#(and thanks ;v; hopefully it's a quick fix and I get the blog back)

[ossacruenta]

@highfivethesky commented

" is that the best you can do? "

( cups @ the devil n sorry about your y!marik blog hope it revives -sends support && cookies- ) ✧ Assorted Questions ✦

"Do you really want me to do my best?" He is currently observing his claws. . . should really get them done again, "You're brother isn't here to talk you out of being reckless."

[dfenestrate]

hello all! here’s a quick reflection post on this blog in 2018 and more! 

STATS

max milestone reached for followers: 500

max milestone reached for notes: 9000

MY TOP 5 POSTS

1. x 9452 notes; lol i definitely cracked myself up a lot while making this. also this post is a rare example of moments when i know how to caption

2. x 4012 notes; another one that cracked me up a lot. i just love him, man. and it’s hard not to notice such strange parallels when you’re watching all his shows on constant repeat for “self care” 

3. x 3541 notes; so i see a trend with posts that make me laugh a lot. these three are pure idiots and that’s all i can say 

4. x 2710 notes; the COLORS in this one. hoooo boy im in lOVE (although my eyes at night aren’t) 

5. x 2534 notes; this one was my first bold text/type of set like this. really REALLy liked making it haha

MY TOP 5 POSTS I LOVED THE MOST 

1. x 246 notes THIS ONE! THIS ONE IS ART! IM SO SURPRISED I MADE THIS! there was a LOT OF layering and collaging and OH MY!

2. x 4 notes (dudes wtf?) THIS ONE????? I LOVE THE WHOLE OLD PIC THEME BC IT’S MY CHILDREN THE GUARDIANS AND THAT’S THEIR BRAND AND THEY WERE TREATED IN A WAY THEY DIDNT DESERVE IN IN FINITY WAR AND NOW IM EMOTIONAL AGAIN

3. x 71 notes this one was v funny and it was the first time i played with saturation and one prominent color. idk kinda wished it got around more

4. x 69 notes guys? this one is REALLY pretty

5.  x 32 notes i worked VERY VERY hard to fix THE COLORS of this damn MOVIE and i understand it was made that way for a certain reason but still it was a NIGHTMARE and this came out VERY NICELY plz give it more LOVE

POSTS THAT DESERVED BETTER; or, in other words, posts that didn’t get the traction that i had wished that they would get 

1. literally all of the ones mentioned in the “posts that i loved” section

2. x x x x x literally all of my 5sos posts :( although, i do understand that at the time i was posting them, i was p new in the new face of the 5sos tumblr fandom lol rip. hopefully next year i’ll be able to interact more with my fellow 5sosfam (rip ill cringe that was v 2013) 

3. x x x x x literally all of my gotg posts :( this i do not understand :( although i am felling a little of an exaggeration of what i should fell but lol gotg are my ultimates so fight me

4. x x the few pvris posts :( again, same thing with the 5sos fandom, only i think the pvris fandom is quite small on tumblr? so that kinda made it hard to find people to tag for the gifs :( 

4a. x this gifset was of a collab pvris did with tonight alive and it was v pretty :(

5. x x x my few fantastic beasts gifs lol rip i think i just giffed them too late in relation to the waves of gifs created from the trailer for fantastic beasts 2

CONCLUSION

overall, i think it was a fairly good year. at least, it was a fairly good first half in terms of productivity and whatnot with a vacant second half of the year. i’m terribly sorry for that. college and mental health were my priorities and unfortunately tumblr fell short of being integrating in my routine. i’m working on it now, and hopefully we’ll see some results soon! 

in terms of gifs/edits, i improved A LOT given the fact that i started end of last year. as you saw above, i had a lot of good ones i’m proud of. with that come gifs that i’m not too happy with, mainly because of the amount of time i spent on them (too much) ( x x x x x ) and their end result. i have a PLETHORA of gif ideas (even some from last year) that i have to get to. some of them are certain time commitments, and that has definitely waned my enthusiasm to make them. 

never fear however, for 2019 is a new year! i hope to come back with a bang with better gifs, MUCH BETTER CAPTIONS, and hopefully a lot more interacting with y’all. thank you for an amazing first “official” year of making gifs (i’ve been on this site with this blog for over 4 years and have just started contributing to this mess)

once again, happy new year! 

[peachhplum]

WHAT'S THE BEST CAMERA FOR A BLOGGER, CONTENT CREATOR OR INFLUENCER?

Without fail one of the most frequently asked questions to me about being a content creator is 'what camera do you use?' or more specifically 'what camera should I get?' so here's the tell all about the first camera I got as a blogger and then what I upgraded to and why. FYI - I bought all of this stuff, no freebies. 

IF YOU'RE A COMPLETE NEWBIE

It goes without saying that if you're a complete newbie to blogging or content creation then you don't wanna invest all your money into equipment that you're not even sure how often you'll use or how to use properly yet. The cameras on new smartphones like the iPhone, google pixel, Huawei etc seem to be incredible quality and you really can get some great images from there with a little editing and tweaking in 'post' (that's what photography people call after you've taken the shot). Some of the images on my insta feed are still iPhone snaps. I just use Snapseed to deal with any imperfections and edit slightly. Snapseed is great for basic editing tools such as brightening, adding contrast, sharpness etc. You can also fix the 'temperature' of the images (if it's too yellow for instance). Then I use a stronger filtering app like colorstory to give it a filter or 'look'. Sometimes just a quick correction on Snapseed is enough - the overly filtered look is pretty circa 2015 and the modern look is clean, crisp and almost unfiltered.

Here are some shots that I took on my iPhone 8+

IF YOU'VE DONE THE WHOLE SMARTPHONE THING FOR A WHILE AND WANT A PROPER CAMERA NOW

I would suggest the Olympus Pen EPL-8.

It was made with bloggers in mind so looks great for starters but also packs punch inside a little camera that portable enough to take anywhere and not look completely obnoxious (no one wants to photograph their food with a giant whopper lens unless you really are giving no fucks, but in which case I think you're pretty cool tbh).

It's what they call a 'micro four thirds' camera which means it has a smaller cropped sensor. this may sound like gobbldeygook but all that means is it takes lower resolution photos. But that's fine for web and instagram. If you want much higher quality you may want to upgrade, more on that later... 

Anyway back to the EPL-8. Here's why it's great for your first camera. 

It's affordable (around the £400 mark for basic kit lens and camera body)

You can buy additional lenses to swap around (gets you that lovely soft blurred 'bokeh' background that everyone is so into though personally I'm kinda over it), these lenses are also affordable, starting from around £120 (secret - lenses are what start to make your pictures look way more pro!)

It's dinky!

It's easy to use - even off automatic 

It has wifi enabled so you can send pics straight to your phone

You can film on it too

The screen flips down for selfies and up / around for overhead shots (the screen flipping down can be V annoying if you want to Vlog though as it gets in the way of a tripod, just a heads up)

I thoroughly suggest at this point investing in a two day course to learn the basics of photography. It'll help you get off automatic mode and have so much more control over your images. You know like when you're in low light and it is blurring all the pics? There is a way to stop that. But you need to know how the shutter speed, ISO and aperture all work together. Once you get your head round it, it's actually very easy! I did a two day beginners course at the London Institute of Photography and it completely changed my photography for the better. The course is £195 and worth every penny!

Here are some images I shot on the EPL-8 with various lenses on my travels last year

and here is a video shot on the Olympus...

This was my exact olympus setup...

IF YOU'VE BEEN SHOOTING A WHILE AND WANT TO UPGRADE TO SOMETHING MORE PRO

This was the situation I found myself in recently. I'd been shooting with the Olympus for a while and started to reach the limits of what I could do creatively with it. I wanted to do a lot more flash photography and I had learnt about editing with Lightroom (thanks to LIoP's course that I've been doing) and so I wanted higher resolution images. I also wanted higher resolution video as I'm doing more filming and crisper, more pro images. After extensive research I went for the Fujifilm XT20. Its a lot more expensive (£849 with basic zoom kit lens) but sooo worth it. 

Here's why!

It's still quite small (though the lenses can add bulk)

It has higher resolution images than the Olympus

It shoots 4k video

It has a mic input line (something that really bugged me about shooting video on the Olympus as you had to rely on the ambient sound from the camera mic)

I liked how it looked and 'felt'

It has an viewfinder! The Olympus doesn't, it just uses the digital screen which is fine for a while but I wanted to really get inside the photographs and to me a viewfinder helps with this

The lenses were a lot more pro and gave much crisper images

It has a traditional hotshoe (this is where you connect a flash. The Olympus you could only use certain flashes and hotshoe connections)

The white balance is better (I found the Olympus struggled slightly with any yellow lighting situations)

I lost a the flippy screen from the Olympus (Fuji has one but it's not quite as good) but overall the pros far outweigh the cons (well, the one con). 

Here are some photos that I've taken on the Fujifilm XT20 with an 18-135 zoom lens

and here's a video I've shot on it (the sound isn't great as I didn't have a plug in mic at this point)

This is the exact equipment I use now...

Hopefully I'll get some more lenses for this camera soon too. 

So there you have it, that's my camera setup, hope it helps you out! Feel free to comment with any questions or hit me up on insta and I'll share anything I know!

S x

*this post contains affiliate links so if you shop these link I make some cash. Not like, baller cash, maybe like, a sandwich at Pret A Manger cash*