Experimenting With Our New Camera - Olympus Pen EPL 8

I'm diving into my photo archives once again for this post. There's no particular theme to this one - just a few cool photos I took while experimenting with my new camera that I wanted to share!

Back in November, I finally decided to take the plunge and invest in a new camera. I've been using my little Sony one for years and I figured it was time to step it up a notch. After doing a lot of research, I finally settled on the  Olympus Pen EPL-8. I wanted something that was fairly compact but that still had the option of using different lenses, so this one seemed perfect. 

After much discussion with my photographer uncle (it was so handy getting advice from him although his recommendations were definitely on the very expensive side - which I guess is to be expected), I decided to skip the kit lens that it usually comes with and instead invest in a few prime lenses - the  17mm f1.8 and  45mm f1.8. They were pricey, but they are really really nice lenses that I will use for years to come. I've been blogging for 4 years now and have been using my same little camera this whole time, so I decided it was finally time to just take the plunge.

These also seem to be the lenses that a lot of fashion bloggers use, so I figured they would probably be perfect for how I plan to mainly use them! I do also want to add a zoom lens to my collection at some point - it would have definitely come in handy while we were travelling!

I won't go into all the details about the camera because I am no photography buff, but I am really enjoying playing with it and (very slowly) learning how to use all it's different features.

This year I'd really like to learn more about photography so I can make the most out of my new camera. I'm happy to say I'm no longer shooting solely in automatic mode but I still have a long way to go!

So that's it for today!

Hope you're Sunday is off to a great start! I'm just about to do some  Yoga With Adriene now!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

The Foodie Post - Breakfast at the Margaret River Bakery

A visit to the Margaret River Bakery is always a must whenever we find ourselves down south, so after deciding spontaneously to take a (very) short trip with my family this weekend, of course we had to stop by!

It's such a cute, quirky little place with mismatched furniture and an eclectic mix of colourful crockery, fun table numbers and of course fabulous food!

While they have a great selection of pies, rolls and yummy sweet treats, their breakfast menu is always my favourite. I was torn between choosing a number of the items - like the Avocado smash (which my mum had and loved), the Canadian pancakes or French Toast, but ultimately settled on their Granola with greek yoghurt and berries, which was not only delicious but also had the added benefit of being particularly photogenic ;)

Their Mango smoothie (that was actually green) was a winner too and my little sister Bella had the breakfast smoothie which she thoroughly enjoyed. My Mum tells me their Kermit Green Smoothie is also a good'un.

Tom had a long black (which was "okay but nothing to write home about" - although do note that Tom's a bit of a coffee snob!) and a pepper steak pie (their pies are always delicious!) 

Delicious food, a lovely relaxed atmosphere and getting to spend time with some of my favourite people - a pretty good way to spend a Saturday morning :)

If you've never been before, The Bakery is definitely a place to add to your list (just keep in mind that they're closed on Sundays!)

Hope you're having a great weekend!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

My Travel Diary - Vlogging in Berlin!

Hello Hello!

Firstly - Happy New Year! I can't believe this is the first post I'm doing in 2017 - somehow time has run away from me! (I'm always saying that aren't I?)

Tom and I had a lovely start to the year as we were still away on holiday, and we've just been settling back into "real life" over the past week or so.

I was planning for my first post of 2017 to be something about New Years Resolutions/Goals, or at least a bit of a recap of the past year (I always love reflecting on all the highlights), but I haven't quite gotten around to sitting down and really planning that out yet so instead I'm sharing a few of the vlogs I made while we were on our Europe trip! - starting off with Berlin!

There will be plenty of photos and Travel Diary posts to come, but it's going to take me a while to sort through all those photos so I thought I may as well share the videos here on the blog in case anyone happens to be interested! 

To be honest I do cringe a little at the thought of people watching these, but I had such a fun time filming and editing them and it's great to be able to watch them back and remember what we got up to and what an awesome trip we had. 

I figured I should just suck it up, try not to worry about what anyone thinks and just put these out there! Especially seeing as my word for this year is "Confidence" - this is a good start to putting that into practice!

1.

Off to Berlin

2.

Berlin Walking Tour and Christmas Markets

3.

Mauerpark Flea Market and East Side Gallery

4.

Tiergarten and Christmas Markets at Schloss Charlottenburg

Have you been to Berlin before? I'd love to hear what your favourite places to visit are as Tom and I really enjoyed exploring this beautiful city and would love to go back one day!

One of my absolute highlights (which I didn't actually vlog) was meeting up with a friend that I've made through youtube - Jenny Traumerin. It was so fun to be able to meet up and connect with someone who has so many similar interests to me and that lives on the other side of the world!

The internet is a pretty amazing thing really!

I was also lucky enough to meet up with the lovely Rachel from A Nesting Nomad while I was in London too! (So Rachel if you're reading this - thanks so much for taking the time to meet us!) Her travel blog is amazing so you should check it out if you haven't seen it before!

Meeting up with these online friends really reaffirmed to me that I should keep up with this little hobby of mine. I feel like it fell by the wayside a little in 2016 so hopefully I'll be able to put a little more love into the blog this year as it's something I really enjoy!

Hope you're having a great night (or day!)

Thanks as always for stopping by! 

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx