Still Life with Home-Grown Tamaters
Well, its about that time of year; the time when the days start getting noticeably shorter, the Orioles fire their skipper and slide to about .250, and backyard bounties, lovingly watered and protected from kamikaze squirrels (and the odd tomatophiliac deer) are ready to be harvested, Hon.
This contrived and heavily photoshopped still life – à la the Dutch Masters – represents the first batch of Romas, Bushmasters, and Cherry tomatoes for the season. (original)
Disclaimer: About 20 of these beauties were harmed in the making of dinner, along with fresh Basil and some nice Buffalo mozzarella. ◊
16 Missives So Far
01 Gone Away said on Thu Aug 4 23:23:43 EDT
Ahah! The artist in the Hink peeks out! Very nice, Josh, and I bet they taste good too. ;)
02 josh said on Fri Aug 5 2:31:35 EDT
Thanks! It was really hard to take a crappy picture and manipulate it with built-in filters, Clive. Much like Vinnie Van Gock or Eddy Moonk, I suffer for my work.
Though, on second glance–chin firmly in hand–I think my ostentatious filter technique evokes more of a De Velázquez than say, your run-of-the-mill painterly Vermeer. I tried to throw in a little Caravaggio, but alas, there's only so much chiaroscuro one can attain with the Brightness/Contrast button.
Puis... C'est la guerre qui est amour, non ?
03 wheat said on Fri Aug 5 16:55:05 EDT
Just beautiful. Tomatoes are my favorite fruit/vegetable/vice. Those look lovely.
05 josh said on Sat Aug 6 14:06:08 EDT
Yep, You might be right. I think that comes from the sharp shiny shadows on the 'maters themselves. I've spent a couple hours looking at the Vermeers at the National Gallery, and I'm always blown away by how he captured highlights. The whole camera obscura lightbox thingy. Probably because such precise manipulation of value is something that still eludes me.
Yeah, I'm the wierdo walking back and forth in front of one painting, sitting on the bench, breaking the "no closer than" rules, etc.
06 josh said on Sat Aug 6 14:07:57 EDT
This is a pretty cool web feature about Vermeer that I found in my travels. :)
07 vanessa said on Sun Aug 7 2:30:21 EDT
wheat stole my adjective... I was going to say lovely, dammit.
09 Mad said on Mon Aug 8 6:25:42 EDT
Hmmm messed up sleep patterns and now pictures of fruit. Very worrying. Have you been mean to the prodigal Kleine yet?
10 josh said on Mon Aug 8 12:48:51 EDT
Hoh. I thought you were the one who was laid up like Howard Hughes. :P
Don't worry about me and my fruits, I'll be fine. And if you do see Kleine, tell her to stop herding cats.
11 Gone Away said on Mon Aug 8 23:22:53 EDT
Vermeer's paintings are all incredibly beautiful. That link you gave shows just how good he was. But, even more incredibly, Vermeer was the last in a long line of Dutch painters who were equally as good. Caravaggio is all very well (if you can get past his slightly obscene voluptuousness), but no-one, before or since, has handled light as skillfully as those old Dutchmen. I have seen some in the "flesh" and pictures in a book or on the screen give only a vague impression of how beautiful they are in reality.
12 josh said on Tue Aug 9 0:40:58 EDT
Ahh, Caravaggio was an impulsive man—a murderer as I recall.
Voluptuousness indeed, but obscene? I thought you were working to cast off your staid English bits, Clive! :P
14 josh said on Tue Aug 9 19:31:07 EDT
Oh. In that case, carry on, carry on, back straight, stiff upper lip and so on…
;)
15 Andrew Kaufmann said on Wed Aug 10 1:50:13 EDT
The Orioles and Rangers need each other's company. The Rangers are doing their usual midsummer's swoon. Grumble.
16 josh said on Wed Aug 10 12:10:21 EDT
This sort of perennial seppuku is getting harder and harder to watch as the years go on.
I'm seriously thinking about shifting allegiances to the DC team, though really, I've always been an AL type. Who knows? Maybe
the Nationals can make me feel good about baseball again.
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