Museum plans Family Day historical photo contest
Article content
Family Day 2021 is coming up Monday, Feb. 15!
Not to worry if you have used every creative idea you have ever had to keep your kids or yourself busy this past year, for Annandale National Historic Site (aka The Museum) is coming to the rescue with a safe, virtual, fun event. And there are great prizes!
It’s the Family Day Way Back Flash Back Photo Contest.
Staff will be posting 15 historic photographs over the long weekend and you get to choose from them, or do them all, using household members and props (objects) to recreate the image to the best of your abilities. Once you recreate that scene you enter it in the contest.
Now when I heard about this, I didn’t know what they meant, so asked if I was to use popsicle sticks or marshmallows to recreate the picture? Having been edified I can now offer these ideas. If it is a portrait of a person or family, you recreate it as best you can with similar clothing, makeup, etc. You can also use mophead hair, paper beards, a pot for a hat or whatever you have around. Actually, it might be more fun to dress up the cat and/or other family pets or stuffed animals, dolls or make a family out of clothes pegs or cookies! Or you could draw or paint it!
You are doing the whole picture, so if the person/family is in front of the barn … hummm, for buildings you can use sticks from the yard. Or if you have a child, make it out of Lego! I love Lego but don’t have a kid! I’ll have to use sugar cubes. You could paint or draw a big backdrop picture or insert it before submitting it! Don’t forget the recycle bin, which is filled with endless possibilities.
No matter what you make the people out of, if you want to get a great prize you might want to consider facial expressions, the way they are standing or sitting; where are their hands, tilt of a head and where their eyes are looking? Is it a colder, blueish outside light in the photo or a nice warm more yellow glow?
If you are not into glue, scissors or dress up, you can do the 10 digital puzzles of historical photos. I can no longer sit in a chair at a table and work on a jigsaw puzzle, so I am into digital ones, in my chair with my legs up. The first digital puzzle I did was on the Annandale NHS Facebook maybe a year ago. I love it! For while you work on the puzzle you really get to know and understand the historical scene or object you are creating, piece by piece, and get to see details you normally would miss. Don’t forget to show grandma and grandpa how to do these puzzles on their tablets.
Kathleen will be posting the information on Facebook on the 11th and 12th ready for Saturday’s start so you have the weekend to create a masterpiece. When you are done, take a photo and post it on the Facebook page (AnnandaleNHS) or Twitter@Annandale_NHS or email to Kathleen at kwatkin@tillsonburg.ca.
This is going to be fun!
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.