217/365 Old family photographs

This afternoon was spent looking through old photographs of my family. I took the boxes of prints and negatives to Roland & Suzanne's - Suzanne had asked if I could look out any photos of Roland growing up. Our Dad was a keen photographer for many years and had a darkroom of his own.

Across the bottom you can see our elder brother Steve, our Mum, Steve again. Across the centre - Rol & Steve with Mum; cousins Cathryn & David, our Mum holding baby Steve on the top of the wall, and Aunty Honey (Ethel) and Uncle Alf (obscured); Aunty Honey holding a turkey (they were farmers). Top image is cousin Cathryn; top right Roland as a toddler and Steve (obscured) with 2 girls whom we think may be Uncle George's daughters, so cousins.

The oldest images were of our parents as babies/toddlers in the early 1930s. As is so often the case, only a few pictures had any info on the reverse, and some that had been in albums had been removed or fallen out and so were separated from their captions.

Our own children will have digital archives with not just dates but the times that images were captured - but still not necessarily names and places!

166/365 Wedding Day Memories II

Putting my wedding dress back on its proper hanger today took me back to my own wedding day once again. The hanger is trimmed with matching satin and lace, perfect for a wedding dress shot, hanging from the four poster bed on Saturday afternoon. Here you see my veil trimmed with that same lace, the satin sash and the lace skirt of the dress behind. Saturday's bride had chosen off-white, whereas mine was much more of a cream/ivory, so perhaps if I get to do another wedding it'd be a good idea to get a less creamy coloured hanger. I'll keep an eye out for one. (See 53/365 for the first Wedding Day Memories post.)

96/365 A footprint on my heart

Today would have been my first daughter's 8th birthday. This is one of her footprints, she was stillborn. I have a big box crammed with cards, a remembrance book, video footage of a very kind midwife taking hand & footprints, big pink bows from the armfuls of flowers we received, a blanket she was wrapped in, a little outfit she was dressed in, a lock of her hair, photos of her, photos of the flowers, the hebrew prayer our Jewish midwife read out at the funeral, some words Mark & I each wrote which were read for us at the funeral because we could not speak... We had hundreds of cards and emails, I printed all the emails out, some folk went on to send cards or emails on the anniversary for a few years after. We called her Kim Annie Violet, the middle names were my paternal grandmother's names, I never knew her.

As a way of letting people know that I was 'ok', my email sig for some time after read "The body is well, the mind is managing, and the love of Mark & Oliver, and of Kim's healing gift are keeping the heart from breaking." (The 'healing gift ' part is a long story and has to do with recovering from a traumatic experience in a rather unique way: www.homebirth.org.uk/nickykim.htm & www.homebirth.org.uk/nickyjodie.htm)

A special friend who suffered a similar loss more recently just gave me a special box for Kim's keepsakes. So the box I made isn't crammed any more.

65/365 Props for talk on Photography

I volunteered to talk about my hobby at Jodie's school. In connection with World Book Day, the children have been talking about hobbies and several parents have come in to talk about theirs. After HB finished talking about coaching a junior football (soccer) team, using a ball, boots and her Coaching Manual to illustrate, I spoke about photography. I talked about how cameras now are commonplace and tiny compared to the first enormous 'keep still for 5 minutes' contraptions; I showed them a magnifying glass to explain that there are several similar lenses inside the lens on the front of my camera along with a miniature computer; I showed a selection of photographs illustrating why we take photos, to capture a time, a place, an event, so that we can remember it later and tell our children and grandchildren about it. And we talked about how photographs are everywhere around us and can be sent all around the world on the internet. I showed them my Mum as a baby, me as a baby and Jodie as a baby, and my wedding day.

With the children sat on the floor in a group at my feet, I took a few pictures of them showing the difference between ambient light and flash, and also zooming in to show a head and shoulders and then the same child's eye in close up - they thought that was cool! I also used the p&s to demonstrate how Jodie likes to take a picture of herself, a "self portrait". They laughed at that! I was able to log on to my flickr account and show my 365s as a slide show, every time Jodie appeared all the kids were pointing and exclaiming! I asked if any of them thought they might want to be a photographer when they grew up and lots of hands shot up.

It was great fun. By the time I left they were in the hall having lunch and lots of them were waving to me as I went through the hall. Jodie likes it when Mummy comes into school. ;0)