Hi, I’m Ruth Carrick-Forrester
Thanks for finding my little corner of the internet.Here you will find details of the projects I'm working, how you can contact me, and a few other random things.Get in touch if you want to work together or talk about a project.
Newsletter
Spark Edition is my passion project, every two weeks I send out all the best things I've found online. Plus it's free!
Photography
My Street Photography portfolio.
Tools
The tech, tools and apps I use to do what I do.
Now
What I'm working on right now.
Contact
How you can contact me.
Ruth CF
2024 ©
Newsletter
Spark Edition is my regular newsletter, it's where I curate all the cool things I've found online. It features clever tools, fun things from the internet, and articles to make you think.Includes topics, such as productivity, creativity, personal finance, career, well being, food and travel and much more.Sign up is free, why not give it a try.
Ruth CF
2024 ©
Photography
I got into photography in the final year of my degree, and over the years I have gone from taking photos of everything (including dreaded odd wedding), to not picking up my camera for months.It’s either been a lack of time, or I haven't had ideas for my projects, I used to feel bad about not constantly taking photos, but I realised lately that I’m much more seasonal than I thought. I can sometimes gets lots of ideas within a few days, this tends to happen if I get time away. Then I’ve found in the colder darker months I will sort of ‘fallow’ my ideas.I was sorting through lots of files recently and found lots of photo projects from previous years, so decided to finally put my site together. Trying to organise them into projects, and select which single images are good enough to showcase has been quite an exercise.While putting the site together I realised how much I enjoyed getting my work online. It made me wonder how many other people I know who have an amazing portfolio but don’t have a particular ‘home’ for it online.
Ruth CF
2024 ©
Tools I use
One of my favorite internet things to do is finding out the tools that people use to do what they do.So I thought I would list some of mine!
The computer
My everyday computer is a MacBook 13 inch, it's small enough to put in my rucksack, but powerful enough to do everything I need it to do.
The Phone
Ok, so I know the trend for phones is to get bigger and bigger, but that means more stuff! My phone is an Apple SE, so it's the size of a 5S, but with the power of the later phones.
Earphones
I looked at bluetooth earphones for ages, eventually ordered these TaoTronics ones. They connect instantly to my phone and laptop, plus they work quite well at noise cancelling as well.
Pens
I know, pens right. But when I'm writing something I want the process to be pleasant, and undistracting. These pens also rub out! I get the blue colour as I find it a bit easier on the eye.
Email zen
I'm a gmail user, but find the user interface a bit overloaded, so I've found a chrome extension from the original gmail designer who also wanted the inbox to feel a bit more zen.
Pocket
Pocket is great, I'm forever finding articles online that I want to read later, so I can save them to Pocket. I use the chrome extension when on my laptop, and the app on my phone. So I simply press the pocket button on my browser, and it save the article to my reading list.
Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator
If you have to use Facebook for work but don't want to get sucked into the rabbit hole that is the newsfeed try this chrome extension. Essentially it blanks out the newsfeed, replacing it with an inspiration quote (what else!), but you can then access the other stuff you need to.
If you would like more recommendations, then check out my newsletter Spark Edition, it's free to sign up and each issue I share clever tools, fun stuff and much more.
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Ruth CF
2024 ©
What I'm doing right now
People often ask me what I’m doing now, and I never know where to start, so here's the latest projects I'm focusing on.
Spark Edition
I’ve been sending my newsletter for about a year ad a half now. I’m enjoying the process of finding and curating content. Really love it when someone replies with how much they love it!Photography
Haven’t had much chance to go out and take photos with the lockdown and short days. So particular looking forward to getting out and doing some more photography projects this summer!Freelance work
The newsletter has brought in a bit of business with people wanting help with their websites and emails. So I’ve done quite a lot of that this past year.Books
I am a massive bookworm, the house is quite often littered with piles of books! Looking into setting up a site, or blog to catalog some of my favorites. There are so many great books out there that don’t always hit the headlines. The other thing that I think some books don’t get much of a mention is the physicality of them. The design and feel of them are certainly something I’ve started to appreciate. So, may add some book recommendations to the newsletter, or maybe a new site. Still working on it!
Last updated April 2021.Thanks to Derek Sivers for starting the Now page revolution.
Ruth CF
2024 ©
Get in touch
Email me just to say hi, share something for my newsletter or let's do coffee tea and cake.Contact me via email: rutheastelow (at) gmail.comYou can also find me on twitter here
Ruth CF
2024 ©