Polaroidish

Day 47 at Beyond Layers was called Polaroid Love. I was somewhat suspicious of the theme to start with. We've never had a Polaroid camera in our family, so I really cannot say I'd love Polaroid. I do remember somebody we knew had this cool camera with which you could take these instant photos, but they never were that popular with the people we knew. But then I thought about it from another point of view: what I remember very well are the first colour photos from the 70s that started very soon losing their colours and turning red and faded, especially in the plastic pockets where we used to place them. I shudder to think my Granny's large album with all plastic pages, little pockets full of reddened photos, some almost impossible to make out anymore…

Furthermore, there seem to be these actions for that sort of effect - blur, fading colours - floating around, so I thought perhaps I'd now get to try out some of them within these polaroid frames Kim urged us to download. So I did try out various actions, with pleasing results. Then I dediced to turn them into scrapbooking layouts, and also got the opportunity to use some scrapbooking papers from the Au coin de l'objectif website, which I has been my favourite scrapbooking resource for years. It's a treasure trove, though nowadays I tend to make my own papers.

All these photos were taken on 1 May on the now already traditional Mayday orienteering event in town. It's a lot of fun. The local orienteering club places these about 20 check points around the town, the map with the points is published in the local paper, and people go around punching the checkcards also published in the newspaper at the check points. You can find as many points as you wish and in the order you wish, but if you punch your card at at least six points, you can return your checkcard and take part in a draw of some little prize. Some people take it as a sports event, running or jogging the whole route, but for many it's either a nice walk or a family cycling tour. We take a walk with the dogs and of course I take the camera along, since there's always something nice to see. I thought these pictures were well suited to this challenge, because they were sort of timeless, places that certainly had been there in the seventies. And now I'm even happier to have taken and played with the pictures, because two of the photos couldn't be taken anymore - the buildings have been pulled down this summer.

Resources:
- action Vanilla Peach by NightFateActions
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo
- paper from Bruissements d'un premier anniversaire by Au coin de l'objectif
- font Tusch Touch 1 by Måns Grebäck
- font Underwood Champion

Resources:
- action Dusty Haze by Sarah Lynn Cornish
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo
- paper from Bruissements de rentrée des classes by Au coin de l'objectif

- font Tusch Touch 2 by Måns Grebäck

- font Underwood Champion

Resources:
- action Vintage by  NightFateActions
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo

- paper from Bruissements de rentrée des classes by Au coin de l'objectif

- font Tusch Touch 4 by Måns Grebäck

- font Underwood Champion

Resources:
- action Seventies by The Pioneer Woman
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo

- paper from Bruissements de rentrée des classes by Au coin de l'objectif

- font Tusch Touch 3 by Måns Grebäck

- font Underwood Champion

Doesn't look too bad. Perhaps I'll do something like this later on, too.

Time Capsules & Storyboard

The challenge for Beyond Layers Day 5 & 6 was easy: creating Time Capsules and making a storyboard, with ready-made templates.

Time capsules is a concept I love. Photography is for me in any case recording - recording everyday events, capturing moments. It's something I've learned from my father. He was a keen photographer, and of course took pictures at Christmas, in family parties and on holiday trips, when we toured Finland with my parents and sister, but that wasn't all. He also shot us kids in our everyday. I still treasure a particular series he caught of me and my cousin, aged about five, playing with a pail of water in our grandparents' garden and totally oblivious to being photographed.

When my mother passed away, we had a hard time finding "presentable" pictures of her for the funeral, although Dad had been photographing her for decades. It's customary to have this one picture of the deceased on a table, with a candle and some flowers next to it. In the picture the person is seated alone, preferably with a smile on her face, and that's it.

Well, there were loads of shots of Mum walking, working, dancing, fishing, swimming, skiing, gardening and very very seldom was she alone.  I asked my sister why we couldn't make a collage instead, showing Mum the way I remember her, active, but of course Sis wouldn't hear of it, because it's Not Done.

A few years ago I stumbled on digital scrapbooking on the Net, and realized this might be something for me. I'm not really into embellishments or quotes... what I like to do is tell stories, capture time. In 2010, I bought a small album and created a birthday present for my ever active better half, showing many of the things accomplished during the year, from one birthday to the next. I'm still quite proud of the little album.

But now to the challenge itself.  I decided to make a time capsule of the day the challenge was given, 3 May. On that day I journeyed from Rostock in Germany to Zwolle in the Netherlands on a coach tour with some students of mine. We left our ship in Rostock after 8 in the morning, and it was a 550-kilometre drive, so most of the day was spent just sitting on the coach. We arrived in Zwolle early enough in the afternoon to go for a long walk in town, though, which naturally resulted in a lot of pictures.

Early morning in Rostock. Pictures from the shipboard.
Template by Kim Klassen 

Driving across Northern Germany. Shots from the coach window.
Template by Kim Klassen.

Breaks along the Autobahn. Shots of the places we stopped at.
Template by Ginger Pixel. 

On the  road in the Netherlands, more coach window shots.
Template by Kim Klassen  

Sightseeing in Zwolle.
Template by me.

Walking in Zwolle.  More pictures of the town centre.
Template by Timounette.

Window-Shopping in Zwolle. Still more photos of the town centre.

Template by Flaneuse.

The thing I learned here was to make the outlook more uniform by adding a gradient map layer to the storyboards.