Remember this portrait?
Girl with a Pearl Earring—Canon Powershot S410
It was an attempt to paint Jan Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring with my camera obscura.
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Jan Vermeer.
Let me tell you what I learned from trying to imitate Vermeer:
1. Winding pieces of material around my head for a headdress wasn’t easy (and I still couldn’t get it right).
2. Large pearls are very expensive (I went in search for some and ended up buying the only pair I could afford; a pair of dangling beads from Claire’s. Claire’s rules!).
3. The word camera obscura is Latin. The French translation for it is chambre noire (which could be translated as “black bedroom” in English).
4. Like every room, a “black bedroom” needs windows to allow in natural light because natural light is good to bathe in (though don’t confuse it with bathing in the sun because Vermeer knew that sunbathing doesn’t do anything for the skin other than age it). Because bathing in natural light is the best makeup secret for creating a smooth complexion in any image not to mention how it sheds light on the matter. And miracle or no, some overexposure can diminish lines and dark circles (but I still want Photoshop):
Lady Writing with her Maid by Jan Vermeer.
That’s why she’s so happy:
Allegory of Faith by Jan Vermeer.
It’s true! She knows that if she continues to be faithful she can leave her “black bedroom” and go to Heaven where all the rooms there bask in natural light (and is a place where everyone will have youthful complexions forever because of it).
5. I read about the chambre noire from a book I have that’s written in French. I had it in my mind that it was talking about a “black bedroom” (it never occurred to me at the time of reading it to look it up in English, especially after what I had learned about Harry Potter’s Chambre des secrets), but I have recently discovered that the word camera obscura is Latin for “dark chamber.” Not “dark bedroom” or heaven forbid, “black bedroom.”
6. My French needs to improve, but happy to report I think I’ve mastered the Girl’s “over the shoulder” look.
Modern day Girl with an Earring—Canon EOS 30D
May 26th, 2007 at 8:07 am
i want photoshop too, but not until i get a good awesome camera like you have. that must have been fun trying to imitate that painting. claire’s has gone everywhere in the world i’ve decided. it was in the dublin airport when i was in ireland, and its in germany and in france. i wouldn’t be surprised if it were in everywhere in europe. i’m just waiting for pimkie to get to the US…..
May 26th, 2007 at 9:24 am
art shelf challenge! i love it! i love what you say about the rapturous lady in Allegory of Faith. haha–i’ll be happy if heaven is bathed in natural light, too.
but how did you get the camera obscura effect?
May 26th, 2007 at 11:31 am
I really liked this post! How did you get the camera obscura effect and even the all white background on the last photo without using Photoshop?
I think you did a pretty good job winding the material around your head.
May 26th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
I don’t know, I think you have a knack for the fabric wrapping thing :)
Also for the photography thing.
May 28th, 2007 at 10:12 am
I’ll have to try fiddling with the manual settings. I don’t have any windows that provide great lighting, just so-so light. Thanks for explaining what you did!
May 30th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
what wonderful lessons you learned from trying to recreate a scene from a painting. that’s so cool. i’d love to try it myself, but wouldn’t know where to begin. who to be?