P52/Week 11: "Blue"

Quite fittingly for the week we've had, the theme at Project 52 is "Blue."
I wish the reason it was fitting was because the skies were spectacularly blue; or because the blueberry bush decided to bloom early; or that I had taken a rockin' shot of Nico and Enzo's baby blue eyes.

But, alas, friend troubles can give you the blues. Sometimes in life people just let you down and I haven't come this far along, or earned this gray head of hair without learning that lesson the hard way several times over.  But, it's the first time my boys are experiencing it, so it becomes poignant and painful anew.

I had taken some portrait shots of Nico, telling him that I was trying to capture the essence of that blue feeling, and my little model/actor did not disappoint. But, I abandoned them when my mind went to Picasso's blue period.  I've often thought of giving myself a little assignment of trying to recreate some of art's great masterpieces with my camera. Only in a very general sense, capturing the essence of the work, but in a modern and personal context.

So, this is where those two assignments of P52 and Copying the Masters collide.

This is my adaptation of Picasso's Portrait of Jaime Sabartes (The Glass of Beer) painted at the beginning of his blue period:

 Here is the original.  

It was almost fun. We laughed as we tried to contort Nico's hand into that impossible position and Enzo, who was holding up a sheet behind Nico, joked that he blinked and I'd have to take another shot.  So, while it's not exactly something I'll be hanging on the wall anytime soon, it was nice to have a laugh during our blue period.

Hitting the sweet spot for my Sweet Shot

 

I learned something about my camera this weekend. When set a 2 second timer, there are 8 beeps before the shutter opens.  Important stuff.

It was my first ever sorta-like-a-studio shot with a high-tech backdrop of a casserole carrier and a desk lamp for my light. I had the flash on wireless coming from the side and books as my tripod. All on top of my kitchen table.

I sunk the strawberry into the glass to focus and then, with focus locked the timer set (I don't have a remote), I counted the beeps and dropped the strawberry into the water on eight.  I learned this set up and technique from Bill Fortney on the Kelby Training website.

As you can imagine it took lots of drops and flops before I hit the 'sweet spot.'  Hence, this is my week's Sweet Shot. 

Big smile. :-)