Sitting Pretty

I love and treasure all my old sepia photos. I find it incredible that they´ve survived for so long and how amazingly detailed they are when you consider how relatively primitive old cameras were. Of course they´ve faded somewhat over time but Photoshop can bring them back to radiant life with just a few mouse clicks and any little imperfections can be just as easily camouflaged. Something else I like about them is that it´s such fun to imagine what they´d look like in colour...and then just go ahead and use any colour I want. When I colour sepia tinted clothes it reminds me of the dressing dolls I used to play with as a child and it´s so enjoyable that it goes some way to making up for the fact that in many cases I´ve no idea where and when the photo was taken. In the one below all I know is that it´s one of many I have of my Aunt Lucas – in case you don´t already know, that´s the elegant lady sitting at the top of this blog – but I have no idea who her friend is, when or where the photo was taken or by whom. I think that she´s wearing the same coat as above, but as I haven´t a clue what colour it really was, I´ve made it green this time though I suppose I could have used purple or brown or anything else that took my fancy.

(And, before you ask, yes my aunt was really called Lucas. All I know is that it´s an old family name and I can only assume it was originally Lucasta which apparently dates from the 17^th century and means pure light.)

So here she is, my elegant aunt and her friend, sitting pretty and trapped in a brief moment in time (can it really be?) over 3/4 of a century ago.

Changing Rooms

Recently my cousin Neville emailed me asking if I could make a picture for his wife Margaret from the header on my blog. As some of you may know, the elegant lady sitting on the couch is Neville´s mother, my Aunt Lucas. I have many photos of her, mostly studio portraits from the 1930s in which she´s immaculately groomed and stylishly dressed. You´re probably thinking that the photo on the above header is one of them. Not at all!

 

As you can see, the photo was actually just a snapshot. According to the writing on the back, it was taken in March 1932 in the small Scottish town of Balloch on – to quote our national poet, Robert Burns - “the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond” - and shows that Lucas didn´t only dress in her best for her many studio photos but also for a day trip to the country. You could say that she looks just as immaculate sitting on a rock as sitting on the sofa in my header.

Anyway, that´s just the history of the photo. Back to Margaret´s request...I was wondering how I could possibly transform my blog header into a picture for her to frame when I suddenly remembered that I already had one. Years ago long before I started this blog I´d created a series of fantasy rooms one of which had been the inspiration for my header. I dug around in my folders and finally unearthed it.

It included the table, the vase of roses, the oval picture and Lucas seated on the sofa which are all in the header too. And if you look directly to your left, you´ll even see the china ornament which I´d placed on the table. I was tremendously relieved to think I´d found the perfect picture and wouldn´t have to start from scratch. That is until Neville sent me a photo of the frame...

 ...and I realised with dismay that 30.5 cm x 30.5 cm into 19 cm x 24 cm won´t go. I tried cutting the image down to size but that resulted in chopping the large oval picture on the wall right down the middle. It looked as if I might have to start from scratch after all. Then I had a thought that sent me scurrying back to the folder where I´d found the jpg and there, amazingly, was the original layout in psd format with all its layers intact! With some resizing and a little manipulation I finally ended up with this.

I was about to send it off when the thought occurred to me that since Margaret and Neville live in far distant South Africa the chances are I´d never get to see my work framed and hanging on the wall. On the other hand, since I´d already extracted the frame, there was no reason why I couldn´t have a preview of the finished picture on my computer screen.

Looking from the frame to the picture and back again I was just thinking that Margaret couldn´t have chosen a more beautiful frame when an idea occurred to me that made me smile. 

 

Maybe I should have called this post “Spot The Difference”.

Can you?

Will Margaret...

...and which one will she choose?