Life in Pictures

I like taking pictures. I try to take lots of pictures, so that I have lots to play with. I don't do much with them once I have them, though, these days.

I dabbled in scrapbooking (paper and glue and scissors scrapbooking) for about a year, but found that I really was no good at getting things done on my own. If I was with a group of people, I could do lovely things, and get pages done - well, if not 'lickety-split', then at least at a respectable pace. But, left to my lonesome, the scrapbook pages and books and ribbons and stamps and scissors and paper and glue and corners and pictures gathered dust in the spare room. Once I'd done all the shopping, the bloom was off the scrapbooking rose, as it were.

Then I started to get into digital scrapbooking. This was much better suited to the geek side (approx 85%) of my personality. All the baubles and patterns I could desire, and all at the click of a button. And, best of all? Almost all free to be shared, if you know where to look. And fonts are very fun.



The digital scrapping gave me the opportunity to learn more about photo editing and techniques, which lead to a brief affair with Worth1000.

Nowadays, my pictures all hang out on Flickr, or, if they're very lucky, make it over here to the blog. I have a very fancy, bells-and-whistles printer that my brother got for me for Christmas, and the poor thing is yet to print anything other than a knitting pattern.

I joined the Flickr group 24 Hours of Flickr. This is a project for people around the world to document their day in pictures, all on this Saturday, May 5. I'm looking forward to it, but kind of feel pressured to make my life more interesting than usual. I've been reading the comments of other people who've signed up, and they've just all made me feel very boring and inadequate. People are going to the Taj Mahal, participating in sidewalk chalk art demonstrations, travelling to Nepal. Most Saturdays, I'm doing well if I'm dressed before 2 pm.

I could find exciting and interesting things to do - go on a solitary road trip, visit galleries, wander strange streets and have adventures. But I think that what I'd rather do is to find ways to make my own, usual, good Saturday interesting to look back on. I'm not labouring under any kind of delusion that anyone is going to pore fascinatedly through my pictures at the end of the day, but I do want to be able to go back and look at them myself, and know that this was a good day for me.

So my challenge for tomorrow is to keep my camera in hand, and find the beauty in my normal weekend - find beauty in my home, in my chores and duties, and in my neighbourhood. That last one will be the easiest - I do live in Port Credit, after all, and this is the springtime.

I recommend checking out the group after tomorrow night. The pictures from the guy at the Taj Mahal should be great.