Christmas Card 2017

My photograph for 2017 was of the pinnacles of the Lead Mosque & Saint Demetrius Cathedral Berat, Albania.

It can be interpreted as signifying intra-religious tolerance but actually it was chosen, like all my Christmas card photographs, primarily for just being a nice (& preferably somewhat different) picture. That the colour scheme is similar to those for years 2012-2014 is coincidence.

I took it on a DIY tour with friends of southern Albania. Although there was much natural beauty & many historic sites (& very friendly people), this scene was not as tranquil as it looks! We were having an evening meal in the Pasarela cafe which was an upper story bar/restaurant/nightclub. To avoid the background music & for the good warm weather we ate out on a balcony. The view was mainly over the roof tops which weren't as attractive as the historic buildings or as tidy as the new town centre. However it just happened to be that those two historic religious buildings in the distance lined up from where we were. Hence, with a super-zoom compact camera balanced on a glass on the table to steady it, that nicely arranged shot.

Camera = Panasonic TZ35.

The border was a duplicate of last year's.

Downloads

• Photograph in screen resolution (as above).
• Photograph in original full resolution for printing.
• Border in original LibreOffice Draw format.
• Border converted to PDF format.

Card assembly instructions to duplicate the original:

1. Get the full resolution photograph printed at 6"x4.5" on photographic paper.
2. Print the border using a laser printer (or print once and duplicate by photocopier) on A4 160 g/m² white cardboard.
3. Fold the printed cardboard into an A5 greetings card with one straight crease.
4. 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 normal 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.

By Andrew Hardwick.
Distributable under GPL or CC-by-sa freeware licences.
Written 2018/7/15.
Available on-line at http://duramecho.com.