Wftda—women's flat track derby association—made the conscious decision that they would retain control of their sport, which was to be the benefit of the skaters. The downside to this decision is there's no money in it, and pretty much everything is volunteer: the NSOs (non-skating officials), refs, coaches and trainers all donate their time, gratis. As do the skaters, of course.

As I explained in the intro, I took up skating to improve my skills^[1] and as a teacher myself, was deeply impressed with our trainer. She's retiring at the end of this training session, and I wanted to show my appreciation for all her dedication and hard work teaching us. To that end, I made a little gift and wrapped it.

hand-drawn paper, ribbons, silk flowers, decorative packaging. Wrapped & photographed 17dec17, E620 with zuiko macro lense, velvet background.

I had some expired black fabric dye, which I used to practice henna designs on plain newsprint, and since I a) wanted to wrap it in the wftda colours of pink, black (& white) was well as make it special, I chose this. I don't have much in way of black ribbon, so I actually cut a piece of black fabric ribbon to help set off the velvet peach ribbon. Then I added some silk flowers & some pink packing material, both of which were conveniently lying around. The result was still rather bland, plus I wanted more of a black presence, so I unrolled some halloween mylar twist ribbon, carefully hiding the orange side. The matte black made a nice contrast to the shiny curling ribbon—again, I actually unrolled some brand new from a spool. The green silk leaves were to set off the flowers & help frame the focal area.

Same shot, but a slower shutter speed—1/6th sec versus 1/125th, which meant the halogen light over my giftwrapping area added a warm cast on the left side of the image, which helps to pop the matte black ribbon, a bit.

My black plexi wasn't really deep enough for something this large (about 6x6x2")—as it was, I had to crop out some missing black on the upper corners—so I styled the piece on a piece of black velvet, and because much of the object was relatively matte, I think it worked okay—it would've swallowed up something shiny, like the beads I usually photograph.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.