Now that I’ve successfully completed my first online scrapbooking class, I have decided to sign up for another online scrapbooking class. This time, I’m going to check out the class offered from Ella Publishing. I enjoy their blog and their e-books and this one doesn’t sound like too big of a time commitment, so I’m going for it.
Maybe I’ll see you in the class, too!
Stephanie
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Each Wednesday, I write a post from my dissertation.
Many scrapbookers, if not most, edit photographs in one way or another. Photographs are edited from the beginning—when the photographer decides to take a photograph, something else remains unphotographed—to the end—when photo-editing software can be used to improve photo quality or cut out undesirable elements (people or things).
Photographs are further edited through the selection of choosing which printed photos to include in the scrapbook and if any further editing should occur. Critics overstate the role of photo-editing in scrapbooking. True, photo editing software is used to “eliminate [everything from] red-eye to a deadbeat dad” (Helfand 2008:169), but my respondents report that most photo-editing involves the former (i.e., red-eye), and very rarely involves the latter (i.e., deadbeat dad).
Photo editing is an important part of the storytelling in scrapbooking. For example, cropping a photograph may be used to direct the viewer’s focus to what the scrapbooker feels is important. In other cases, a photo is cropped after it has been printed so that more photographs will fit on the scrapbook page. Here the issue space, without the intent of changing the story. Other times a scrapbooker may crop a photograph to provide interest or artistry on the page. For example, a photograph may be cut into a circle or a triangle to break up the monotony of rectangles (the standard printed shape of photographs). Cropping may also be done to eliminate “empty space.” Empty space most often is the background—the sky, water, or a wall—nothing of interest (i.e., white space).
Photo editing changes shape as scrapbookers become more experienced scrapbookers and photographers. At this point, the scrapbooker often begins taking pictures with their scrapbook in mind–meaning, the photo editing occurs before the photo is even taken. For example, a respondent mentions how she takes photographs differently by trying to eliminate as much “junk” (e.g., an empty potato chip bag in the background) from the image before even taking the photograph and discusses what she plans to do differently on her next outing (e.g., using an actual picnic basket instead of plastic grocery bags is better for the photograph). Here the editing begins before the photograph is even made. Some items cannot be removed from the view of the camera as one respondent reports regularly removing a facial mole from his face with photo editing software.
Industry workers actually caution scrapbookers from cropping too many photographs or too much of a photo because things that seem unimportant now may be very important in the future (e.g., a painting on the wall at your grandparents’ house seems unimportant in a photo of your grandparents now but later, that painting may serve as an important reminder of your grandparents). Back to the example of the potato chip bag…that bag might date the photograph. Think about it. Does the brand of potato chips that you ate as a child still manufactured? Is it a flavor that is not longer sold? The point is that clutter or noise could trigger memories that otherwise would be lost.
Occasionally, photographs are edited as they are taken. A scrapbooker in my study used a camera that can merge two photos together. She showed me the resulting photograph. One click of the camera recorded her husband next to a sign and the next click recorded her next to the sign. The final photograph is of the two of them next to the sign as if they both really had been in front of the camera at the same time. Unfortunately, this camera setting is imperfect in that the merged photos did not match up evenly so upon close examination, one can tell the photo had been edited and that husband and wife were not really standing next to the same sign at the exact moment the camera clicked.
Photographs are also edited for artistic reasons.. For example, a scrapbooker in my study tinted all of his photos from a trip to the beach blue to better go with the beach theme of sky and water. Photographs are edited, but rarely in ways to intentionally mislead the viewer.
How about you? Do you frame your photographs to exclude some things or people from the shot? Do you edit your photos before they are printed? Do you edit photos after they are printed? What do you think? Comment below and join the conversation on facebook.
Reference:
Helfand, Jessica. 2008. Scrapbooks: An American History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Stephanie
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April is National Poetry Month and that’s got me thinking about how poetry relates to scrapbooking.
People who love poetry really love poetry according to David Orr’s book, Beautiful and Pointless (as reported by David Kirby’s commentary. This got me thinking about scrapbooking and how it seems that people who love scrapbooking really love scrapbooking. Orr simply used a google search comparing the results of loving and liking poetry. I decided to try this out with scrapbooking.
The phrase “i like to scrapbook” returned 174,000 and the phrase “i love to scrapbook” returned 244,000. Let’s try this with a slightly different phrase. The phrase “i like scrapbooking” returned 165,000 hits and the phrase “i love scrapbooking” returned 357,000 hits.
“I love scrapbooking” returned over twice as many hits as “I like scrapbooking.” So it seems that following Orr’s methodology (as described by Kirby in the NYT’s piece), that people who love scrapbooking, really love scrapbooking.
What do you think? Comment below and join the conversation on Twitter.
Have I told you how much I love The Happiness Project? That’s why I am talking about it each Monday. Whether you are a scrapbooker or considering becoming a scrapbooker or not, most readers can get a lot out of this book.
Be Serious About Play. This is Rubin’s theme for the month of May (she takes on a happiness challenge each month over the course of a year). There’s no reason to wait until May to get serious about play. Scrapbooking is a great way to be serious about play because it can be both serious and play. I have fun scrapbooking, but the finished product (IMHO) is something serious. I am preserving my memories, which is pretty cool. Here are the upcoming scrap happy goals:
Are you doing a happiness project? Are you doing a scrap happy project? What’s stopping you? Join me today!
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Stephanie
I will be participating in my first ever blog hop next Sunday!
Each Saturday, I provide a compilation of links from the week’s posts.
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Stephanie
I have decided to replace Scrapweb with Minimalist Scrapbooking. I can share the links of my favorite posts from the week via facebook and Twitter. It seems redundant to do it here, too. This will save me time because I will immediately share whatever new inspiring thing is floating around the web instead of having to review and select a few starred posts each week.
Minimalist Scrapbooking is replacing Scrapweb. I mentioned Minimalist Scrapbooking on Monday. So what is Minimalist Scrapbooking.
Minimalist Scrapbooking could be considered is a method of scrapbooking that takes into account the fact that most of us are not very organized with our scrapbook supplies and have more scrapbooks supplies than possible memories to actually pair those supplies with. Ok, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. Here is a glimpse of my scrap area:
And another angle:
I am going to use these supplies. I am not going to buy any new scrapbooking supplies for as long as I can. My only “rules” are that I can buy adhesive, page protectors, basic color cardstock (black, white, and kraft), and prints of my photographs. I can not buy embellishments, ribbon, patterned paper, and so on. The goal is to use what I already have (sometimes referred to as “use your stash”).
I do not plan to write a bunch of posts about using your stash. There are plenty of people already doing this. Instead, I will chronicle my progress with using my supplies. How many pages can I complete before I must buy new supplies? How do I overcome challenges like not having the perfect color combination of paper? How did I manage to utilize hopelessly outdated supplies?
Why am I doing this? Well, I have a lot of supplies and they cost money. Each time I buy new supplies, they end up in a pile of some sort in the area in which I scrapbook. I have to re-organize just to scrapbook. This is madness! I also have supplies that I hold onto just in case I might use them. Well, this is a great way to see if I might use those supplies. I have a basket devoted to my cast-offs. Most of my cast-offs will end up as my daughter’s art supplies. The rest will either be sold at a rummage sale, donated, or otherwise given away. I want to save some money. I am going on vacation in a few weeks. I would like to increase the amount we can save towards our retirement. I would like to increase the money in our emergency savings account. I want to prove to myself that I can scrapbook without spending a great deal of money. I know this is true, but I need to live it for awhile. When I started scrapbooking, I actually took my photos to my LSS to match colors. I could fit all my supplies in one basket. Of course, now I live much further from anything resembling a scrapbook store and matching colors online is a bit more challenging. Regardless, I need to use my stash.
Minimalist scrapbooking should not be confused with simple scrapbooking or a minimalist scrapbooker. These terms are not all mutually exclusive. Minimalist scrapbooking entails using what you have and only buying the basic things you need when you actually need them. Some of the pages I will create while completing this challenge (or lifestyle readjustment) may contain a lot of product. Some may not. Minimalist scrapbooking simply means that you are making an effort to use your supplies rather than buying new supplies. New supplies have a tendency of getting in the way of scrapbooking. It is time to take back your scrapbooking. Will you join me?
Each Thursday I review a book or blog related to scrapbooking.
The Review
Write. Click. Scrapbook. is an excellent blog with a steady stream of useful content. I reviewed this blog from March 7 to April 7, 2011.
Write. Click. Scrapbook. is written by a collective. Each week, a different author wrote the posts on a specific topic.
During week 1, the posts were about cardmaking by Emily Pitts. I do not consider myself a cardmaker, so I did not get much out of these particular posts for this reason.
During week 2, the posts were from different photographers discussing their photography philosophy. This was more useful to me, because I am working on learning how to use the manual mode on my dslr.
During week 3, the posts were from Amy Sorensen, who wrote about using your supplies. I really enjoyed these posts because not only did she talk about using various supplies, she also talked about strategies to determine which supplies to keep, purge, and buy in the first place. I was excited to see these posts as I will be debuting a new series tomorrow called Minimalist Scrapbooking that uses some of these principles.
During week 4, the posts were from Wendy Smedley, who wrote a series of posts on using frames in home decor.
During week 5, the posts were about random topics by Erin Sweeney (sorry, I could not find a link to her own blog. If you have it, send it to me and I’ll update the post.). Though there was not an explicit theme like the previous weeks, it was nice to see a variety of posts, too.
Throughout the month, there were giveaways and posts that were simply a photograph paired with a quote. These types of posts were not used too often, but were spaced perfectly to break-up the more in-depth posts. The posts from Write. Click. Scrapbook. are more detailed than your typical blog, but they are focused and provide great content in the process.
[An aside]
My daughter discovered the ‘B’ key and wants to show off:
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Publishers and Authors
If you are a publisher or an author and would like me to review your scrapbooking-related book or blog, please email me at stephaniemedleyrath at gmail dot com.
Stephanie
Each Wednesday, I write a post from my dissertation.
Scrapbooks contain narratives about the past. These narratives to some extent “must be fictionalized in order for us to make sense of our lives … in order to survive” (Mavor 1997:115). Scholars note how people omit negative memories from their photograph albums (Holland 1991), so it would be easy to assume that scrapbookers do the same. Industry workers emphasize that every scrapbooker should be truthful in their scrapbooks—that honesty matters. Being truthful includes scrapbooking the good and the bad and being careful with editing the story. Cropping a photograph might change the story the photograph tells, for instance. Scrapbookers often cut out objects that were not the focus of the photograph, but those objects may provide context, telling a more complete story. The point is that scrapbookers do strive to tell a truthful story. The story may not be “the truth” but it is “their truth;” outright dishonesty is rare. Lies of omission are quite common and scrapbookers have various reasons why some things are not scrapworthy, but truthfulness is held out as a norm among scrapbookers.
Scrapbookers are to varying degrees truthful in their scrapbooks. One respondent censors the copies of the heritage album she is creating for her brothers because she does not think they would understand the whole truth. She says she does not lie but “tells the most positive truth” she can. No other scrapbookers talk about censorship in this way, even when they did censor their books. For example, one respondent is careful about scrapbooking nudity so as not to raise the suspicion of child protective services.
Lies of omission can be as minor as only taking pictures of buildings and statues when on vacation. One respondent says, “I can’t stand people who travel and don’t ever take any people pictures; it’s like, wasn’t there any people on your trip?”
Non-scrapbookers overestimate the amount of lying and editing that takes place in scrapbooks. One respondent recounts how her son was crying in his picture with the Easter Bunny and her dad was like, “oh, I guess you can’t scrapbook it.” She did scrapbook it and thought “why wouldn’t I?” Though critics of scrapbooking and of snapshot family photography, are right to criticize the ability of the scrapbooker or family archivist to edit the story, they overemphasize this point.
References
Holland, Patricia. 1991. “Introduction: History, Memory and the Family Album.” Pp.1-14 in Family Snaps: The Meanings of Domestic Photography, edited by J. Spence and P. Holland. London, Great Britain: Virago Press.
Mavor, Carol. 1997. “Collecting Loss.” Cultural Studies 11(1):111-37.
Related posts:
Don’t forget, you can always email me your questions and suggestions. Email me at stephaniemedleyrath at gmail dot com or contact me here (http://www.scrapworthylives.com/contact-me/) and let me know what you’re thinking, what you’d like to see, and any questions you might have. I will personally respond to your emails and may use your questions in future articles.
Stephanie
I try to limit discussing my personal life on Scrapworthy Lives. There are plenty of blogs where people share a great detail about their life already out there. I realize though that I need to share a bit more of myself in order for readers to connect with me better. Who am I? You do get a snapshot of me on my about page, but that’s pretty much it. So, without further ado, here are five things about me:
I recently became a runner. I am not planning on running a marathon and have little interest in running any races. I might run with my friend in a 5k or 10k eventually, but that is the extent of my competitive running goals. I am running because I can. I am running because it is convenient and doable. I want to be a good role model for my daughter and I believe exercising is part of this.
I enjoy a cup or two or three of green tea mint in my Longaberger pottery each morning. I enjoy it so much, that I am now getting this tea auto-delivered from Amazon each month. (My mom sells Longaberger, so if you like my mug, get one from her. And their pottery is 20% off through the month of April! 🙂 Thanks.)
I finally have a yard again where I can plant a garden. I can’t wait for warmer weather so I can get started.
I have a dog that is really trying me lately. We got her as a puppy in 2002. She began having seizures in 2007. Her medicine had been controlling the seizures for the most part until the end of 2010. She is on a higher dose of the original meds and an additional med. She injured herself on the stairs a couple of months ago while she was having a seizure and came to get us. She still hasn’t quite recovered from that injury. The new meds are really messing with her. She used to only use the bathroom outside. Now, I clean up a mess inside 3-4 times a week. It would be more, but we moved her to the garage while we are gone at work. This is not perfect as she has got into the trash twice and recycling once. Frustrated. Challenged. Sad. She will see the vet this week to see if her meds need adjusted.
My daughter. She will be three in a couple of months. Yikes! She knows how to use my ipod. She is growing up too fast, but she is growing up beautifully.
Well, I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about me. I can’t wait to learn more about you, too.
If you haven’t already subscribed, join the Email List so you never miss a post! You will receive no more than two emails a week from this list. Subscribers will be the first to learn about any new products and promotions at Scrapworthy Lives. To subscribe, scroll up to the upper left side of this page. Thanks for your support!
Stephanie Medley-Rath is a sociologist and scrapbooker who studies scrapbooking and memory keeping. Scrapworthy Lives is a blog focused on her sociological analysis of scrapbooking, with a sprinkling of posts about Stephanie's own scrapbooking projects.
