Ladies Bring A Plate III

Having merged two historical photos for the dinner plate, my next task was to find images for the four bread and butter plates. I have a collection of old cook books, which I hoped would inspire me, if not provide something ready made. I really like the line drawing style some of them used, but none of the images fitted with what I was looking for. So I had to do my own drawings…

 

Afternoon teas and suppers served in our Hall invariably include sandwiches, and often sausage rolls as well – that’s the savoury plate. Cream cakes are always popular, and Lamingtons are another favourite, so the sweet plate has Lamingtons, butterfly cakes and cream kisses.

For the third plate, I took my inspiration from the table settings we use for High Tea at the Moyston Hall. By scanning my drawings, I was able to clean them up a little digitally much more effectively than with any analogue methods.

I found an illustration on the correct serving of tea in one of my old books, but I didn’t really want the text. I’m no expert at digital manipulation, but I did manage to remove the unwanted words. I was left with a paler rectangle which refused to blend in, and solved the problem by giving it a purpose.

Now that I have all my images prepared, and photocopied, the next step is to apply them…

Ladies Bring A Plate II

Having decided to decorate the old plates, the second task was to decide what to put on them. We had gathered some old photos of events in the Hall when we produced a history book for the Hall’s Centenary celebration in 2014, and I had one of those in mind – it was taken in the old supper room.

I was able to edit it a little to bring up the details of the the food on the table. Once a circle is cut to fit the old dinner plate, some of that will disappear, unfortunately. I wonder if the plate it will be applied to is there in the photo?!

I thought it might be interesting to superimpose the photo of inside with that of outside. It took some tweaking before I was really happy with the result. Aligning the window in both images was the key.

I made the party image slightly transparent, so that the outside wall is just visible behind the party goers. The occasion was a 21st birthday party – look at that cake! The plate held by the lady in the foreground (the birthday boy’s grandmother, I think) is similar to the  bread and butter plates I have plans for…

Ladies Bring a Plate

Our local Hall in Moyston has had more than a hundred years of community social occasions, most of which would have been catered for by the ladies “bringing a plate”. We had fifty years of the Moyston Old Time Dance, held once a month in the Hall. It started out as a fundraiser to build the new supper room, and went on until 2016. Local clubs took turns to cater, making sandwiches on the night and “the ladies” donating cakes and slices. Moyston Hall was renowned throughout the district for the quality of the food.

When we moved here 34 years ago, there was the “new” supper room, with an old kitchen behind it. I remember it as being dark and dingy, with a copper in one corner that was used in days of yore to make bulk coffee on those social occasions. They enhanced the flavour with mustard, and who knows what else… I kid you not! Sadly, no one thought to take photos.

Assessing the crockery recently, some very old plates came to light, marked as belonging to the Hall, and judging from the style, dating from the 1930’s. I decided on the spot that we should do something to/with/on them, and an hour or two later, we had a plan to apply images relating to the history of the Hall to these plates, and to display them somehow.

The finished piece will be in celebration of all the plates of food served up and enjoyed over the years.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Twisted

“Not straight, not so straight” – twisted, in fact. Sticks, and the flames that consume them, cannot keep a straight line.

Bonfires are a regular event here, signalling the end of summer and fire restrictions. It’s also the end of Alex’s tired old thrifted chair – and a sobering reminder of the flammability of foam upholstery!

I made some candle lanterns using glass jars and twisted wire, to add atmosphere and light up the path to the paddock. This one has a hanger made with a found, twisted piece of heavy wire. The marbles around the tea light candle keep it centred and avoid overheating the glass. The jar lid can be popped on when the lantern isn’t in use, to keep the rain out.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Liquid

I had an image in mind immediately for this liquid challenge,  but I’m still running late…

 

Anyone with a camera and a wet Echinopsis has probably taken at least one shot of water drops in the middle of the rosette, but I had to take another one anyway!

Baling murky water out of a water trough revealed a gleaming bloom of oil slick – another photo op. How wonderful it is to have a pretty good camera that slides into my pocket!

The last image is of some creatures living in an old bathtub/pond in our garden.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Smile!

Smiling for the camera is such a cliche – but catching a genuine smile on film (or in pixels) is lovely. I like to take unposed photos of my grandkids (and my kids, back in the day), with them going about their business. The “look at the camera and say cheese” variety have their place, but I like more natural portraits – and if I capture a smile – bonus! We are going to visit Juniper and Banjo next week – we haven’t seen them in person for months, so whatever next week’s challenge theme is, I may have to work them into it!

Portraying a convincing smile in a painting is harder than catching a smile in a photo, which is why this acrylic has pride of place on my wall. 

Weekly Photography Challenge: Sunset

Sun up, or sun down, that is the challenge…I’m not a morning person, I prefer to avoid dawn, except in winter when the sun also gets up later…

So here are some late-in-the-day spectacular skies. The street scene is in Horsham – not a colourful event, but I liked the quality of the light. The three on the right are all of the same evening, an apocalyptic looking cloud-scape over Ararat. We came out from a movie at the Astor Cinema, to find the light weirdly yellow, as it sometimes is with a storm brewing .The last is taken from the car on the way home – sunset over the Grampians, not that you can tell! It reminds me of a Tim Storrier painting, though.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Out of this World

So, share an other-worldly image, although literally Out-of-this-World is difficult to manage (moon or stars would work, but decent images of celestial bodies require gear and, I suspect, patience, that I don’t have).

The horrid face is a paper mache creation that was consigned to the flames at bottom left. I sifted through the ashes afterwards and only managed to find one of the glass marble eyeballs. I gave up on trying to identify the teeth, since they were small quartz stones that are all over the ground here.

The bottom right image is a detail of naturally dyed fabric. I used metal paper clips as resist – the metal makes the black mark – they look like alien butterflies.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Faces in a Crowd

Sometimes including faces in the crowd, or the backs of heads, adds an interesting layer to an image, without detracting from whatever they are looking at, or doing.

Our Hall Committee have hosted two High Teas (so far!). They are a lot of work, as well as a lot of fun, and I’ve been trying to remember to document them as much as possible. I pulled the phone out yesterday to catch Peter and Neil hard at work washing up and putting away the many bits and pieces that are essential for a proper High Tea. I had taken several photos of the room set up but empty of people – full, it looks quite different.

Granpa, Tilly and a small horse (and another young lass) needs no explanation.

The other three images are from our Trip of a Lifetime (2011 – time flies).

I took a lot of photos with Bryan in them – some deliberate, some because he was in the way… The little boys were “in my way” when I was taking photos of the rainbow in the International Fountain at the Seattle Center, but the shot with them there is by far the best of the lot. The last one is from the ferry, crossing from Port Angeles to Victoria BC – our three day foray to Canadian soil – looking back across the backs of other passengers at lovely Hurricane Ridge.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Beloved

I love a lot of people and things, so choosing a particular beloved as my subject is a challenge indeed…

However, I saw my beloved Foo Fighters last week, supported by Weezer (love them too!), so here are some pictures from the show at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne. Every time I’ve seen them, I’ve been further away, I think! The first time I saw them play mid afternoon at the Big Day Out – I forget what year it was – and not all that many people cared. Now they can fill a stadium, and our seats were way up near the roof…Once the lights were out and the music began, I forgot about our vertiginous perch, and just enjoyed the show.

 

As the sun went down, golden rays lit up the windows on the far side of the auditorium, making for a light show that rivalled that on stage. Later on, Dave Grohl asked for darkness and then for the crowd to turn on their phones for a magical display of unity.

There’s nothing like a bit of community singing to cheer the heart, and there was plenty of that before the show was over and we all filed back outside. What’s not to love?