Christmas Card 2005

My photograph for 2005 was of a wall of one of Romania's painted churches. It is the church in the centre of the monastery at Moldoviţa (transcribed "Moldovitsa" in ASCII & pronounced "Moldoveetsa" in English) in Bucovina. I liked the way the window made a break in the fresco and showed that it was an outside wall and the the way the modern ventilator in the window dragged the historic picture into the contemporary world. I took the photograph whilst on a dance tour in Romania in 2005.

The painted churches are a distinctive historic feature there. Many churches in Eastern Europe are painted with saints & other religious images inside but these are also painted on the outside. The frescos are protected by the church roofs having substantial overhangs. Another tradition of churches in the area is them to be in a fortified walled compound but that was for a practical reason: to keep out raiders in an area that was often at war.

Camera = Olympus C50.

The border was a duplicate of last year's.

Downloads

Card assembly instructions to duplicate the original:

Get the full resolution photograph printed at 6"x4.5" on photographic paper.
Print the border using a laser printer (or print once and duplicate by photocopier) on A4 160 g/m² white cardboard.
Fold the printed cardboard into an A5 greetings card with one straight crease.
Glue (or double sided selotape or similar) the photograph to the card in the correct orientation. Take care not to make the photograph too soggy.

Printing the border & photograph together on a colour printer does not give as good results (neither home laser nor inkjet printers have yet reached photographic printing quality). It also costs more (because of the ridiculous current price of printer ink) and gives a more mass-produced look.

More Christmas Cards

For the rest of my Christmas cards, go up to my Christmas card gallery page.