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Holly Smith has a huge passion for food styling and photography. While she likes to create cool and exciting images that capture the beauty of Jersey, she also has a soft spot for food and loves sampling local coffee shops and places to eat.
Holly has recently come back from New Zealand where she was travelling, working as a photographer and just generally enjoying exploring the world.
Holly put her camera down just long enough to write about five things she would change about the island.
1. Give us some space!
I’m echoing the voice of lots of my creative friends here, Jersey needs to open up some more opportunities for shared studio space. We’ve got so much talent here and so many of us work together on projects so it would be great to have more spaces available to share.
Pictured: What do local artists need? Space to work. (Holly Smith)
I notice a lot of empty buildings that could have major potential for buzzing life in them once opened up to more artists and creatives and then who knows what could happen!
I’ve heard rental prices for shops here are super high, leaving a lot of start up businesses and even some bigger chains priced out of the high street and surrounding areas before being given a chance to thrive.
Pictured: Maybe pop ups could fill empty shops?
It’s really sad to see so many empty shop spaces, could there be more opportunities for pop up stores to fill the space
I love seeing all the new eateries and coffee shops popping up in town such as Cargo, Dandy and the soon to open Locke’s. These places are so important to the island, it’s a nice chance to socialize and meet with new clients and connect to local businesses and produce. I’ve recently spent time in Wellington New Zealand and there were so many great places to work from on my laptop and enjoy a beautifully made coffee. I’d love to see even more of these spaces popping up all over the island as well as town.
This year I’ve seen a few new faces running in the elections and I think that’s amazing. It’s so important that Jersey listens to it’s next generations while still embracing what makes it unique in history. I think it takes a diverse range of voices to create an island we all want to live on and we need to support and listen to new ideas and make everyone feel their opinions are being heard.
Pictured: Holly Smith was glad to see many new faces run in the elections this year.
Sadly I often see constructive thoughts and opinions being shot down on social media and I think we’re missing out on opportunities to grow if we give too much airtime to negativity in this way.
Last but not least, how can we make it so it’s just constantly Summer? I’ve recently come home after living away for quite some time and Jersey Summertime still tops anything else I’ve experienced. The Sunsets down at the Splash and all the local music festivals on offer (so important, we must keep supporting these!) just makes me so happy to have grown up here and I love sharing that with my friends overseas.
Pictured: She may have traveled the world but Holly Smith's favourite kind of summer is still Jersey's.
They’re always amazed how it looks like I practically ‘live on holiday’ throughout the summer months. We’ve got some beautiful coastline and beaches and they look totally stunning in the Summer months.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not those of the Bailiwick Express.
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