Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur

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Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur
Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur

This is for Theme of the Week's Week 50 theme: Still Life

For this, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. The great Studio d’Xavier did a wonderful classical tableau in the genre memento mori (Latin for remember that you will die) last year that I admired greatly. I’ll put it in comments. Could I do a copycat without fancy studio lighting? Could I find a skull somewhere?

The answers are yes and no. There are flaws. And I had to steal Xavier’s skull. But despite the challenges and flaws, I’m pretty happy with the result.

Here is an excerpt from Xavier’s detailed and fascinating description:
“These types of still lifes are packed full of metaphor and symbolism. The skull, obviously represents death. The light from behind the drapery is a metaphor for life after death. The egg, the promise of rebirth. Liquor and grapes often represent the bounty and joy of life on Earth. The watch, of course, represents time ticking away. Candles also represent life if lit, death if extinquished. Books often represent knowledge and enlightenment.”

Some of my challenges:
-had to use a texture for the background (thank you skeletalmess), so I had the issue of trying to make the light from behind the drapery believable
-adding the texture as a background also made the wine glass look dreadful, as we’re seeing the old background (white sheet) through it. I used a warming filter to correct for this...more or less
-should have used focus stacking so the candle was in focus
-had to manually add highlights to some of the grapes
-the fabric was too small to really get the draping effect I wanted

© All Rights Reserved
Taken on: December 12, 2013
Tags: Everybody's photos tagged with totw totw Everybody's photos tagged with still life still life Everybody's photos tagged with memento mori memento mori more » Everybody's photos tagged with Dutch masters Dutch masters Everybody's photos tagged with chiaoscuro chiaoscuro Everybody's photos tagged with allegory allegory Everybody's photos tagged with Xavier's skull Xavier's skull Everybody's photos tagged with X Spot X Spot Everybody's photos tagged with Xavier Xavier « less
Sets appears in:   • X Spot    • Explored 2013    more » • TOTW in 2013    « less
Groups appears in:   • Chiaroscuro    • Creative Tabletop Photography    more » • Copycats    • TOTW Closed    • Tabletop Photography (now curated)    • The X Spot    « less
Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T4i, f/4.5, 1/10 sec, 30mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)
Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T4i
Lens: 18.0-55.0 mm
Aperture: f/4.5
Exposure Time: 0.1 sec (1/10)
Focal Length: 30mm
ISO: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program: Manual
Exposure Mode: Manual
Metering Mode: Multi-segment
White Balance: Manual
Color Space: Unknown (-1)
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
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