Hello Gang!  This is part two of a series on how I put together costume history presentations. At the time of this writing, I’m in the final stages of prepping a digital workshop entitled “The Birth of Bedlah.” This lecture and handout will be available as part of the Belly Dance Bundle, a collection of digital informational products by professional teachers, dance scholars, and touring professionals from around the globe.  Visit the Bundle website for more details and a list of the amazing products included in this year’s sale.

The 2018 Belly Dance Bundle will be available for
sale for $199 the week of October 4 – 10.

Why do I enjoy participating in the Bundle?  Because it’s a STEAL of a DEAL.  It’s like attending the best workshop weekend or dance intensive from the comfort of my own living room, and on my own timeline.

Sourcing Historic Images

Yesterday, a member of my Studio Davina Facebook Group asked where I find all of these vintage images. While I cannot go into detail about the research process, I can say that the images in this talk come from three sources.

My Private Collection

Over the past 30 odd years, I’ve been collecting vintage postcards featuring images that suit my research. Ephemera is one of the things that I actively look for in person at antique stores, yard sales, vintage shops, antique malls, swap meets, and ephemera sales. I also keep my eye peeled for postcards for sale all around the globe. Over the years, I’ve made connections with dealers who have a “wish list” and contact me when they locate items I might be interested in. This is my own ongoing treasure hunt that is one part hobby and one part business.

Above: A dance troupe poses for a promotional photo in the 1920’s

Research Libraries and Archives

I have conducted a great deal of research through the digital archives of major libraries, historical archives, and museums.  Some of the most useful has been the Library of Congress in Washington DC, the New York Public Library, and The National Portrait Gallery, London.  If you plan on conducting a lot of research, I recommend a little trick that I use.  I keep a “note” on my main computer and in my cloud storage with a collection of links to all of my favorite research sources along with notes to special collections in those locations.  Here’s a screen grab of part of my research list.

General Internet Image Searches

There are two main places where I perform digital image searches on the web, Google and Pinterest.  Most of the visual material that I’m looking for are in the public domain.  When I source an image I will do one of three things:

• If it’s available for sale, I buy an original or copy.
• If it’s on a non-commercial website, I’ll save the full page citation to Evernote.
• If it’s in a major holding or collection, I only save the image, link, and citation.

Over the years, I’ve seen personal hobby websites come and go.  Beautiful private collections will sometime disappear when a domain registration lapses or life gets in the way.  I pay for cloud storage so that I will be able to preserve not only the image but the context in which it was shared.

Prepping Images

Here’s a great example of what I do to prep images.  One of the images I wanted to create was a casual collage of six postcards.  I choose six different “Salome” pictures to use as part of this particular lecture.

For more info on my Salome collection check out this blog post. 

I laid the postcards out on a table and arranged them until I had a nice composition. To keep the eye moving around the image, I choose the top left and right images to face inwards to the center of the composition.  The rest are all ladies who are looking directly at the camera.

Scan the Images

For the best quality image results, I took the time to scan the selected images.  Scanned images are crisper, cleaner, and essential for achieving print-quality 300 dpi images. This step is a bit “extra” for a web video. But since I was flipping through all of these images anyways, I took the time to scan.  Future me will be grateful!

Photoshop Edits

These postcards vary in color from a light cream to a deeper sepia hue.  To make them more uniform, I changed the photo to black-and-white.  This creates the more uniform look I was aiming for. To further improve the legibility of the images, I adjusted the contrast.  Next, I brightened up the top right-hand corner, lightening the table with a highlight tool. The last step was to use the crop tool to tighten up the image.

Once all the images are selected, scanned, and prepped, I then plunk them into the slide deck.  Next on the list is working on the video portion of the workshop so keep your eyes peeled for the third in this series.

Now – off to put on some makeup and shoot some video!

Happy Dance and Costume,
Dawn Devine ~ Davina
Sept. 27, 2018

Read Part One of the “Birth of Bedlah” Putting Together a Workshop Series.