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: 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: Sweets

The photo challenge this time is to share something sweet. I’m not the sweet-tooth I was in my youth -lollies have definitely lost their appeal. I do like a little sweet something now and then, just not as sweet as when I was a kid. My grand daughters, however, are both deeply in love with frosting, sprinkles and anything sugary.

 

A nice cup of tea and a scone with some jam will do me.

Juniper was obsessed with icecream last birthday, and I had fun looking for craft supplies that fit the theme for her – such as this super sweet stamp set.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Unusual

I like to take photos of things that I think are unusual, so maybe my challenge response should be a photo of something…ordinary.

That lemon is off our own tree, and it’s very ordinary indeed. So ordinary that it’s actually unusual, but not much use as a lemon, sadly. The normal one behind is purchased.

The jar contains many pieces of broken china, which I have picked up over the years around our local area. People must have used anywhere outside as a rubbish dump back in the Good Old Days, but only china and glass remain, fortunately. I’m fascinated by the patterns.

I don’t think it was me who added the Lego pirate to the vignette on my desk – he appears to be patting the Chipmunk, which is not to scale with him, or the Bison. Quite unusual, really!

Weekly Photography Challenge: Security

It often amazes me to see newspaper polls on how safe people think they are (with no regard for how safe they actually are) when their feelings of security are so much affected by what they read in that same newspaper – not to mention TV news coverage that emphasises and reiterates every bad thing that happens anywhere (preferably with pictures).

Feeling secure is as important as how secure you actually are, and not watching the news is a big help with that. Morgen the cat and our grand daughters, Matilda and Juniper, don’t watch “news” and they feel pretty good most of the time. My mum took the photo of Juni, me and Zoe (my daughter, Juni’s mum) sitting on one of my late dad’s English ship’s cannons. He rescued them from scrap metal when I was little, and we used them as a play gym when I was growing up. I feel less secure about my grandkids frolicking on them – they didn’t seem as high (or hard) when I was a kid…

Weekly Photography Challenge: Ambience

This week has whizzed past so fast, it’s already Friday, and almost time for the next photography challenge. But for now, the challenge is still to portray Ambience, an environment that encourages a particular mood or feeling – almost invariably it means a good feeling.

Ararat’s Alexandra Gardens have a long history in the town. The green lawns, European shade trees and small lake have made it a popular spot for picnics for generations, and the public pool at the Western end was a magnet in summer. In recent years the community fought to keep and upgrade the aging pool. As part of the renewal, there is now a cafe attached to the pool complex, with tables and chairs spilling out across the grass in the shade of the big old oak trees. The ambience is perfect for a leisurely cup of coffee on a sunny afternoon. Or morning. Or evening –  it’s open early until late!

For some extra ambience…I love this song – enjoy.

Weekly Photography Challenge:It’s Not That Time Of Year Without…

Yay! Christmas is coming! Soon it will be gone again…(also yay). Rising to this occasion, the Photography Challenge this week is to show something that it’s not this time of year without. Christmas is all about family, but our family are scattered across the continent and holiday travel is expensive, so our family celebration is whenever we can all get together. Last Christmas was one out of the box though – our little grand daughter Matilda decided to arrive a bit early, on Christmas Eve, so our Christmas day was a hot, windy picnic, and a couple of hours of passing the baby around the room at the hospital in Ballarat.

She slept through everything. 11 months later, sleep is not her favourite thing anymore…

Juniper is 3 now, and her favourite thing is her engines . Whenever our family celebration ends up, there will be trains involved. The other thing I especially like at the holiday feast, whenever it is, is something homegrown, even if it’s only a handful of beans, or some parsley. Too bad I’ve already eaten these broad beans…

Weekly Photography Challenge: Cherry on Top

A cherry on top isn’t necessary, but it makes a good thing even better. As a theme for the weekly photography challenge, I find it, well, challenging. Most of the week has flown past, and I’m still thinking about it! I’ve decide to share images of our grand daughters with Bryan – and of cake. There are no cherries on these cakes, but one lot has tiny Oreo biscuits, and the other has Tim Tams, so that’s probably even better, really!

Juniper is a couple of years older than Matilda, but they are both around 6 months in this pair of photos. I think you can tell that they are cousins, and that Grandpa thinks they are pretty okay.

Fruit trees are shady, they have lovely blossom in spring, and, best of all they make fruit! These peaches and nectarines all grew on seedling trees that “just growed” from compost – better still!