Family Finds.

Last week I was having a huge clean out of drawers and under my bed (making sure there wasn't hidey-holes under my bed for the cat to poop or throw up in) and I found a mass of old family photos that I haven't seen in a long time. They were great to add to the hundreds more that I found a couple of weeks previous to that when I cleaned out a box in my wardrobe that I haven't touched since we moved here.

I thought I would share them with you because I thought some of them had a lot of photographic merit and were really nice on top of just being good family photos. My sister also dug out a few of my Dad that my Gran gave her before I moved home and they're so great, as well as some letters that he wrote to my Great Grandma thanking her for Christmas and birthday presents, it really made me feel close to him again. There were also a few of my Grandparents before they were my Grandparents and back when they were just my Dad's parents. I don't care what anyone says, Grandparents are the coolest.


Papa, Gran and Dad, Belfast, June 1960

See? The coolest.

Santa and Dad, Belfast, 1964

This is a photo of my Dad visiting Santa at around the age of four, apparently he was taken there by a neighbour, I don't blame his face. I'm particularly fond of the sinister hand to the left of the photo. Someone actually thought that this would make a great child portrait, and it does in way I suppose...

Dad, Fairways, Dorking.


Papa & Mum, Fairways, Dorking.


Dad & Benny, Fairways, Dorking.


Grace, Grandma, Papa & Me


Dad & Me


Me in Snow, Fairways, Dorking & Brockham


Being read a book by Papa, Fairways, Dorking.


Me, Fairways, Dorking.

Always in the best outfits, and the worst hats.

Left: Me with my first and only hamster, Sassy. She was really old for a hamster when she died and Suzie was sad and alerted everyone when it happened; despite the fact that Suzie had tormented her for almost the entire time we had her.
Right: The first time I dipped my toe in the sea, Newcastle, Northern Ireland.

Lucy, Me & Gran.


Lucy & Me

Both, Legoland.
Left: Being a total boss.
Right: Someone involved in the making of this image didn't know their left from their right.

When Suzie was as ridiculous-looking as Dolly is now. Nowadays she's still a beaut but is looking a bit more mature.

Lucy & Uncle Barry, The Rayburn Room, Cyprus Avenue, Belfast.

I wonder if it looks like I've had a menagerie of pets, because that is simply not the case. We've had a hamster, two rabbits and two cats, three if you include Dolly. All of them were ancient and Suzie is still going now. Sadly, Felix, the cat pictured, either ran away or was taken from us. He was the best cat and used to hang out around my shoulders, he was massive but was such a softie and would take a helluva lot of guff from Suzie when she didn't fancy playing mother to him.

Felix, The Coach House, Capel.

This is probably the weirdest photo I found, the more I look at it the more things I notice and the stranger it gets. I like it but mainly because it's weird.

Lucy & Dad.

This is probably my all-time favourite family photo, everything about it is perfect.

Gran & Papa, The Coach House, Capel.


Lucy & Rebecca the Rabbit, The Coach House, Capel.


Lucy, The Coach House, Capel.


Dad, Fairways, Dorking.
I perhaps realised three things during making this selection to share with you.
1.) I was nearly always grumpy when I was younger, or very serious at best.
2.) My Gran takes some of the best photos; most of the ones she's handed down to us are rejects from the ones she keeps in frames or albums at her house and they're still awesome.
3.) I'm quite glad that my life so far has had such a mixture of normality and oddness.

Happy.

As cheesy as it sounds, and despite how appallingly cringey the earlier posts on this blog are, I am quite pleased to have kept this going. It has been really useful both to refer back to and as a general visual outlet. I was reading a well-known blogger's blog the other day and she was talking about how it will be a nice thing to look back on when she's older and maybe even able to share it with her kids. I think that's kind of a nice thought, and I'm already quite glad to share this now too.

This week my view count has picked up and I actually feel as though I'm talking to someone, hello!
So I thought I would share with you that I'm feeling positive and happy, particularly as I've mainly been feeling unmotivated and sluggish previously.

Here are some things that have made me happy this week.

I might actually have got to grips with driving, and I'm more excited than scared about three-point-turns and reverse parking.

I'm actually able to write on here and update it with apparently readable content.

I now have motivation to start applying for things properly again.

I'm going to Portsmouth tomorrow.

The sun is shining!

My favourite American shows are back, with just The Walking Dead left to wait for.

(via Sophie Spils)

(via Keep Calm Arsenal)

(via 8:Swim)

(via Passion for the Music)

(via Models Own)

(via Verbal Vomit)

One thing that made me angry this week:
My favourite band is The Maccabees and I was unable to get tickets for their upcoming October/November tour because they were selling exclusively out of record stores who declined telephone orders, meaning you had to get the tickets in person. Rough Trade sold out by the end of Saturday.
This sales structure was based upon keeping booking fees down and keeping the shows more local, despite the fact that most ticket sales still involved a booking fee. It was a nice idea but now I am left without a ticket, I'm having Maccabees withdrawal symptoms and I need to hear some new songs, they're so good live and always have really fun support acts. I am hopeful that they will have another, larger tour once their new album is released in the New Year. This just bugged me because I've not seen them live for a long time and haven't heard any new material in a long time and now I have to wait even longer.

Finally, something productive.

I'm re-jigging my website, it would look more up to scratch, but I don't think MrSite can keep up with the rate I am updating everything, so I'm leaving it for tonight, one page has got photos on, so if you've got the time and it's sorted it out by then, you could get lucky.

I managed to finally drag myself to the Eldon building - which isn't even far - and sort out my contribution to the Photo Exchange project. It's a great idea, I was slightly disheartened when I noticed that hardly anything had changed since I saw it last week, but maybe it's because no one has really been in.
I exchanged these,

© Ruth Johnston

for these,

It's probably fairly obvious why I chose the second one, someone has to love all these abandoned beds and mattresses.
My pinned up images can be seen here as part of my 365 project. Now I wait and hope someone picks my work.

While in the Eldon building I also decided to take a look at the Dark Forest by the BA(Hons) Fine Art students, it was ok, they were all different responses to the idea of 'dark forests' and global warming. This is the only piece that really interested me,

I'm not really sure why, the smell was surprisingly over-powering, although I suppose aesthetically it's quite an interesting piece, it makes you wonder how much thought and effort went into it when you consider some of the other work surrounding it. I'll level with you, I only really liked the fluorescent light.

This is currently on display in the Eldon building too, I'd quite like it for my own, it's beautiful, it looks like it's made from nail polish. It is for sale, but it's £30 per square, and one square would be rubbish.

'Collection 100', from the series, 'Janus' - Michelle Jeanette Littlewood (2010)

Other than taking photographs of other people's art, I also took this,

© Ruth Johnston

I liked her coat and how tiny she was.

Until I get three hours to myself..

..here are some treats.

I've scanned in the two brooches I bought in Brighton at the weekend.

The cat one is from a vintage market stall ♥ and the deer is from Ju-ju.
I only scanned them to see what it would look like, and because I couldn't be bothered to create a further backlog of photographs. I think it looks pretty neat, I've seen this kind of thing done before, might give it a proper try at some point.

Credit to Meganwalden48 - Found at Flickr.com.

Here are some found images from Snoopers Paradise.
September 1971: Michael, Cheryl, David and Christopher.
Micheal - 18-12-64, Christopher 11-2-67, David 3-3-69, Cheryl 15-9-70



I just picked them up because I quite like them, it's a pity that my scanner hasn't picked up the detail of the slides because they look pretty good in real life.
I wish I'd stayed longer in Brighton, being chucked out of the hotel at 11 o'clock was quite annoying.