World Photography Day

 

Its ‪#‎WorldPhotographyDay‬ (apparently) so I thought I'd blog some of my Dad's photos. When we were young he was a keen photographer and developed his films in the bathroom - we were forbidden to enter when he was in there in the dark with his strange paraphernalia, spooky red lightbulb and those weird chemical smells. His photographs were often imperfect but I love them all, especially those he took of us when we weren't looking. Here we are on the beach - I think at Butlins Pwllheli circa 1956.

Here's another Butlins photo probably taken in 1954 - I swear it never rained when we were at our most favourite place in the world at that time. We so looked forward to our week at Butlins. I think I dreamed about it for weeks beforehand!

Its the moments in time caught forever that I love about these un-posed photos. Most Sundays we went for trips into the countryside - either just for a walk or a picnic in good weather.

Here we'd been given fishing nets and messing about near the water was always irresistible. This is the River Dwyfor near Trawsfynydd where our Uncle and Aunt lived.

Another of my sister and I - there were four of us but by the time my youngest sister came along in 1956 Dad had stopped developing his films himself so there are fewer photos - much to my baby sister's disgust. She is still put out that there aren't many pictures of her!

Here we are with Mum playing a game of chase in a daisy strewn field long ago.

And this was a birthday party in the garden - we'll never know what everyone was so interested in on the grass.

There are lots taken in the back garden. This is us with my Mother's friend Bessie's newly adopted son Peter - a much longed for child for her and her husband.

And another game in the garden - this time with Hazel from next door. We were always outside even in the winter - warmly wrapped up of course!

And with my cheeky cousin Dafydd - Mum says he was always a naughty boy.... something he vehemently denies now!!

And finally a much later picture of all of us with Mum. My sister will only moan if I leave her out! By this time (about 1958) Dad's pictures came as coloured slides which we viewed on a big white plastic screen through a slide projector. Some time ago I got the chance to borrow a slide scanner and scanned them all into the computer.  It took an age but I'm so glad I did.

Hacking through the thicket!

I'm imagining myself as the prince in Sleeping Beauty while trying to cut back the brambles that are slowly taking over the bottom of the garden.  They have moved forward at least 6 feet in the last 2-3 years and I've just ignored their creeping intrusion as I love the blackberries in September.  But now the time has come to knock them back to the fence again.

And I am getting there very slowly and looking forward to a bonfire of all those horrible thorny stems.  But here are some more selective garden images from this sunny Eastertide.

And there are compensations for working until dusk - I get to see the sun setting!

Christmas is coming......

Ok!  I have to admit November is quite a dark month - especially when there is a cloud covering over the vale.  And in my tiny house photographing my projects can be a problem, even if I take them outside the back door.  However if the sun is shining there is a five minute slot when, if I'm organised and quick, I can get photos like these.  The houses opposite me are tall and block out the sun during the colder months of the year, but there is a narrow alleyway between and the sunlight can shine through into my front room - but it only lasts a very few minutes.

The sun shone on Saturday and I quickly started snapping.  There is one more fair next weekend - a local primary school Christmas Fayre - and I've been trying out Hama beads to make simple decorations children might like.  The beads don't look very promising do they, but ironed to fuse and with the light shining through them I think they are quite effective. 

You can also see my crochet snowflakes, wooden pokerwork, and felt bead mini-wreaths in the photos.  And these utterly delightful Scandinavian people I bought from a lovely lady at Attingham Park Frost Fair last week.

Really wish I'd bought a couple more!  Sadly she doesn't seem to have an online presence but I've emailed to see if she has any other fairs coming up locally.  If you want to try this photo technique, I have to admit I've tweeked the images in Photoshop (any other photo editing programme will do) and whacked up the shadows to blot out the untidy background.

January Snapped!

Well I had decided not to carry on with the monthly review pages this year but as I was so pleased with them printed in book form I changed my mind.  I searched for another 365 template kit at my favourite digital store Oscraps and went for Maya de Grout's nice and simple templates Snap: The Monthly Shots. 

You might notice a fair amount of crocheting has been going on this month.  Its definitely the craft of the moment and Pinterest is peppered with lovely inspiration and patterns.  I've a couple of projects in the pipeline for blogging and hope I can find time to post this weekend.  If you have crafty or any other plans for the weekend, have a great time and as "Brucie" says, keep dancing...... oh, no, I mean crafting of course! 

In Print

I've long used Vistaprint to design promotional products for my little crafty business, and calendars and other photo gifts for family and friends, however the company recently branched out into photobooks.  I'd lots of digital scrapbook pages that had never been put into print (a very expensive business at the local print shop) and as there was a good introductory offer going I went ahead and designed and ordered a book.  When it came I was very pleased with the quality of the printing and the book itself, so much so that when there was another good deal on offer a couple of weeks ago I was tempted again and ordered two more books - one large square and one large landscape.

The scrapbook page book is 8 inches square and although traditionally scrapbook pages are meant to be 12 inches square, this size is perfectly acceptable.  The only potential problem with getting pages printed in book form is possibly losing edges due to "bleed" in the printing process, ie to get images printed right up to the edge of the page a tiny strip will be cut off. 

This doesn't usually matter much but needs thinking about when adding text or journaling notes to pages - I was lucky at the bottom of this double page spread.

I wanted to print my blog monthly review pages from 2012 in a separate book so this was my second square title.  There are 24 pages in a book (extra pages can be added at a small cost) therefore 12 monthly layouts fitted in easily and I added some of my favourite 2012 photos to the other pages.  The monthly review layouts mostly go right to the edge of the page and if I'd thought about it more I would have paid extra to add in the "lay flat" feature.  Must remember that for next year.

My large landscape book was pure indulgence!  In the age of the digital camera, holiday photos are mostly destined to stay in digital form, and once the holiday is over probably never to be looked at again.  I captured some lovely scenes during my visit to Nice last October and thought they deserved to be seen in print.

I must say I'm really impressed with the quality of the printing and the finish of the books.  I opted for photo covers - which is included in the basic cost - and chose the page layouts myself instead of letting Vistaprint fill the book with my photos automatically.  However its an easy process and not at all lengthy if you don't change your mind a dozen times about which pictures to include (like I usually do).

So if you've lots of photos you'd like to see in print - either from your blog, a holiday, or a special occasion, its worth keeping an eye out for special offers from Vistaprint and grab a bargain when you see it.

By the way, this is not an advertisement for the company - I'm sure there are other equally efficient companies out there that do just as good a job - this is just the one I use and have found very efficient.

December in the Garden

It's a while since I've managed to see the garden in daylight but one day last week I had to visit my Mum in the early(ish) morning and managed a wander with my camera.   The sun was still low in the sky and the brilliant Hawthorn berries (we call them haws) were lit like Christmas lights.

I was in luck too - although the sun was shining most of the garden was still covered in picturesque frost.  Sometimes the bottom of the garden stays frozen all day as its in deep shadow at this time of year.

However my spiky mahonia is covered in sunshine yellow flowers (which I never normally get to see), and I'm glad I didn't pull it out as punishment for scratching my arms and legs all summer when I passed by unwarily.

As you can see, my Romanian willow arch has been woefully neglected for a couple of years and I really do have to cut it back in the spring before it's leaves start growing - I never like cutting off branches and boughs that are showing buds.

And don't you think this little shrub would be perfect for creating a Christmas arrangement - red stems, dark green leaves and white snowball berries.  I'm not sure what it is - the label went missing a long time ago.  It could possibly be a Pernettya (according to Google).

But I do know what these beautiful seedheads are - my Clematis Bill Mackenzie has run riot but its only in winter, when the leaves of the little birch tree have fallen that you can see just how far it has rambled away from its original frame.

Those fluffy seedheads could easily be taken for little lanterns in the gloom of late afternoon - if I could get to see them.

 

The last few days have been miserable, dark and wet and I may not see the garden in sunshine again until the New Year so I'm glad I was able to record its decaying beauty before it all springs to life again in 2013.

Beach Butterfly

We've had a beautiful week weatherwise here in the UK but of course nothing stays the same for very long here and the forecast for next week is not so good.  So I took the opportunity of a day off work to go for a paddle yesterday.  And I love the beach at this time of year when school holidays have finished and most people are too busy to spend time just walking on the shore.

I paddled along the edge of the water for an hour or so, ate some sandwiches, walked and paddled a bit more, picked up shells and pebbles, and just as I was thinking it was time to head off home I noticed a poor butterfly stuck in the wet sand.  I thought it was dead but still wanted to pick it out of the sand and when I did I saw it was still alive.  It immediately started trying to clean itself on my hand and I brushed away the bigger lumps of sand.  Once it had managed to separate it's stuck together antenae it started looking like a live butterfly again but what to do with it?

Well I was reluctant to let it go and watch it get blown back onto the beach again so I decided to take it back to the car.  I was going to leave it on a bush on the promenade but it was still breezy and so I put it on the back seat of the car and drove away (yes, ridiculous I know!).  When I got home half an hour later I carefully searched it out and found it asleep on a coat sleeve and feeling very pleased with myself I set it free out of the back door into the garden.  I hope it didn't mind being taken 18 miles away from its home patch.  But hopefully it will be safe here in the gardens and fields of my local patch!  (By the way - its a Small Tortoiseshell)

August Remembered

Looks like August has been a bit of a crochet month craft-wise.  I seem to have the bug at the moment.  Other than that there have been some very enjoyable outings with my sister I'll remember when I look at this digi-scrapbook page at the end of the year.  I like to think of these monthly layouts as a kind of photographic diary and hopefully I'll get them printed and bound some how.  In my opinion looking at a screen is never the same as slowly turning the pages of an old photograph album.

There was a full moon two days ago and since then the weather has taken a turn for the better - warm in the day and a definite chill of Autumn in the evenings.  The sky was clear on 30th August and I took some photos in the garden at about 10.30 pm on my way home.  Its the only place around about that I can get away from the light pollution that ruins any chance of photographing the moon with my pocket camera.  Above are Evening Primroses in silhouette against the moon.

Unfortunately I can see the shadowy handshake in this photo.

Summer Holiday Mini

I made this mini-album for my sister recently.  For the first time she and her son spent the summer holiday in different countries - my sister here in Wales and her son in Turkey with family.  With the help of Facebook I secretly obtained some photos and created this pull-out accordion album in kraft cardstock - large photos of Turkey and small photos in die cut slide mounts of Wales.  Mini-albums are one of my most favourite things to make and I've done quite a few, but I got the idea for this one from Cristina during the July Papertrey Ink countdown.  Don't you just love that vintage camera stamp!  I think my sister liked it.

Thanks to Godelieve once again for the use of her excellent template.

Stamps: PTI Shutterbug Special, Darkroom Door Essentials: Photography, MFT Typewriter; Sizzlit Slide Mount die