Souvenirs
Souvenirs, mementos, keepsakes, trinkets. Whatever you call them, most of us collect them. When I was a little girl my best friend used to collect spoons from all the places her parents took her. She had a little German wooden spoon collector case. Yup, that exists. Her grandparents would buys spoons on their trips and send them to her as well.
I admired her collection. How each one was the same but completely different. Some were silver, others some alloy. One had a miniature picture of a bear another had Mount Rushmore carved into the handle. You used to be able to find tokens like these in little gift shops or gas stations sometimes.
I admired her collection so much that I decided I was going to collect something too. I started with thimbles - I have no idea why, I don't even know how to sew. Then my fascination shifted onto rocks and later, cliche t-shirts. But as I grew older these items had no function, took up too much room or became harder and harder to find, so I stopped collecting any of just one particular thing.
Then, one day when I was looking through some old souvenirs, I found a deck of cards I had bought in Paris. It sparked the idea to start collection playing cards instead. They were functional, cheap, and each have different artwork and designs.
So over the last few years, I've grabbed a deck of cards at some place or another along the way. I am actually surprised at how relatively easy it is to find them. But my favorite deck by far is my Guinness playing cards from Dublin. There's a great story behind that trip, and I'm a sucker for the very cute and cheeky old time Guinness ads - which are on every face card.
I'm also quite fond of Alcatraz's inmate slang deck which has prison terms on the cards, and the Santorini one just because of the sunsets that cover them - sigh. I obviously don't always get to pick up these souvenirs when I go somewhere ( cough Palm Springs & Moab cough) but maybe that's because I sort of forgot about them.
But we recently played a card game, and it reminded me how much I loved hunting these down and the memories they invoked. So this year I promise to bring them back. I might even order some of places I missed (is that allowed?) But I'm heading of to Seattle in a couple weeks, and you can trust me I'll keep my eyes peeled.
*Also, I've been testing out my new lens with these close ups! I still have a lot to learn, but I'm loving these short field of depth shots. Any tips?