A very revealing envelope

[Mike Buckley]

Almost all of our evening dinners end lately with a reading by my wife of at least one letter written to her mother Joan by her father Frank (both long deceased). I have posted a few photos of the letters and envelopes in the past and thought there was no need for more photos of them. However, we recently came across this envelope, which reveals so much about the two people that we decided it should also be photographed.

Frank was an engineer and Joan was a librarian, so it is natural that both were very detail-oriented. After addressing the envelope, Frank added tape presumably because he feared unprotected ink from the felt tip pen that he used would run if it got wet. Joan always penciled notes on each envelope. This one includes the date the letter was received, as always, but uncharacteristically does not include the date she responded to it. The other notes might have been reminders of topics she wanted to include in the next letter she would write. Considering that she never made copies of letters she wrote to him, those notes might instead have been a record of the topics she had already included in her letter of response.

Personal finances are a common topic in the letters, so the notes about the bonus check and the court costs are almost to be expected. Joan changed the zip code of the return address probably as a reminder for future letters she would write that the zip code was about to change. But why is the change written in ink rather than pencil? The letter was written on the date of their son Pat's birthday, so it is a nice convenience to see his school grades probably from his most recent report card. Typical of Joan's attention to detail, she included the note indicating the number of Pat's home room -- (H. R. 289). She even included the clarification that the class everyone called Shop was formally named Industrial Arts.

The envelope opener was Joan's and my wife uses it daily. It's no surprise that it pays tribute to Beethoven, as Joan absolutely loved buying trinkets pertaining to music.

Setup
The tabletop is a piece of wood.

A small continuous-light lamp fitted with a diffusion sock is positioned in the left front area to allow very little light to fall on the scene. It is also positioned very close to the scene at the level of the scene. The close proximity and diffusion sock create very soft shadows. Positioning the lamp at the level of the scene rakes light across the paper to display its slight creases and other imperfections and also creates very long shadows even though the items are very short. As an example, the shadow of the pencil is wider than the pencil itself. My hand is held close to part of the lamp to create the slight shadow area on the left side of the scene.

A medium continuous-light lamp in the rear of the scene is shining away from it toward a white wall, which acted as a very large light source that redirected the light to the scene. Doing so evenly lifted the shadows throughout the scene and added small bright highlights to the envelope opener, pencil and parts of the letter and envelope. That lamp was fitted with two layers of diffusion material to reduce the brightness.

[Wavelength]

A letter can create a story....it occurred as a wonder to me how meticulously you handle things.....

[mugge]

Mike, the highlights on the envelope opener and the pencil are second to none. This envelope tells the viewer a lot about the creator of it. The attention to detail is clearly evident.
Cheers Ole

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Ole and Nandakumar!

[Shadowman]

Nicely presented.

[bnnrcn]

A nice image with a story

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you also to John and Binnur!

[Marie Hass]

Lovely history, Mike and great shots with control of highlights. Nice soft shadows.

Made me nostalgic. I have a box of family memorobilia I will have to reexplore. I saved the love letters my dad and mom wrote to each other as newlyweds and then as new parents while my father served in the Korean Conflict.

Marie

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Marie! Hopefully you get around to reading those letters and enjoying them as much as my wife and I are enjoying these letters.