Photo Op? Photo Fantastic!

Hello there. I'm Sian Fair and I'm delighted to be here! I'll be popping up over the next few weeks with my projects from Leo's latest selections: the very wonderful "Photo Op" and "Say Cheese".

Kits themed around photos have got me thinking about - photos, of course.

We all talk a lot about the pictures we choose for our pages. But how often do we make layouts about photos? Where the photo isn't telling the story - because the photo is the story?

This is mine:

I've used the pinboard paper to create a cork board effect, with the paper tape and stitching and a photo corner punch all "holding" a selection of pieces to the page. I also used the tape to cover the little wooden clothes pegs I pin my layouts up with and I think I'll be making a few more to use on a layout too. The stitching round the outside is fake - sewn with the sewing machine without thread in to make the holes and then drawn on. Works if you run out of the thread colour you need!

Last summer I took part in a photography scavenger hunt. One of the things we had to find was a "person sketching outside their house". And my photo was a bit of a cheat. I had taken it the year before, just a quick snap to show someone the zoom on my camera; but I posted it. And now? I have discovered that it is slowly working its way up the rankings on google searches for pictures of people drawing. It gets me lots of extra hits a week to my blog! I thought that was worth a page.

So my challenge for you today is to make a layout with a QUIRKY photo from your collection. Don't just use the photo to illustrate your story. The photo IS the story.

But, wait - I made my layout with "Photo Op" and there is so much in this kit you'll have plenty for lots of pages. So you could think about other photo-related musings:-

- If you could only save one photo from all the hundreds you have, if everything else disappeared, which photo would that be?

- If you could go back in time and take a photo you didn't have, what photo would that be?

- Have you had a favourite camera over the years? Did your family take lots of pictures when you were growing up?
- How many photos do you take every month?
- How do you feel about phone photos? (I think I'll be coming back to that one myself)

Or something even harder - what if photography hadn't been invented?

- We wouldn't see ourselves getting older

- We wouldn't be able to see if we had inherited any family likenesses

- But we'd remember anyway. Wouldn't we? What do you think? Could there be a layout in that?

I'll be back later in the month with more photo thoughts. I've got "Say Cheese" to play with next. But in the meantime, don't forget to download Leo's PDF for the mini book. That cork board paper needs to be used, whatever way you go!