Tag: life style

B189 – ITS FINALLY HAPPENED A TRUE GAME CHANGER

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The Condo has hit a new level, If you’ve ever been to the flat you would know that theres been one big thing missing from it and that is Curtains, for some reason We’ve never got round to putting up curtains or blinds. Its not that we are lazy its that we haven’t really needed them and I’ve just kind of adapted to natural light in the morning. today though that has changed and my DIY skills have gone up a new level. Most people know that my DIY and manual labour skills are pretty much below average, well not any more, my first day of being 24 and Ive just used my first drill, and made multiple even level holes and put up blinds. this is well and truly a big step.

the DIY bug has hit me hard and now things are going to change round here. before it was all about the painting, now thats pretty much out the way, Ive now got to start building things, taking things away and updating things, its a never ending job that I’m now getting excited about. I just need to keep Amy away from Pinterest and I might have a chance of getting this done.

Now im pretty much a site man and a grafter, it was only right that after my success at putting the blinds up, i sat down and had a proper cup of tea, Bilbo ( bilbo Baggins – leave the bag in) with a lot of milk, the only difference being to take the photo I needed a a second pair of hands and a few pints of milk.

At last though, im now sitting on the sofa watching Tattoo fixers and dont have anything todo apart from right this post, tomorrow I pack for a trip to America so be prepared for some cool shots of the states, Ive got a busy 6 weeks of travel and Im looking forward to showing you guys what I get up too!

Im having a really weird moment where Ive confused myself because this post is written the night before its posted. is that confusing, would you rather I wrote in past tense or current tense. I dont mind just want to know what reads better.

Any way let me know and enjoy the snaps.

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– a proper cup of tea –
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– the bed room with the blinds, its finally coming a long, the white wall by the blinds is dirty because I was leaning on it. just ignore that –
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– this is amy sitting on the floor asking if we can stop running about doing things now –

 

B182 – LETS DO SOMETHING COOL

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three hundred words that all I have to write each day, I love taking photos, but the writing is the hardest thing on this blog. I’m sorry for the lack of energy on these posts these past few days, Im just fighting through the Jet lag and trying to crazy amount of work, to get out the other side. but today has been a really good day, Ive started making plans for a really cool project. something I can properly sink my teeth into, Ive got a plan and all I have todo now is stick to it and make sure I can put everything in place before I go away next week. So not a lot todo at all.

what I like about doing this blogging thing is my plan that Im just going todo what ever I like with it. thats basically my plan, not think too much into it and just see where I end up. I really want to start upping my content and put out some cool photos that aren’t just everyday stuff. like jumping a car or shooting fireworks over a lake, something incredible and completely not the normal, thats my kind of project. If I can just get through the next month and stay dedicated to making stuff happen theres no reason why those projects wont come to life. Obviously those arent my project idea’s but they follow the same line, something which has an element of risk but with a massive reward. I started this blog to improve my photography skills and its about time I started to test my self and see what I can do with a camera.

again im sorry for the lack of content but unless I stay awake 24 hours a day, I don’t have enough time. but I will I promise you.

In other news I picked up my new blinds tonight, went to put them up and found out I don’t own a drill. so if anyone lives in bethnal green and has a drill that would be really helpful.

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– this is a photo I took this morning, god I love my coconut tree –
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– one of my favourite places in the past months, Historic Downtown St. Charles –
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– Missori, America, everyone should go and see St.louis its a really cool city –

B180 – THE BEST FOOD IVE EVER HAD – SKETCH, LONDON

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Yesterday was all about getting some good food, so Amy and me headed off the this little restaurant in town called Sketch. If you’ve heard of it before its probably becuase its one of the coolest places to eat. I booked that table about 4 weeks ago and was struggling to get a good table, thats how packed this place is. the food was incredible too, we had the duck Foie Gras for starts with the leeks and razor clams. both of us have never had clams before, they we actually really good.

for mains I though it would be rude not to have the Kent Lamb loin, as i am from kent and know that we do good food. it was perfect and the sauce they put on the top was unbelievable, no meal is complete without a side of chips. so thats what finished us off.

Amy let me have a taste of her Sea Bass main meal and after spending a month in america where you think fish is fresh, this was a different level of fresh. its fair to say that all the processed food in the states, was starting to become more of a mission and having that food has brought me back to reality. its now lie that america josh had started to put on the pounds, a mixture of 1 minute pancakes and Chuckey cheese, had started to show. but lucky I’m now back to good fresh food.

I do love going to new cities and countries and exploring loads of places, but I think theres only one city I can call home and thats London. I even love the rude people that give you funny looks on the tube. even they have a certain London look, that you don’t find anywhere else in the world.

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– This place is like no other restaurant ive been in –
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– this photo was taken by turning the table lamp upside down and using the light from it –
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– a bad quality photo but I still like it –

 

 

B179 – THAT SCANDI TOUCH

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Its 3:53am on Friday morning and I basically cant sleep so Ive decided I should just get up and have a productive Friday. this morning Ive got a bit of running around todo, i basically need to get a second passport for a visa I need and only have today to really get that done, so thats my first job of the day. after that its getting my life back on track before sailing into the weekend of some good old chin wags with my mates that I haven’t seen in a pretty long time.

But before then I want to talk about Air Canada Rouge, Im not sure if any of you have flown with this airline. If you have, then you know what im talking about, its pretty crazy. Ive just sat on a 8 hour flight, without a TV or ipad to keep my company. they ran out of Ipads. they idea is basically give out ipads of $10, which come with films and games, which in theory is a great idea, but the execution failed. I know they’re a budget long haul airline, which is perfect for saving a few bucks but so is Norwegian Air and they have smashed it. Norwegian Air are like the same price as Air Canada but they’re planes are clean, smooth and they have that scandi touch, which just makes it one of the best airlines I’ve flown on.

What they do, is give you cheap seats and a TV but you pay for your food and drink, that might sound like a bad idea but if you pay and order on your TV in front of you, if comes straight away, the air stewards are just all over it. where as Air Canada, they do the classic food trolley, I went for the chicken and only found out after the flight that it came with mash.

One thing I can say with pride was my idea to tape my phone to the seat in front of me which basically meant I had a TV, genius. so my top tip for Air Canada, take some duck tape with you on the fight just incase you need to tape your phone up to give you a TV or even if something falls off the plane you can duck tape it back together again. both are strong possibilities.

Norwegian Air have changed up the game and are the best cheap airline out there! hands down!

anyway thats just me forcing my opinion on you. heres my snaps from the journey home, it wouldn’t be complete without a snap from the plane window looking down on Toronto.

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– back in london and on Oxford cirucs –
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– the upgraded TV on Air Canada –
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– thats Toronto down there –

 

 

B178 – PHONE SNAPS- AIRPORT AFTER AIRPORT.

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first off, yesterdays post was a bit cringly and maybe I should of wrote it before I ended up at the pub.

I was sat on the plane from  Victoria to Toronto thinking of fun things I can do on days like today where its just airports and waiting around or im at home watching TV with out any plan to leave the sofa, I decided that it would be cool to come up with a kind of fun project for those days. at first I was thinking of do like a travel tip thing or give my advise on something, but then I realised im a terrible traveller and even worst with advise. Ill always do the wrong thing when it comes to packing and organising,  that basically means I shouldnt give my travel tips out, it wont help anyone.

Thats when I came up with the idea to create some sort of genre for joshfspear.com and on those days, I post photos from the depth of my phone and show some photos that didn’t make the cut but are still pretty good. I want to think of some cool name for these posts but maybe simple is better so Phone Snaps it is.

The photos you see below are from the past few days in Victoria, one of the coolest places I’ve ever been to, its somewhere I really want to go back and explore. one of the crazy / cool things that happened was when a paragon falcon, flew down and landed in the middle of the road in front of me before taking off to attack some black birds that were just minding their own business. it was like see something from a David Attenborough documentary.

I think everyone needs to come and see this place and visit downtown harbour. Victoria is also home to the oldest china town in Canada, that fact was told to me by a taxi driver who wasn’t to sure of his way round the city, so sorry if its not true. I didnt get a photo of the china town but there is a photo of the street a block over.

Another cool fact about this places is that they seem to paint all their street lights and cable boxes that you see around the city, so instead of seeing some horrible gray box or a ugly pole that sticks out the ground you basically see some cool art painted on the side or even a photo. I have a cool shot of this on my hard drive, but thats not with me at the moment so you’ll have to see it in a throwback photo or something.

anyway enjoy the snaps and sorry again if you couldn’t understand yesterdays post. Oh and I think I’ve set this to post at 10am GMT, but I have no idea when it will go up. I don’t really know what time zone my laptop is in at the moment, its got jet lag I think.

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– a photo from the drive across town –
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– look at what theyve done to the pole, it looks pretty cool. Ive got some better snaps, ill show you them some other time –
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– the street near to canada’s first china town –

 

B174 – I’VE NEVER SEEN THAT BEFORE

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I know Canada is this wild place but somethings I wont believe till I see them and wild deer and stags walking around the streets like some 13 year old are one of them. Just as we arrived at location this morning two deer have poked their heads out from behind a car and just casually started walking down the road.

I literally jumped up to grab the big lens but after a few seconds of trying to find it, I decided to settle for the 24-105. I never thought in a million years that these things would be roaming around the streets and not scared of humans or cars, over here they just don’t care. When you start the morning with seeing deer walk around the town you know its going to be a good day and to be honest it was, filming went smoothly and we managed to get back on schedule. its weird now becuase after this location its back to London and im starting to think of all the things ill do when I first get back to my flat and honestly I cant wait.

Amy if your reading this please make sure their is yorkshire gold tea bags and some fresh milk, I havent had a proper cup of tea in a month.

Next to location on the way back from grabbing some supplies this morning, I noticed this really cool foot bridge which looked like it went on for miles, so I decided to stop off quick and take some photos, when I got there it was like something out of a movie, these guys live on the river, but have done it in kind of pirate style, they have turned their boats into raft kind of thinks with other boats and have like this little community out on the lake. just floating around, unfortunatly I only had a 20mm prime with me so could get any close up shots but I still think I made it work. My plan is to wake up extra early tomorrow and go and get some early morning photos. lets see if that works out or if I snooze my alarm again.

heres my snaps, I uploaded 4 because I felt like it was a good idea.

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– this deer is Jay walking –
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– its so weird seeing them just walk round the streets –
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– canadian pirates –
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– this is that long foot bridge that goes on for miles (i think) –

B175 – ONE CRAZY DAY

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Today has been on of those filming days where you are literally jus running around none stop of 14 hours trying to make everything work. sorry to sound like a work-a-holic but sometimes I have nothing else to say. Im now laying in bed, looking at the photos from the day thinking about what has happened today, its all a bit of a blur, but I have to say Victoria is an amazing place and surrounded by water, which helps to make for a better climate that Southern America which has been crazy hot.

My plan today was to show you some of the best parts about this island in Canada called Victoria but all I have done is work. so lets just share some fact with you, in 1871 british columbia became the sixth province and proclaimed capital of canada. basically putting it in charge. in 1778 Jame cook, that guy who discovered America became the first european to set foot on Canada and proclaimed it to be a discovery.

What I like about this part of the world is that everyone is friendly, Amanda and myself were at the bar tonight when suddenly two local drinks called a shaft were given to us by this nice local who just wanted to chat. A shaft is basically this mix of a few sprites which make something that taste like baileys. thats what I like about this place, everyone is ready to make freinds and be drinking friends.

sorry for all this mistakes in todays post, im just a bit tired and ready to go to sleep but wasnt prepared to miss todays post and fail at my job of posting each day for the whole year. Ive had a great time travelling america and canada and soon to be heading back to the uk for a few weeks before going out on my next adventure. thank you for following my post and hope you enjoy these snaps.

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– this car today was amazing, makes me want get this car –
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– even the industrial parts of vancover look amazing –
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– i want to buy a skateboard and join this guys

B166 – COOL SIDE OF AMERICA – NIGHT TIME. MID WEST. P2

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this is the first day of my mini project Cool side of Unknown America inside of the 3 photos a day project. the plan is to show the of the tourist trail america, just the suburbs and where locals go and what day to day life is like. for my first day I wanted to show night time in St. charles. this historic town dates back to 1796 and if your ever round here you have to try the toasted ravioli on main street. I think I mentioned it yesterday, but this stuff is worth checking out.

On the way back to the hotel from location today, there was a sign that apparently ready “Cool stuff, cheap”. well as my first photo project is called cool side of unknown america, it was only right I waited for it to get dark and  then go take some snaps of it to open this project up properly! thank you Libby for pointing that sign out!

I wanted my first shoot to be a night time one, I think photography at night is not the easiest thing, but when the light hits a certain focual point it really opens the photo up, it creates some sort of mystery to the rest of the image and tells a story in its self. when you take away all the light and only have a small outline of a object or person in the for ground and then something lite up at the back of the shot. for me it adds a whole new dimension. that was my thinking tonight, give you guys something to look at a few times and notice something else, maybe something that I havent even seen. a lot of the time, I just take a photo by accident and the somehow that turns out to be one of my favourite. for these photos Ive got the ISO pretty high, because I need it for light but I also like the grainy look it gives these photos especially because they are black and white.

I would love to hear what people think of these photos, I might just be a bit delirious after work and none of this make sense and for that I’m sorry!

Heres my snaps, enjoy.

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– its the perfect picture to get this project started –
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– I know its weird but ive always wanted to come to one of these –
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– photographing motor bikes is just fun –

 

B157 – I got the shot though.

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Today has been the first day of filming and so far so good, everything seems to be coming together. Its going to be an exciting four weeks I think. Im writing this post just after lunch time on Tuesday, Its been a bit of quite time and thought it would be productive of me to get this done sooner rather than at 11 O’clock tonight. Tomrrow I hit theroad for a 7 and a half our drive, from Toronto to Kingston and back to Toronto, all while filming, so it will take a fair bit of time. I think this is going to be a bit of a baptism of fire, which should be good for every one, I’ve just got to remembered to put everything on charge tonight and then just lock everything down tomorrow.

I’m sat here writing this and Im not going to lie I have only got two photos in the bag, I’m still trying to think of a third photo, I’ve seen a few of these black squirrels bopping around, they are literally jet black Squirrels… if I see one again I’m going to snap it and post it one here, but now I’ve said this I probably will never see one again.

It feels a bit weird writing this post with only two photos in the bag and not at the end of the day, but it’s the better option rather than me missing a day or doing it late tonight and having to wake up really early in the morning.

One thing I have noticed about Canada and if anyone knows more about it let me know, but the sun seems to be a lot lower, the light in the morning is so much nicer and lasts a lot longer than in the UK its doesn’t seem to be golden hour, but more like a golden two hours, which helped me to get that shot of the suburbs today.

This also wouldn’t be any sort of daily blog if there wasn’t a picture of the Kenworth truck, these things are massive and rule the roads, I remember the first time I saw one in the UK and it made those English lorries feel like some sort of go-cart, I cant imagine how hard they are to drive, but I wouldn’t mind giving it a ago. They are sell from anywhere from $30k all the way upto $100k+, and weigh an average of 68,000lbs which is 30.8 tonnes. If you were to look at something like the Volvo FH Lorries, which are pretty common on the roads in the Uk they weigh 14,572Lb, which is 6.6 tonnes. So these American Kenworth Semi trucks are just over 4 times heavier than a common lorry in the UK.

An even better fact is the Kenworth on average gets 8 MPG out of their trucks, in the UK the Volvo FH is getting 9.8MPG to 13.5 MPG with Germany Light (what ever that is, anyone know?), so I guess we are a little bit more efficient… but they definitely get more marks for the overall look, these things are like 30 tonne beasts.

Moving on, hopefully by the time you’ve read this Ive got some cool photo of a black squirrel, if not I’m sorry but I hope you like which ever one, future me has decided to upload. Sorry for rambling on about trucks and lorries, I kind of got a bit carried away with all the facts.

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– this thing is a monster –
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– a nice quite canadian suburb –
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– me trying to take a quick photo of the black squirrel but having my settings completely wrong, least I got the shot though –

B155;I’ve got a Dodge

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for most people in the states and canada a Dodge is just a car, but for us brits every dodge is a viper, they even sound cool ” I drive a dodge” and the car Im driving for the next few days is no exception. I have no idea what model this is, I only know it says dodge on the front and is pretty big. Ive only been in Canada for about 5 hours, its now 21:30 at night here in Toronto but thats like 2:30 in London, so its been a pretty long day. My plan is to say awake for as long as possible and then fall asleep for like 7 hours and be completely back to normal, Im refusing to let jet lag get the better of me.

since ive been here Ive literally seen the motorway and in side of the Chinese restaurant, so I can really comment on what its like here, but so far it does look really clean and the people seem really cool. Wish I had time to get out into the forests and stuff maybe see a few bears, but im not confident that will happen. but I have heard a rumour of some cool islands around here which you have to get a boat too, so hopefully if tomorrow isn’t so busy we might be able to get out and explore some.

If any one know of anything fun todo in Toronto, I would definitely like some inside information on this place. I really want to go and see the CN tower, but im not even sure if that is possible. I have 4 days here and will probably have a few hours spare over the four days, so anything quick, easy and not too busy would be ideal.

Anyway heres some photos from my last few hours here.

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– even the gease stick to the pavements –
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– there she is, what a beauty –
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– Sport at the front, soccer mum car at the back –
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– this was the street I walked down earlier, looking forward to seeing more of Canada –