Friday 12 June 2009

binding waxed pages

Nikon D80 | 1/30 seconds | f 16 | ISO 200 | 62 mm
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Today was the first day – out of three – of StreetDelivery Bucharest, a local street event that “closes the streets for the cars and opens them for the people”. Although the activities were programmed to begin at noon today, when I arrived there the image was quite disappointing. But.. I didn’t loose my hope.

Anyway, from the few things ready was the booth where will take place a workshop about bookbinding. There I took the picture above. Not an extraordinary scene one may say. I agree… not for momentousness I decided to post it, but for the roots of that word… “oracle”. So follow me if you please…

Oracles are the old “memory books” that we used to make in school. I remember that I had my first one when I was in eight grade (this is like a year away from high school in accordance with the romanian education system). It had a deep blue cover and the pages were burned on the sides, wax was dropped here and there and lipstick fake kisses were in the corners.

“What’s your name” or “if I’m not too indiscreet, when did you appear on this planet?” – were two of the not so inspired and shy first questions of the oracle. “What’s your favorite dish?”, “what’s your favorite movie?” or “what do you want to become in life?” and many more, followed them. But the best part of this foolish game was when a boy or girl that you liked accepted to write in your book. It was such an innocent emotional moment. Do you remember? Have you had such a book?

As years gone by, the oracles are less popular. Now we have messenger ids, we are frivol users of facebook, hi5 or some other mass online community and we have blogs, an erudite form of this memory books.

I wonder what will write the passing byes of StreetDelivery 2009 if asked so…

p.s. ii multumesc lui alin care m'a invatat cum sta treaba cu filtrele astea :P

25 comments:

Tudor said...

My God! This is an excellent post Romina. Indeed great memories and great times back then and the picture is like from the same ages.

Bogdan said...

Yeah....how we could forget those 'oracles'! Those times were so great!
If you didn't had one, you were uncool, a freak!
And the emotions you speak about...priceless.

Thx for reminding me those days

Unknown said...

Nice photo and textures of the paper!

AB said...

That is a mighty fine photo. The textures of the paper are fascinating.

I never had an oracle. I guess I will have to make do with a blog.

Arjan - PlasticDaisy said...

That's old fashioned book binding! It looks really cool!

Omar said...

Truly interesting words and a cool foto.

Aurore said...

Great topic and colours, like this photo a lot !!

Ulrich said...

a lovely frame, I like the tones here too

sherri said...

Interesting thoughts and an exceptional image.

yz said...

nice lines and composition

Unknown said...

Excellent composition of the something so great and something so easy to leave around.

beanow said...

Very cool composition.

Buonaluce said...

Loving this. Compo is perfect, it's a great shot made of nothing. Great!

Diane Schuller said...

what an incredibly interesting post. I am learning so much about your culture, some of the similarities, some differences, and a lot of interesting information. Thank you

akarui said...

I have never seen that custom. It should be interesting.

Ken said...

I dont think they have memory books anymore, do they? This post makes me want to go and start writing again and detailing the goings on in my life. :)

don said...

A nice close that clearly shows the interesting textures. Nice one.

MARIANA said...

Excellent post !

Ilan said...

This frame actually looks like a part of a website design! The grunge font, the torn paper.. :)
Awesome! :)

Angel Corrochano said...

Great detail of the photo. Paper textures are a delight.

Greetings

Ashish Sidapara said...

Love the framing, beautiful shot and words.

Kristian said...

Really cool image! - Love the way you processed it. That crossprocessing/positive look is really great.

Roxana said...

i like the colours and the happy look on the girl's face :-)

indeed, desires and their stories...

freDeric said...

I love this look in the mirror, I'm a fan of your pictures

İlhami Uyar said...

Very nice sharing,best wishes