The Ephemeral Nature of Music…

TheBigYin

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Mark
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... and Glassware, as it turned out.

This shot's been held back for a while, as I entered it in the April round of the Staff POTY and haven't been able to "publish" until after the results were out.

MusicalVanitas.jpg

The Ephemeral Nature of Life (and Glassware) by The Big Yin, on Flickr
 
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I Happened to mention in passing, whilst in the pub, that I was thinking of shooting a Still Life that included a Violin of some sort - but I was having problems sourcing one at a sensible price for a prop... My friends never cease to amaze me with the things that they have squirrelled away in some dark corner of their attic. Once again I got the comment "Well, I'm pretty sure I've still got the one from when one of my kids was learning to play, I'll have a look over the weekend and give you a call..."

And, that's all it took - a couple of days later i'd got a fairly bog-standard looking Chinese entry level violin, bow and case in my hands... Okay then, time to start thinking about ideas for what to shoot...

The obvious first point of reference was 'Vanitas with Violin and Glass Ball' by Pieter Claesz... Now, I've never been particularly successful with including glass balls or reflective spheres in my shots, and, much as I'd have loved to spend a month or two actually fiddling around until I could get something like this:

Vanitas-with-Violin-and-Glass-Ball-Pieter-Claesz.jpg

'Vanitas with Violin and Glass Ball' Pieter Claesz


There, really, really was no way I could just hang onto the Violin for the amount of time that it'd have required for me to actually teach myself to do this kind of tricky lighting (or, for a low-tech approach, to have built a "fourth wall" with the whole "artists studio" painted on it, Trompe-l'œil style...)

So, I took on a couple of cues and clues from the Painting - the Books, Skull, Quill Pen and Roemer, and added in a few slightly different items...

as a "first draft" I came up with this...

Musical Vanitas by The Big Yin, on Flickr

Obviously derivative, but with the Candlestick further to the left of frame, just to avoid the whole "reflective sphere" problem, and with the lighting to the opposite side of frame... On the whole, I quite liked it, however, something about the position of the glass just wasn't working for me. So, I repositioned it, and as I returned to my camera to check the overall composition I heard a rather sickening crash behind me. The damned glass had tumbled from my "Table" and hit the solid baseboard a foot or so below. Diamond Etched Crystal Glass doesn't bounce, and there's now one less piece of intact very old glassware in this world.

Gutted. Gutted and Filleted even. Probably my favourite prop for this kind of shooting - gone. But, I couldn't let it pass without using the remnants as a kind of "farewell appearance", and I decided to create a similar arrangement, but almost a mirror Image layout... The Title came to me as I was carefully arranging the incredibly sharp shards of broken Roemer...

The Ephemeral Nature of Music (and Glassware)


A couple of extra "artefacts" added to the picture, which were intended to give clues to some failed romance, The Dessicated Rose by the side of the Skull, hinting at a romance long since gone but still deeply felt, the "Heart of Stone" - presumably, the attitude that caused the romance's breakdown...

The Smashed glass, and the pills scattered on the table implying the possible demise of the protagonist, and the Claret Pitcher because... well, without something to contain drink, there would have been no reason for the Roemer to have been on the table in the first place...

Looking at the picture now, my only real regret with the shot is that I actually cut myself on one of the shards while clearing up the wreckage, but cleaned the blood off the broken glassware before taking the picture. It seems strange that I "bled for my art" and then stupidly didn't use it to my benefit. I thought of this as soon as I saw the image onscreen in Lightroom, but drew the line at going back into the studio, pulling off the plaster and "dripping" on the glass and table...

I may be daft, sick and slightly twisted, but I'm not THAT daft, sick or twisted...
 
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Hi mark, I suspected this would be the case... But I think my "seen this shot before" previous comment was indeed a bit harsh.

I think that the narrative that goes along with a shot such as this really does count for a lot. I was sure there would be a story. But without it, the viewer is left to try to invent their own. Which, in my case, was less good than yours. :)

Love the "window" reflection in the jug, I also really like the reflection of the artist in the inspiration painting.... Maybe you should go the whole hog and get yourself a reflective ball.... :naughty:
 
Graham - thanks for the comments - If you look carefully, in the "prototype" there's plenty of other "window" reflections on display in the glass... they're still there in places on the final version, though with the "bowl" in bits, the main ones are lost - there is one detail I like though - the reflection on the base of the glass, and the green caste shadow on the pages of the book where the light shone through.

I must either google-up some period correct music and hand-transcribe it onto suitably scruffed paper for a follow up... Though at the moment, its all on hold until I can find a suitably priced replacement Roemer (and then cadge the Fiddle again, or maybe just pick up a old, tired (even cracked and non-playable) one...) I'd LOVE to get something like the glass in the "source" picture, but they're silly money... lets just say, if I was paying that much for glass, I'd expect it to have an EF-Mount and a red ring around one end!

I have to admit, I've had a reflective ball (it's a mirror-polished silver one) in the props box for a couple of years now, and frankly, I just can't get to grips with it - I bought a "crystal ball" from a chinese fleabay supplier, who confused diameter with circumference - so the 120mm diameter ball I was expecting came as nearer 40mm (I've had bigger marbles!) - and, well - it's a chinese seller, so it simply wasn't worth returning it, just wrote it off...

I Have actually considered painting myself a fake "back half of the studio" onto something like an old dust-sheet - then I can set up the whole thing, and put the fake studio backdrop up on a couple of lighting stands, have a hole in the cloth where the camera lens sticks through and work that way - I'm certainly not clever enough in photoshop to fake in all the reflections and "artists selfie" ;)
 
your shot reminds me of these verses


12 Remember your Creator
in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
and the years approach when you will say,
“I find no pleasure in them”—
2 before the sun and the light
and the moon and the stars grow dark,
and the clouds return after the rain;
3 when the keepers of the house tremble,
and the strong men stoop,
when the grinders cease because they are few,
and those looking through the windows grow dim;
4 when the doors to the street are closed
and the sound of grinding fades;
when people rise up at the sound of birds,
but all their songs grow faint;
5 when people are afraid of heights
and of dangers in the streets;
when the almond tree blossoms
and the grasshopper drags itself along
and desire no longer is stirred.
Then people go to their eternal home
and mourners go about the streets.
6 Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
and the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
and the wheel broken at the well,
7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
 
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