Photographs, Archives and Values

My sister is currently in her final year of her PhD. She is currently looking for some participants in a focus group to understand the way material degradation is linked to information content in photographic images. If you are based in London or nearby and are available, please join in You can register your interest here, and get more information on her research and project here and here.

Assessment Workshops: Lifetime of Photographic Materials

Have you ever wondered about loss of information in archives caused by material decay? Or about what makes an archival photograph fit-for-purpose? If so, I will be exploring these questions as part of my PhD.

One of the questions the research project ‘Lifetime of Colour Photographs in Mixed Archival Collections’ aims to tackle is the way material degradation is linked to information content in photographic images. In particular, the point where photographs are no longer ‘fit for purpose’ is of interest. To understand this better I will be exploring this question with various groups of stakeholders – curators and custodians to photographic collectors, scientists and the general public – in order to capture a variety of opinions in a number of workshops.

The aim of the 1-hr workshops is to gauge the opinion on the point at which changes in information content is no longer considered to be acceptable for photographs in archives. The workshops will start with a brief introduction to the project and the exercise. The assessment exercise will consist of a classification exercise of photographs at different stages of degradation. This will be followed by a brief discussion on any issues arising from the exercise. Following the workshops and data analysis, a report on the results of the workshop will be circulated to all participants.

If you are interested in these issues, and want to voice your opinion you can visit the workshop webpage for more information or even better you can register your interest to participate in one of the workshops.

Workshops so far are planned for the following days at the Heritage Science Laboratory (Gordon House), 29 Gordon Street, WC1H 0PP, London.

Monday 4th April 2011 at 4pm

Monday 11th April 2011 at 4pm

Friday 15th April 2011 at 4pm

Thursday 5th May 2011 at 4pm

Tuesday 10th May 2011 at 5pm

Friday 13th May 2011 at 1pm

Friday 13th May 2011 at 4pm

Tuesday 17th May at 1pm

Friday 20th May 2011 at 4pm

If none of these dates are appropriate, do let me know as further workshops are planned for the future.

I look forward to meeting you at the workshops!

 

I Won :)

I Won My first competition. Finally. I have always been a bit jealous of my sister who always seems to manage to bag free tickets, competitions etc etc in London. Finally I got my first competition win in Ireland. This morning I received a call from Dublin Events saying that I had won the competition I had entered on their website. I could not really remember entering this particular competition, but knew I had gone through their website before, since it is quite informative about things to do in Ireland, events etc etc.

So what did I win? I got a dinner for 2 and a bottle of House Wine at the Rolys Bistro in Dublin. I am still deciding on who to take with me. I will probably go when my mum and Bernard will be spending some time in Dublin before embarking on our Easter family trip. So shall I take both, or one? And if one who? Suggestions welcome I will tell you how things went and who I decided to go with when I get to go.

Photos from Zahra’s bday

Well, the photos from Zahra’s bday party are in. Here you can see the wonderful food:

The delicious food

The friendly people:

The guests

 

The guests again

 

The group from DCU (and Ali): Ali, David, Ross, Me, Monika

The birthday girl with the cake:

Birthday girl and cake

No photos of dancing…but that is a good thing I think

Thank you Zahra for allowing me to borrow the photos (not that I asked hihi…but if its a problem tell me )

Happy Birthday Zahra :)

Yesterday we celebrated Zahra’s birthday. Celebrations came a bit late, since her birthday falls on the Iranian new day, and so most of her friends (and herself) were quite busy celebrating their new year. However she decided to celebrate her birthday nevertheless. So she invited a couple of her friends to her house, where she prepared a banquet of Iranian food, washed down with some Iranian dancing.

All the people from our lab and Monika were to meet outside my apartment building (since I was the only one who knew where she lived, having been there before). I got dressed (bought a new dress in the morning, when I was shopping with Monika…was not planning on buying it, but saw it, liked it and decided to buy it on a whim…not so sure why cos I am not a dress girl, but we will see…I will probably see the photos now and say noooooooo what did I do, but anyways).

Surprisingly enough, everyone made it within 5minutes of the planned meeting time, and we made our way to Zahra’s house, which is a short 15 or so minute walk from where I live. Once we arrived, we were some of the first people there, but being a group of 5 people ourselves made for a merry group. The other people soon started trickling in, and the chatting increased. This time, we were the only non-Iranians there, but they always make an effort to speak English to us, so we still feel part of the group (or perhaps I just bother them too much asking what does this mean in Persian that they just don’t bother…but my Persian vocabulary is increasing ).

After some initial nibbles, came (at least my) the favourite part of the night…Iranian food, which Zahra had lovingly prepared. Others in my lab have heard me rave about it, and Zahra certainly did succeed. She had told us to come on an empty stomach, and even though we ate and ate, there was still some leftover hihi. I had the lamb and rice, which I knew were delicious from last time, tried some new types of rice, and had the most mouthwatering sort of stuffed baguette thing with beef…MMMMMMMM. We HAD to go up for seconds hihi

After the food, came tea and then obviously the DANCING I had had my first experience of Iranian dancing during Roya’s birthday, and knew what to expect. This time I was happy to see that Monika dived right in to the dancing, with Ross joining soon after, and then David. Basha had already left home, so he did not get to experience this . Well, what we did might not really be called Iranian dancing, cos in no way can I emulate what the Iranians manage to do so effortlessly. But we try (and provided comic relief to the Iranians there).

After round 1 of dancing, came more tea and the cake. And with the cake comes obviously (I am learning now) the Iranian knife dance. This time, I got to have my own dance (Marzieh and Sahar…grrrrrrrr…and Sahar did not even do it herself). However these people had seen me make a fool of myself all evening with my dancing, so whats a little more. Monika did the longest knife dance, and I think she was quite good. I just did the bare minimum and passed it on to the next person

Here is my favourite Iranian happy birthday song It has good bits in English so you should be able to follow. I want it sung at my next birthday Cos it is so nice and cute.

After the delicious cake, came more dancing and fun. However by now time had passed (it was after 1am by now, and Ross still had to drive all the way home…a 50minute or so drive). Other people were starting to say their goodbyes, so we decided to join the group, did our goodbye dance and made our way home. Monika and myself embarassed Ross all the way home with our dancing in the middle of the road and singing all the songs from the 90s (though Ross seems to be really handy with all the Spice girls lyrics haha).

Once I got home, I tried to sleep, but I was still on a high from the party, so I watched an episode of a new series I am watching and slept in the middle of it

Overall a REALLY ENJOYABLE evening…will post photos once they become available.

Thank you Zahra for inviting us to your beautiful home: TAVALODET MOBARAK AZIZAM

Sampling the Wonders of Kildare: Day 2

Sunday came, and my experience of rural Ireland continued. After a good, late breakfast, we went to mass in this quaint church a bit up the road from their house. After that, we decided to visit an outlet shopping centre nearby: Kildare Village outlet centre. We did not do much shopping (I bought a pair of Nike trainers for €34 or so, which I think was quite a good bargain). But we did go in nearly all the shops, though even with high discounts, most were out of our price range. I liked that the shopping centre is all based outside. Having had good weather certainly helped to make it for an enjoyable morning.

After a late lunch/early dinner (lunner?) at home which his mum cooked (MMMMM…had parsnips for the first time and they tasted good I must say), we decided to visit the Japanese gardens/Irish National Stud/Fiachra’s garden. This is one whole centre, with the two gardens and the stud farm. First up was the Japanese gardens, where we walked though the path of life

On the bridge of engagement

The view of the garden from the Hill of Ambition

After the Japanese gardens, we proceeded into Saint Fiachra’s gardens, for some more greenery

The Lake

The Monastic Cell

We also visited the stud farm, where amongst other we got to see a video on how foals are born, the horse museum, the famous Irish studs (including Invincible Spirit ) and numerous young foals with their mothers.

A tired, sleeping foal

We also got to see these small horses (do not know their name…forgot it…anyone knows…something like Fallevallas), which are bred to have a small size. [UPDATE: it is called a Falabella]

Cute horses

By now, the time had passed, and we got a hot chocolate (not the best ever but anyways) and made our way home, to finish packing and make our way back to University.

Overall, a great weekend. I am ever so grateful to Ross for inviting me (he thought I would be bored…but how can you be with all this beautiful nature around…even just staring into it is more than enough), his parents for having me and being so nice to me, his sister for allowing me to make use of her room while she was away and his grandad for thinking I am a great person  (he is getting old…so that might cloud his judgement, but who am I to complain).

I was sad too say goodbye to this quiet village which was home for the weekend, and to such a wonderful weekend, surrounded by such nice people. Hope Ross will enjoy his time in Malta as much I did at his home

Thank you for having me

Sampling the Wonders of Kildare: Day 1

Last weekend I finally got to see the wonders of Kildare Ross, who is one of the people in the lab and one of my closest friends in Dublin, invited me over to his family’s home for the weekend. I immediately agreed, and after some postponing due to other things coming up, we finally made it. So Friday evening, after Uni, we collected our bags and off we went to the tiny village (it is a village cos they have a pub I was told) that he calls home.

His mum had prepared a lovely dinner for us (I guess it is called Irish stew), and I got to sample his mum’s apple pie (she prepared it knowing it is one of my favourite) and rhubarb pie. I had never had any rhubarb pie before, but I must say I liked it. So I am glad I went with the option of having a bit of both for dessert. After that it was off to watch some TV, chat and relax, before going to sleep.

Saturday morning I woke up bright an early (compared to them hihi) and tried to tiptoe out of my room to the living room to read a bit without bothering them. But alas a quiet gal I cannot be So Ross woke up, we had breakfast and planned our day. Seeing as it was a beautiful day we decided to go for a walk to Glendalough. I am glad we got to make it there, cos it was beautiful. The walk we took (going up along the path and the slightly more adventurous non-pathway way down, where we crossed over the waterfall/stream and went down the other side) was really good exercise and the views were spectacular.

First up was a visit to the round tower and the graveyard there, and then we made our way to the Upper lake. We walked by its side and then proceeded to go somewhat to the top between two mountains (Wicklow mountains). I was going to give up a number of times, but my competitiveness did not allow me to stop midway up. So up and up we went. Here you can see the beautiful photos from the day.

Me at Glendalough

 

Climbing up to the top

 

At the top of the waterfall

 

Spectacular view before starting the way down

 

On the way down we saw a number of cute mountain goats, and on the way back the presence of sheep was certainly not missing. By this time we had been walking for around 2.5hours or so. So we were quite tired and hungry (though Ross took the walk slowly enough for me to keep up ). So back to Ross’s house we went through the beautiful scenery of the Wicklow mountains for some well-deserved lunch.

After lunch, we went for another short walk with Abby the dog to the Curragh. Unfortunately no photos were taken here However you can find a photo I found on the Internet. But the area is even more beautiful than that.

 

Sheep on the Curragh

 

It is a green area, with quite flat land where the sheep roam free. They have priority and can get onto the road whenever they want to. Motorists beware

By then we were well-tired. So off home we went for some dinner. After that we plonked ourselves in front of the TV. I found out I know most (or all probably) of the top songs that we are embarrassed to say we like. We chatted in front of the TV till it was time to say goodnight and plonk ourselves to sleep.

 

St Patrick’s Day

One thing that everyone everywhere surely associates with Ireland is undoubtedly St Patrick’s Day, so that was certainly one if the items on my list of things to do once in Ireland. However I was pretty disappointed ever since I arrived here, to hear most Irish people saying that it is not at all exciting or interesting. Nevertheless, it was on my list, and to St Patrick’s Day I definitely wanted to go.

Therefore I made plans to go with some other people I know. We made a merry group of 5: Zahra, Ross, Monika, Ali and myself. Zahra, Ross and I work in the same lab. Zahra, Monika and I are funded by the same ATWARM programme, whilst Ali is Zahra’s husband. It was our first Irish Paddy’s Day ever, except for Ross who is Irish. We all knew each other and 5 is a good number for such an activity. Not too few, such that it gets boring, but not too many that it gets too much to agree on what to do.

We knew the day will be hectic and so headed out early enough to City Centre. We bought (or OK me and Zahra…Monika already had hers) our Paddy’s Day garb and went to get a place along the route of the parade.

 

The girls in our Paddy's Day Glory

 

We found our spot, just in front of the GPO, looking over the grand stand where the President was staying, and waited for the parade to start. It was and hour’s wait, but time flew by quite quickly. The parade started. This year the theme of the parade was a book by Roddy Doyle called Brilliant!. So the parade was all in the theme of the book. I did not read the book before (it is a children’s book: you can read it here), so missed out most of it, but it was nice and colourful.

 

One of the floats

 

There were bands and baton twirlers and dancers and floats. Overall it was quite nice and impressive. But I must say nothing compared to the Maltese Carnival floats and so on. No mechanized floats could be seen, and they were quite smaller in size. But impressive nevertheless.

The parade took 2 hours to pass from in front of us. By then it was 2pm, and we were definitely hungry. Zahra and Ali suggested a Persian food shop, and we agreed. We made our way to Temple Bar, and found Zaytoon, a self-service Persian style restaurant. It was quite busy but we managed to put our order through and find some places to sit. When the food came, it was quite delicious. I had the lamb doner kebab. (Quite good value for money too. I paid €10:50 and got chips, a kebab – a full plate mind you with the doner bread, salad, lots of meat and a drink…did not even have to cook dinner yesterday evening. Which is extremely good value especially for Dublin and even more for Temple Bar).

Zaytoon food

After eating, we made our way to a bar in temple Bar, for some live music, drinking (to fill the little space remaining after our big lunch), some ‘dancing’, and an overall good time.

 

The Paddy's Day gang

By this time the evening had come, and we decided to make our way back home. It was a tiring but extremely fun day. Thank you Zahra, Monika, Ross and Ali for making this day so special. Paddy’s Day 2012…here we come

 

Invited to your home!

Last Friday I had another activity with the OLV family. This time the whole family and not just the OLV young adult group. Peter was a trainee pastoral worker who spent part of his traineeship at OLV. His traineeship at the parish ended a couple of weeks ago (read more about the OLV young adult group farewell here). However the people of the parish decided to organise a get together for him, and one of the ladies involved in the church, Mary, opened her house for a group from the parish for a small get together for Peter.

I had been uncertain about going, as this was my first activity outside of the OLV young adult group, but with the wider family. But since Colette and Ian were going, and I liked Peter, and Colette was going to pick me up and I had a good rest after the sampling and sample processing I decided to go ahead.

I am glad I went after all. The people were all really welcoming, and we had some good discussions (OK I mainly chatted to Colette…her poor head must have ached a bit after, but I chatted to some other people too). The food was really good too…although I got a bit too much for my liking…I was asked a question which I could not understand quite clearly…I asked to have it repeated again and still could not understand…as usual I tried to guess…and assumed it was…was the food good?…so I replied yes…apparently it was do you want more?…so more food is what I got…though I must not complain too much about that hehe .

I like the welcoming aspect of the OLV family (and many people in Ireland from what I can see), in that they are very welcoming. Peter, said that this welcome is not something that happens everywhere. And we discussed the aspect of welcoming quite a bit with him. I am glad I made that decision to become involved in the OLV group (although sometimes I think my intentions are not that ‘catholic’).

I also got to meet the new trainee pastoral worker (Mary as well). She has been in the parish for a couple of weeks now. But I have not met her yet. I do not think she is as involved as Peter was, and I doubt she will make it to the 630 Gospel Mass I go to and interact with us. Oh Well. We will see. Peter made a huge impact on us. Will see what Mary has to offer.

Overall a great night, though it got a bit shaky towards the end, where as usual one Irish guy drank a slight bit too much (I think…or maybe it is his nature) and started taking over all conversation with stupid comments. Oh Well.

Thank you Mary for organising the activity, and everyone at OLV for welcoming me

Busy Time! and Taize prayers :)

Sorry for not posting at all in the past week, but I have been extremely busy working on a 1 week sampling programme, which meant collecting samples and then being in the lab every day for a week (Sat and Sun included) to process the samples. It was quite a learning experience and I am glad I did it, as I learnt some useful techniques. However I am now happy it is over, and I can get to working on my project. This does not mean that it was all work and no play (though mainly work).

On Thursday the people at OLV young adult group (OK actually it was 99% Ian’s work) organised a Taize style prayer meeting. Such prayer services have started being held in the church every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings at 7.30pm a couple of months ago, instead of a daily evening mass, which was not possible to maintain. I never usually go to them, but seeing that it was a Taize style one and Ian was organising it, I decided to go along and give a helping hand.

I really enjoyed it I must say. Ian organised it beautifully. The setting was really calming (he has lots of patience to have switched on all those candles on his own). The readings etc were related and the music was really nice. So congrats Ian. I will definitely be back  whenever you organise the next one (or perhaps I can help you a bit more than this time…I just showed up and read a prayer (A).

Pancake Tuesday

Today was my first Pancake Tuesday ever. In Malta we do not have such a day. Probably cos we like to celebrate more, and so have 4 days of Carnival. Why have one day when you can have 4? I had been hearing about this, and was invited to a Pancake Tuesday event at the OLV church, where people from the 6:30 Mass I go to were organizing the event. Basically it worked out as a sort of get together. Pancakes were brought in and we had a couple of drinks and other sweets and we just had a good chat and a good time. I had pancakes with nutella, maple syrup and cream (not all together) and they were delicious MMMMMMMM.

I also enjoyed the conversation, in particular with two German girls, and then the priest joined us, where we discussed a couple of topics, and also how different Irish people are to our cultures. We discussed such aspects as problems in religion and faith, priesthood, Irish drinking and Carnival. I always enjoy talking to Fr Fenton. He is a canon lawyer and knows a good deal about many things, and I feel you can actually have a good discussion about most subjects. It was the first time I really talked to the Germany girls but they are both really nice.

A good day overall