Sunday, August 12, 2007

Where Did It Go?

Lately, I've lost my creative spirit. Especially when it comes to digital scrapbooking. I've lost interest in the forums and find I don't even look at the galleries anymore. I feel a sense of alienation from the forums because (1) I'm not a 20-something stay at home mother, (2) many of the posts in the forums seem so self-serving, (3) It seems that so often the posts I make are ignored, (4) I can't afford a $600 graphics program and a $600 digital camera, and last but certainly not least, (5) I am sick of baby pictures. Digital scrapbooking as it is presented in so many galleries is really just a photo album with no real scrapbooking. Where is the "scrapbooking" part of digital scrapbooking?!?!?! There is some incredible artistic talent in digital scrapbooking - but there is very little scrapbooking. It all seems to be about making pretty pictures.

Guess I'm just in a bad mood today. Tomorrow will be better. Or will it? Tomorrow I have to go back to work.

Yes, tomorrow will be better. I'll see to it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi There!
I'm 62 and love digital scrapping. My favorite program to use is Microsoft Digital Image Pro. I have the others but when I can do most everything I really need with this inexpensive program.
I have no grandkids and cute baby photos to scrap. My daughter's baby photos were taken in the 1960's and 70's with those awful styles and colors but I still have fun playing with them.

My scrapbooking was called atrocious on one of the "smack blogs" but if you want to look, Ihave a gallery at Digital Shop Talk which is such a lovely place!

I have also been a legal secretary, a teacher and now a retiree married since 1965 to my sweet hubby (how many years is that anyway??) I'm not good at math but great at picking my hubby!!

Chin up and enjoy. We can still show our younger friends a thing or two. SOmeday they will be where we are now and we can help them to enjoy each step of the way!

Hugs,
Thena

Mary said...

Hi, Ernie,
If it helps, I agree with points 1, 2, 3, and 5. I also agree that many of the pages in galleries are not about scrapping memories, which, I thought, was the purpose of scrapping. But I think artistic expression is the goal of many of the people who post to the gallery. I have even seen some admit to that in some threads at DST.

As for point 4, you don't need that expensive camera or the expensive software. You obviously don't need an expensive camera. Just look at those great pictures you shared from your camera class. I don't have a DSLR either. That doesn't mean we can't take great pictures.

You have PSP and I still haven't found much in PS that I can't duplicate in some way with PSP. It might take more steps, but the outcome is the same. (And I could never have afforded it if I had had to pay full price.)

Are you still using PSP8? Is it PSPX that you have? There are definitely some nice features in version 10. LVS Online is currently enrolling for their next session of very inexpensive classes. There are three levels of classes on PSPX. The teacher is a student of Sally Beacham, the lady who taught the classes when I took them. And they are still using Sally's lessons. The lessons were very balanced between editing photographs and graphics work.

Does your ISP offer free webspace? Put your scrapped pages there and link them in your blog and/or send links to those you want to share them with. I'll even make you templates from my pages if you want. If you are interested, drop me a line at mary5704 at gmail dot com.

I hope today was a better day and that things are cooler in Atlanta.
Mary

Cheryl said...

Our Yahoo Group has had this discussion many times. Galleries are a false misleading, mostly quick layouts done for CT's....the "real" scrappers are more timid about online posting...that's why I love my private groups where I get to see real pages and be inspired.

I pray that God take away your unhappiness and grumpiness for tomorrow and that he give you a big of inspirtion to get creative.

We all go through these slumps...have you tried faithbooking?