I replied to the photo of the gray room, "Whistler's Mother!" and within a few weeks we had gathered the missing items to recreate a modern rendition of "Whistler's Mother". I like to refer to the resultant photo as "Whistler's Mom" and actually have it hanging in a place of honor in my living room.
The location is a little used stairway at Portland State University. It's on the fifth floor, sort of. The closest accessible elevator was two flights down. Since he did not want an out of breath model, he brought along a friend to help carry and set up things. Curtains for the backdrop, paintings for the wall, a couple items for another planned photo and of course lighting and general photography equipment. He had originally wanted to use another chair rather than the standard industrial school type chair that was there, but I talked him out of it. I couldn't believe all the equipment he brought but understood his desire for perfection. For him, a lot of the fun in photography is making the sets. This just happened to be a set on location rather than a set in his studio.
We paid for three hours of parking in downtown Portland but we were in and out of there in less than an hour. We all knew our responsibilities and just got moving on as soon as we arrived. As soon as they had the curtain up and the chair in the right place, I sat down and started getting into character, concentrating on being at home, relaxed while my loving son painted me. They busyied themselves with the placement of the paintings on the wall and the angle of the lights and such. I had already studied and studied the original painting so I could get the curve of her shoulders and angle of her chin and feet correct. All in all it was a stellar effort and while I adore the photo, my son thinks it makes me look old and stern. "Yes, son...that's the point." He didn't understand until I pulled up a photo of "Whistler's Mother" on the web. "Oh, I get it now!" he said.
The photo on the wall in the room is also one of me, by another photographer.
