Today’s theme is “box” and I have lots of boxes around here, some more elegant than others. Some are unsightly corrugated cartons, some are elaborately painted or carved, some are plastic, some contain rice or Cheerios. By far my favorite box is a small cherry box that my husband made for me more than 15 years ago when I was hand quilting. Ron was quietly observant as, time after time, my spool of quilting thread rolled off the quilting frame as I concentrated on placing those tiny stitches. Invariably, the spool continued rolling across the floor to some inaccessible recess. One day, he surprised me with this elegantly constructed cherry wood box, that he made from a piece of leftover cherry from another project and that he tastefully stained and shellacked. It precisely fits a single large spool of quilting thread and a tiny hole drilled in the bottom leads the thread from inside the box. A square spool holder will not roll off a slanted quilt frame and I was delighted to have this one-of-a-kind tool that helped eliminate my constant frustration at having to chase the errant spool of thread across the floor. I loved creating beautiful designs in thread but quilting was too hard on my back. After a couple of enthusiastic years, I abandoned quilting as a hobby. But the box lives on. It no longer contains thread and it is so small, very few things fit in it. But I find it delightful to look at and I wonder how many people have had someone make them a box to hold a single spool of thread. My guess is, not many.
I photographed the box on my dining room table. It seemed too plain and uninteresting by itself and as I tried to decide what else I might find to photograph that might be more interesting, I realized the Ranier cherry I was about to munch on would be an amusing adjunct to the cherry box, hence the title today, “Cherry, Box.” Either could be the subject but as I look at the shot now, the cherry is really the most prominent subject and the eye is drawn to it. In retrospect, I should have blurred the box and just featured the cherry. Can’t reshoot. I ate the cherry.
I used the tripod and timer release to take the photo, and I used a custom white balance setting. The colors are exactly as they appeared on my table. I didn’t align the horizon perfectly when I set the camera on the tripod, or one of the legs was out of kilter. Whatever the reason, I had to make a minor straightening adjustment. I probably wouldn’t have bothered straightening it but a tiny bit of the white piece of straw that I used to prop the box open showed slightly in left corner of the shot and straightening it eliminated that distraction. Otherwise, the photo is SOOC.
Focal Length 300mm
ISO 100
Manual Mode
f/5.6
1/3
WB Custom