politrix

No one pays attention to details anymore.

Ok, so that's a lie. But looking at the photo above, i'm struck by the intricate detail with which the thimble is made. All the divets, the design, the folding and curving of the metal... probably done by machine, but none the less... even the construction of a machine that ultimately can produce these little pieces of iron that have so much relative character versus the insignificant amount of space they occupy... it's indicative of a focus on the small details - "we do not want to produce smooth half-open cylinders of tin... we want to produce thimbles - thimbles with characters... thimbles that look like THIS { mental image goes here }."

And then there's the photograph of the object itself. A second-rate, half-assed snapshot on E6 lit entirely sub par and blowing out the spec. highlights on what little the depth of field reveals. The lighting is purely documentary, the equivalent of a Bryn-Allen portrait of a sweatshop. There's no drama, no fucking risk-taking grey.... just blown-out amatuer-hour white. (18% Gray is the bravest color in all of studio photography) There's no drama to the light, no shape. Despite the advanced technology available to the photographer versus that afforded the thimle-maker at the time of it's craft (long enough ago that the metal itself has been ripped and torn - most likely through repeated use and the subsequet yet gradual wear and tear...) this, i'm left to believe, was the best they could do. Or maybe the best they felt like doing. After all, "it's just a thimble." Right?