longer if it wasn't so hot! What was strange about this day was when we were there everyone stared at us, in a kind way, often laughed at us, a lot of people took photos of us which felt very strange I have never really been a minority in the fact that I stick out so much that I amuse people or that I was that different they wanted a picture with me. kind of felt like being famous or constantly analysed well I guess that's really the same thing

Some of the most spectacular scenes I have ever seen were the Temples that had been crushed by these enormous trees. They shot tomb raider 3 in these, not surprising seeing how out of this world it looked.

• Angkor Wat?- A Bar called" Angkor WAT?" sold buckets (yes buckets full of whiskey), It gave us a chance to get to know the tour group and write all over the walls- leave our mark in Cambodia.

• 
  
  
• Eating Bugs- Spiders, cock roaches, Beatles I couldn't bare the roach but I tried the others tasted like... Chinese sea
  weed Its so deep fried you can't really taste it and that was fine by me.
  
  
• The Killing Fields- the history of Cambodia is so upsetting, It was very difficult to digest. I'm going to honest and say I had know idea of anything that went on over there before this trip which saddens me because it was only 30 years ago and I don't understand how things could have been that bad and I had never herd about any of it. If you don't know anything about it like me basically (this is very brief) In 1975 a horrific and tragic era of Cambodian history began in the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot Led them. He killed half the population, 3 million people. Pol Pot declared that history would begin again in Cambodia. The first year of revolution was now the first year of history. First he killed the educated and Old then he began to get power mad turning children against there parents and convinced everyone was out to destroy him, he and the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed millions of people in the prison and at the killing fields. It was devastating seeing the blood splattered walls in the prison and skulls displayed at the killing fields, what bought it home was our tour guides father had been killed and he was speaking so openly about it. You really saw first hand that this travesty had affected everyone here.

• Floods- The monsoon flood which happened in the space of 20 minutes. Dirty water to our knees which we trekked through so that we could get to our hotel after our coach abandoned us, not only where a lot of people pointing and laughing at us what we didn't realize was that the water disappears in a matter of hours so if we weren't so impatient we wouldn't have risked infection, disease or frankly embarrassing ourselves every time something brushed our leg and we screamed loosing a shoe in the dark smelly water.
  
• Bamboo Island- Beautiful Island In Cambodia, We took a boat trip to Bamboo Island where we got seriously burnt but we snorkelled, swam, all got to know each other really well and had a picnic on the white sands.
  
  This is our tour group:-
  Niki, Bean, Me, Simon, Jesper,Erin (tour leader), Matt Clark, Chris, Lottie,Puja and Jack (Ellie's taking the pic)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • Cambodian Beach Party- The night we were burnt, we drank to kill the pain. Ellie was very funny that night she was full of gangsta poses, chasing lady boys, skinny dipping (kind of) and telling people to "not touch my soldiers"
  
  

I have had a panic these last two days lost my graphics pen :S not so great. I found it in my bed... i have no idea how it got there but there you go. I found it and imediatly drew this picture of Poppy. I love the eyes thats my fav bit :) 

I've been feeling abit useless these last couple of days I feel about 80, waddling like a penguin for no reason it's not like i was out all night dancing or running or even a lil bit of excersise to 

be honest havn't moved that much. Back just went, nightmare.  Atleast I don't need it to edit pictures that would suck! 

I have been watching Glee, Desperate Houswives and Grey's anatomy online man i love those shows. I don't want to ruin any of them for anyone but Izy does my head in (greys anatomy) should have been her not george! she pissed the writers off so they weren't gunna have her leave the show all sad and everyone wanting her back, so they got rid of george instead so we resent izy and they also made her out to be bad and got her to leave the show anyway. hmmm.

Glee is amazing so cheesy but i love it!!! got some fierce singers on that show and Fin is really cute and I LOVE kurt when he does defying Gravity, Brilliant! 

Some more Graphic Tableting

Pofe wanted me to do one of her so I quickly drew this up :)

Rose and Tom 

This is my favorite I have done so far, took me ages

My new Love

My Graphics Tablet!

Took me some to time to figure it out but I'm getting better. I want to link it into the photography more because I have always loved art since i could

 hold a pencil and I love photography, so a way to mix the two is alot of fun but at the moment it's too Illustration. 

my first try playing about

My second time messing about-Me and My Twin (the pic under is the photo)

Im getting better next i will try colour stuff and maybe some landscapes :)

What I've been up to today with my tablet 

Colour version

First shoot on the First day of the New year...

88MPH

I started this new year shooting on Jan 1st 2010.  Crazy I know and it was early in the morning too, anyways I shot a band called 88MPH (88 miles per hour) I did the whole shoot on location, this was before the snow so we where very lucky and it was one of the few sunny days we have had this year, so great news all around! I wanted to do something different in the editing, recently I have been doing head shots and portfolios which is so fun but you shouldn't over edit them, where as band photography you pretty much have free range. so

 Ive tried some new things out some didn't work so much...

I liked this shot before I edited it, I think it's too 

busy now especially with the Tree in the background, your eyes don't know where to look and it just looks messy, i think the idea would work on a plane background with more transparency in the bigger image.

This is me working with my Graphics tablet! I love it so much, (thanks to Andy for showing me how to work it properly) I like this shot and it's dimensions it works well with the effects.

This Was my Fav shot of the day! I think the editing is a simple Idea but works well :)

These were the Bands Favorite Images from the shoot(up and down)

Hello Everyone :)

I have been wanting to create a blog for ages to show my ideas and show people what Im up to all the time. 

New Year, New Beginning's 

Last year I finished college at Leicester College ND in Photography, I loved every minute of it, learned so much and met some fierce people. I came out with DDD and went on to start my photography business full time. I found it difficult to get enough money to save for traveling

Im Going to Thailand, Vietnam, Bangkok and America very excite!

Can't wait to start taking photo's of the beautiful scenery, Im going to 

focus Social Documentary photography as well try and capture the

 culture of the places. I shall also do Landscape shots, possibly 360 images.

        

 I Started working at block buster last year stopped now because the contract ran out (thanks for letting me know) I enjoyed working there (only part time because I was getting photography jobs as well) learnt how to control myself around difficult people which is always a good life skill. I also learnt I really don't know much about films, I thought I did but turns out...nope! Oli's teaching me more, but i refuse to watch horror. Alala

<3 My Twin Left on tour with an Acting company for 8 months Im so proud of her but gunna miss her too much! She was always the Mary Kate Loud one me the Ashley, she was the Tamera and I was the Tia :P I have no idea how Im gunna cope without her, Im gunna be visiting her lots and lots!!! Atleast this gives me a taste of life being just me... which is a lil scary.