Comments on: Why I’m Against Scrapbooking

By: myscrapbookingstuff

myscrapbookingstuff — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:53:37 +0000

As a Scrapbooker I can understand where you are coming from. I love scrapbooking, and I don’t cut my pictures. I use those corrugated scissors, if I need to, to cut paper and make frames around the pictures. I do not agree with people that cut the people out of their pictures either. But each to it’s own. My albums have all of their backgrounds. The only ones you don’t see a background to, is the close-up pictures where you don’t see one. Depends which scrapbook you’re looking at. It’s like anything else. Some have the touch and some don’t. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and everyone have their own taste. That’s what makes the world a unique place to be. If we were all Scrapbookers, that’s all we would have to talk about, if we were all mechanics, we would all be talking shop. It’s nice to see all the different ideas that people have. We only need to make suggestions. Some people may not even be aware of what they are doing. There is a saying that says”Practice makes perfect”. With trial an error we all improve eventually. Hopefully sooner than later. Have a great day!

By: Heather

Heather — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:44:13 +0000

MMMMM. I have been looking for this. I have started scrapbooking in an extremely unpopular way.

1. I tend to use copies and minimally cropped photos.

2. I am very angsty. I hate the way the stupid layouts are so HAPPY. It is like pictures move to Pleasantville.

By: Malia

Malia — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:58:52 +0000

I started a scrapbook of old photos of my paternal grandparents a few years ago (notice I said “started”…yeah, it’s collecting dust now but I digress… And there’s no way I’d cut any of those pictures. They are put in the scrapbook using those corner tabs so that they stay in place but are not adhered to the paper. I love being able to see the background of the pictures, where they were taken, etc. I couldn’t get rid of that stuff.

In my regular scrapbooking, I’ve been known to crop pictures but I have been able to recognize when a picture needs to stay intact because the elements that make the picture so interesting are not the actual subject of the photo but the setting or what’s going on in the background.

By: bridgett

bridgett — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:04:12 +0000

I have been guilty of this from time to time, but I resolve the ethical problem (for a historian, it’s a professional thing) by never using an original copy for the scrapbook. There’s the photo — in my archival photobox, in the flat file (yes, I am that big of a geek) — and then there’s the illustration that I make out of the photo. I expect the photo to last longer than the illustration, I guess.

I remember having to try to fit my paternal grandmother’s picture in a frame. She lived a very hard life and died from acute peritonitis because my Papaw had her “seen to” by a vet who was out at the farm to worm his cattle rather than taking her to an MD. She had very few luxuries in life but there’s this one photo where she’s found a rhinestone coat button and sewn it on the throat of her dress. I’d found the perfect frame, but I could only make it work if I cut off her button. I just couldn’t do it.

By: Mandi

Mandi — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:53:01 +0000

Wow
I am so guilty of this. I love to scrapbook, although I don’t have much time to do so. When I do manage to muzzle through the thousands of pics I have waiting for me, I will definetely remember this. You have changed my whole strategy, but I can work with that!

By: Photographs and Memories « Shoot The Moose

Photographs and Memories « Shoot The Moose — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:09:08 +0000

[...] Bridgett’s posts of old family photos. Kathy T’s have been great as well. Kathas a good post about scrapbooking, and it mentions old photographs, and their importance. In our [...]

By: amy

amy — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:55:58 +0000

fascinating! I never thought of it that way. I’ll think twice before I crop photos next time I’m working on a book.

By: Sis

Sis — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:30:15 +0000

I agree with you 100%! Yes, I “scrapbook,” but what I do barely resembles the kind of scrapbooking that you’re talking about. I ALWAYS use the whole picture for the same reasons that you mentioned. I love looking back at pictures from the past and seeing something special in the background that sparks some nostalgia. One of my favorite pictures is of me pushing Davy around our old kitchen in a stroller. That horrible green, flowery wallpaper brings back so many memories!

By: Lesley

Lesley — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:39:32 +0000

The scrapbooking phenomenon completely bypassed me. I don’t understand it, but I know I don’t like it.

By: nm

nm — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:28:23 +0000

I cherish a picture of my mother’s mother as a girl. She and her brothers are standing with their parents in front of what looks, at first glance, to be a pier. The photo seems to be old and crumpled. But, when you look closer, you see that the family is standing in front of a crumpled backdrop with the picture of a pier painted on it. You can make out the posts holding up the backdrop at the sides of the photo, and if you don’t cut off the bottom, you recognize that they are actually standing in the dirt in their farmyard. For some reason, I find this increrdibly touching. Cutting the people out of the frame of the photographer’s setup wouldn’t have nearly the impact.