VIP Press Launch: Leeds Food And Drink Festival

Hello lovelies! Last night, I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the VIP press launch of the 10th annual Leeds Food and Drink Festival hosted by Epernay Champagne Bar and Almost Famous Burgers.  I was so excited to go that I was actually there an hour and a half early (haha) so my friend and I decided to pop into Browns Bar and Brasserie for a pre-cocktails cocktail. I opted for the Lime Daiquiri and oh my goodness it was like heaven in a glass. My friend Fern chose the British Royal, which I also tasted and it was equally as good! We had planned on getting a coffee, but who could turn down the opportunity for cocktails?

As the Leeds Food and Drink Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary, it promises to be the biggest and best the city has ever seen. This year, the festival is part of 'Leeds Food Month', a celebration of Leeds' vibrant, ever-evolving food and drink scene and the first event of its kind. The festival spans over four weeks and there are countless events taking place all over the city between 22nd May - 7th June. There really is something for everyone - from the World Feast on Briggate (24th May) inspired by street food from all over the world, to the Thai Cooking Class being held at Chaophraya (30th May). 

The launch night for the festival took place at Epernay in The Electric Press on Great George Street in the city centre. As soon as I arrived with Fern, we were greeted by quite a bustling environment, with cocktails being handed to you from all directions! From the door I spotted Bridie (Upon My Sleeve) and headed over to say hello! Soon we were joined by Rhianna (Robowecop) and we spent a moment chatting whilst people started arriving. Within minutes of arriving, we were handed some sort of prosecco based cocktail (pictured above in the tall stemmed glasses). Almost as soon as we sat down, waiters and waitresses began bringing round trays of drinks and before we knew it, we had about 4 on the go at once. 

Half way through the event, Almost Famous popped over the street with trays of miniature burgers for everyone to sample! I tried this one and OH MY GOD IT WAS AH-MAZINGGGGGG! It had pulled pork and coleslaw in it, as well as the burger patty! I may go as far to say it was the best burger I have EVER had!! So good I'm planning on taking a trip there very soon!

 As you can see I was really making the most of the complimentary cocktails - I had three on the go at this point! The one pictured is the Bramley Apple cocktail and this one had to be my favourite of the ones I tried. I think the waitress mentioned it had creme de menthe in it, which is something I'd never tried before until last night. As I was heading out to head back to the train station, I spotted Kayleigh (Very Berry Cosmo) and Alex (Clouds In The Violet Haze) sat around a table and we sat talking for a moment before I had to dash off. 

I had a lovely evening spending the night catching up with my friend and chatting to a few fellow bloggers from the Leeds area. If you are interested in going to any of the events running over the next month, you can take a look at the Leeds Food Month website for a schedule. There are quite a few that I'm interested in, especially the world feast on Briggate!

I hope you are able to check out some part of the festival, it sounds like it is going to go down a storm this year!
Thanks for reading!

Love Charlotte x

Blogging Equipment & Photography Tips and Tricks

I frequently get sent lots of emails, tweets and comments from you all telling me how much you like my style of photography, asking what camera I use and how I learnt to use it. Well, I have finally got round to writing this post especially for you guys! I don’t often dish out advice on the subject of blogging mainly because I don’t consider myself an all-knowing oracle on the subject. It’s a world that’s constantly changing, there’s no right or wrong way of doing things and I’m still learning something new everyday myself. But when it comes to photography, I like to think I know a thing or two.

In sixth form/college, I decided to take A-Level photography as one of my four subjects. I had always had an interest in photography, visiting art galleries as a kid and just taking random photos on disposable cameras. When I started my course, I didn't own a camera. I saw that as a bit of a drawback considering I needed good grades to get into university. So I saved up, and a few months into my course I almost had enough money to buy a DSLR. My mum kindly put the rest together for me as a christmas present and I went with her to pick out a camera! I chose the Nikon D3100 as until I had my own, I used to loan out the ones belonging to my college, and this (amongst a couple others) is one of the ones I liked to loan out. My 'photography' teachers were actually art teachers and one of them didn't even know how to open the cupboards to get the cameras out, so from the start I knew the course was going to be very self led. I followed tutorials online, looked through the Instagrams of photographers and just tried to replicate their styles. Over time, I developed my own 'style' and I loved the bold, crisp, colourful images that I try and incorporate into my blog posts. 

To start blogging, I’d say you need minimal equipment: a camera and an internet connection. You don’t need to splash out on fancy gadgets at all. Many of the well known bloggers started out with little point of shoot cameras. No matter what you have, whether it's your phone or a £7000 camera, as long as you know how to use it properly you are in business! My camera cost no more than £350 from Argos (I can't seem to find it to tell you the exact cost) and it is just as good as more expensive ones I have tried.

In April, I bought myself the little Sony A5000 for more on the go blogging and tutorial style posts where I need to see myself (it has a flip screen unlike my DSLR). I'm still playing around with it and getting to know how to use it properly, but I used it for the photo of my DSLR in this post and it seems to do a good enough job! It retails at £251, which is a lot cheaper than the DSLR and it does pretty much the same stuff for a fraction of the post. It is cheap because they have since brought out the A6000 (?) which is the newer model and therefore there will be less demand for it. So if you are in need of a new camera for blogging, why not check out something like this rather than a DSLR?

For lighting, I use natural lighting - which is starting to make more of appearance here in the UK! I have used artificial lighting whilst doing my photography course and I know how amazing it is, but you can achieve similar results when natural lighting is used. Especially considering how expensive lighting it! The best tip with lighting that I've ever received is to NEVER… I repeat NEVER… use your cameras built in flash! If your photos turn out a little darker than you want them, you can always retouch them. There are many free photo retouching websites and programs out there. You don't need Photoshop at all! I am fortunate enough to have it (by the way, as students you can get it for just over £100 rather than £800+) but before I bought it I managed just fine!

If you have any other questions that I haven't covered in my post, feel free to leave a comment or drop me an email (charlottesophiaroberts@gmail.com) and I will reply as soon as possible!

Thanks for reading!

Love Charlotte x
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Fitspiration #4 - Getting Back On Track

A photo of my friend on our trip!

I know, it's been a while since I last did one of these posts. But it's been a while since I made any sort of progress - or effort for that matter. The last post I wrote for this series was at the start of March, and by April, all of my New Year motivation was gone. It lasted 3 whole months, but was ruined when I took a trip away with a friend. 1 whole week of eating pizza, fish and chips, burgers and donuts reminded me how much I was missing them. If I was more determined, I would have dismissed the week and worked harder when I got home to make up for all the crap that had entered my body. Over the first few days of the trip, I tried my hardest to count my calories, but quickly gave up and put on some (thank goodness not all!) of the weight I lost - now I'm at a 9lb loss rather than 14lb! But that still better than I was! If I'd have put it all back on then I would have probably given up on life ha!

It has taken me a whole month to have some sort of motivation to get outside and actually do a workout. This morning I woke up with lots of energy (probably the 4 hours sleep I had) and went for a run - which I haven't been able to do for a few weeks due to an ankle injury. I only managed half a mile before my ankle was playing up slightly - I decided to stop as a preventative measure just incase. But that half a mile is more than I've done in a month and I decided to slowly get back into it rather than jump in at the deep end!

As the saying goes, you can't change what happened yesterday, but you can decide what happens tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Love Charlotte x