old | The Contented Crafter

While preparing items for my Etsy shop I happened upon a selection of photographs of an old chair, tucked away in a folder resting on my ‘Might Be Useful One Day’ shelf.

Isn’t it great?

Now before you get all excited and think to yourself ‘My, that girl sure can take a good photo – what has she been wittering on about?’ – or words to that effect …… I must give you the full story.

[And if you are a new reader, the back story is that I do not take good photographs, either side of the camera.]

Once upon a time, in a previous life, I spent a portion of my week in a beautiful Botanic Garden, where I oversaw the training of some young people who were learning how to be successfully employed. One of my programmes employed them as trainee groundsmen where they learned gardening skills as well as employment skills..

The kids took their ‘smoko’ breaks outside an old tractor shed and one or the other could be found often perched on an elegant old chair that had once been beautiful, but was now tired and battered, neglected and forlorn.

Waiting for my young charges and their supervisor to appear for their weekly debriefing, I used to look at that chair and wish I had found it earlier, before it was past saving. I imagined it reupholstered and painted in a shabby chic style – I imagined it sitting proudly in a corner of my room – and then my hurly-burly loud and grubby gardeners would hurtle around the corner.

“‘Sup, Pauline” they would greet me and one or the other would flop into the old chair and my attention would shift.

One sunny morning I was waiting for my boys. It was quiet, the sun was making patterns on the concrete retaining wall and in the light the chair was looking determinedly colourful and cheerful. Someone had left a bucket filled with geranium cuttings on a potting bench beside the shed door and the looped hose was dripping water onto the gravel beside the table.

I lifted the bucket of cuttings down to the ground, beside the old chair and stood back, looking at. I moved the chair straighter against the wall and tidied up the hose.

I made a phone call to my friend and colleague up in her office, high above the old shed.

I moved the bucket again, turning it until I had the best of the geraniums showing.

As I finished my friend arrived huffing and puffing around the corner, camera in hand.

She was, and is, an enthusiastic and naturally talented photographer who always had her camera by her side. I waved my hand at the chair and the bucket.

“Really?” she said

Then she looked again “Oh” she said and put the camera to her eye and clicked a few shots in rapid succession, just as the boys came hurtling round the corner.

“‘Sup Pauline” they chorused. “‘Sup Barbara” and the chair and the bucket of geraniums disappeared behind their large and energetic frames.

Later that day my email bore a couple of shots of the old chair.

At the time I was doing a course in Photoshop and spent a happy hour with my instructor playing with the photos to get different effects. He did most of the work, and I couldn’t tell you where to start now, it has all been forgotten.

But I still have the Old Chair saved in my photograph file and the existing printed copies have now been made into cards for my Etsy shop.

From an original photograph, styled by the Contented Crafter 🙂