Apple Tree

[Mike Buckley]

My wife's grandmother Mary sent notes on these note cards in 1967 to her daughter-in-law Joan while Joan's husband Frank was working in Saigon. The note card is about 3 3/4" x 5 1/4" (9.5cm x 13.3cm), close to the aspect ratio of the camera's sensor.

These note cards were surely relatively expensive, which is a surprise considering that Mary's household was at most in the lowest of the economic middle class. Perhaps the expense was justified because handwritten notes and letters were an important way at the time to communicate with distant friends and relatives.

Setup
The note card is attached to a wooden vertical piece. The leaves and apples are made of shiny metal. The various tones of red and green are created because the metal is not perfectly flat, which causes the light to be reflected differently. Two small continuous-light lamps fitted with a diffusion sock are placed as close as possible to the card to make the shadows as soft as possible. One lamp lights most of the card from above and slightly to the right so it would be in the family of angles and, thus, produce bright reflections. The other lamp is below and on the left to add bright green tones to the lower left leaves.

[Wavelength]

So lovely

[madcrow]

Everything lovely and soft, nothing harsh. Beautiful card and image.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Nandakumar and Maurice!

[bnnrcn]

Very nice indeed

[mugge]

Mike, it is just about perfect except when I find an error---.
Cheers Ole

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you also to Ole and Binnur!

[JBW]

Question: did you intentionally make the card look new?

[Mike Buckley]

The card looks in the image as it does in reality. My guess is that the off-white color of the paper is a sign of old age but I really don't know. I didn't do anything to remove dirty spots or other imperfections. When viewing the image at 100% of the full-size file, you can see the adhesive used to adhere the leaves and apples to the paper and I'm very surprised that it still looks relatively transparent.

[Kaye Leggett]

That's a very inspirational image. And now of course you can make more cards.........

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Kaye, however...

And now of course you can make more cards.........

It's clear that you have no idea what a fumble fingers kind of guy I am.