I knew this one would take a lot of work, but it was WAY more trouble than I thought it would be, both to prepare for (setting and costume) and to take . . . and retake . . . and retake . . . ad nauseam.
But I'm soooo very pleased with how well this has done all week.
I went to all this trouble for personal reasons. Briefly, when I was pregnant with our daughter, we chose not to know the sex of the baby. To avoid saying "it" or "the baby" all the time, we called her "Whistler". I, of course, was "Whistler's mother". Many of the gift cards and notes I got before she was born have that name on the envelope or in the message (and no, we did not eventually name her Whistler).
Fast forward many years. Our daughter died in 2014 just after our grand-daughter turned three. Our grand-daughter loves stories about her mama, and this is one I've told her. So I decided to do it for her - a little family history, a little art history, a tie between the past and the present.
Setting is our grand-daughter's bedroom (because of covid-19, she's no longer visiting); curtain is shower curtain hung on broom handle; picture on left is a bw print of a photo of mine, toned in processing (no glass, both to eliminate glare problems and to reduce weight), on right is just one I had around; wainscoting is brown wrapping paper; footrest is an old photo album.
Costume is a black dress I already owned, worn over a long-sleeved navy t-shirt because the dress is short sleeved; lace at cuffs was too short to go around both sleeves, but I just put the "open part" on the inside; handkerchief is a small lace doily; skirt is a large piece of black fabric I use for backdrops when I do still lifes (dress was neither long enough nor full enough); hat is a circle cut from a white, paper-cloth bag, gathered and trimmed with a piece of wide lace I got from a neighbor; shoes are brown. Thank goodness Whistler's painting is basically black and white!!
I know the "shape" isn't right, but I had very limited room for the set-up and for camera placement plus I only have one lens just now - coming anywhere close to original composition proved to be one of the biggest challenges. I'm also apparently nowhere near as tall as Whistler's mother AND I cannot sit up as straight as she did and . . . and . . . and . . .
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This is fabulous! Such a great model and clothing/setup! Wow!
The 2020 version of this in the challenge nailed the rectangular composition of the original one, so that will give you a fight for placement, but I really love this!
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