I'm driving on with the family book trying to do double page spreads to keep everything cohesive. I'm finding it fascinating scanning these old photographs but frustrating at the same time because I've left it too late by about 40 years to ask questions Lol! This is the right hand page of the spread, left is next door in the gallery <

Journalling (for Marleen )
Port Seton on the coast of the Firth of Forth four miles east of Musselburgh: 1934. A summer trip to the seaside for my Aunts, it must be summer as there are other photographs of swimming and smiling and posing for the camera and no one swims in the sea in Scotland unless it is a warm summer’s day. Aunt Rachel is twenty and Aunt Joan is twenty four years of age; they are the two girls standing. What struck me more than anything else was the body langauge of the girl seated at the front, she looks so sad and uncomfortable with what’s happening.

The guys don’t feature in any of the other photographs I have of the day, I have no idea who they are and I don’t know who the unhappy girl is either, was she a cousin? my Aunt’s friend? maybe that guy was her boyfriend and she was mad at him, maybe she just didn’t want to be on the outing in the first place or maybe she totally objected to the photograph and the physical contact – we will never know – but it’s recorded forever, that moment in time when she refused to smile at the camera and pretend she was having a good time. Today we bring up our daughters with the concept of ‘consent’ and body autonomy, it’s about power and agency and choice and having the fundamental right to say no to situations like this!

I've used ArtPlay Gallivant for this page: Foundation is a plain cardstock on which is layered a selection of transfers and overlays from the kit. The main photo was masked, duplicated and an overlay mode applied. I always alter the saturation to get rid of the extreme sepia of old photographs and then play about with curves to get a bit more depth. Behind the photo is a transfer from AP Veranda to give me that soft green plus I've also used the purple flower. Word strips and twig from AP Strom. Added wordart and journalling and called it done!