by Debbie Hodge
This is the second in a series on scrapbooking pages with perspective. The first article in this series (Consider opposing points of view) introduces this idea and shares one way to do this. Here is yet another approach.
Think about the bigger picture of your subject’s life – move beyond how it directly relates to you.
Hard as it sometimes is for me to admit: it’s NOT always all about me.
I remind myself of this especially when I’m at an event that my kids are loving (and at which they have probably run off with their friends leaving me alone) and I’m making small talk, leaning against walls, and even wandering aimlessly. I think: what am I to them at this point? And my answer is: a safety net, a source of money, someone to hold their coats, mom. I am not, however, as central to their experience of these events as I once way. From there it becomes easier to imagine how they are experiencing this same event, to consider what they’re after, how they’re feeling with friends, what they’re hoping will happen, what they’re enjoying at the moment.
In “Our Shelby,” I scrapbooked a page that takes a look at our neighbor as she graduates from high school, and I touch upon the many ways all of these children have experienced her presence, and, finally, I acknowledge that she’s got a huge life of her own that’s now going in new directions.
Journaling: Shelby is a huge presence in our neighborhood. She’s been a 10-year-old playing with the toddlers, a girl teaching Joshua to make dandelion chains, a teen swimming in the river. She’s babysat for every one of these kids and become a high-schooler with a car who still stops at the circle and rolls down her window to chat with the adoring throng. And now she’s going to college. We know her as our Shelby, not considering what other worlds might revolve around her. Good luck, Shelby and we’ll see you on break!
Journaling. I began with the facts: the actual incidents in which we’ve all interacted with Shelby. From there, I springboarded to the idea that we are a small part of this young girl’s rapidly-expanding life.
Photos. The group photo was taken at a picnic table with an empty yard beyond. To give the sense of there being more going on than just at that table (which is my point in the journaling) I trimmed out the group, backed them with white and then cut that out a bit larger (I did this digitally, but it’s totally doable with a photo print and scissors — the idea is to create a fun sticker, and you don’t need to be precise in your trimming). I layered the “stickerized” group onto a shot of the busy yard when the kids were running around earlier.
Your turn.
Take a look through your photos and consider what your subjects were feeling, hoping for, or even disappointed by in the situation you’re scrapbooking.
[lovejournaling]
