Mustard?

Worst. Light. Ever.

I know - a bad workman, etc., etc. But really, today was a complete photographic washout - and I speak as one who finds flat light pretty easy to work with. Today however, the light was not so much flat as depressed and depressing. No sun, no interesting cloud forms - just deep murky greyness. And now it's raining. (On the up side, this did help with one of my New Year's resolutions: Take fewer pictures. "Why?" you ask. Because I just moved December's raw files to an EHD, and nearly had a fit of the vapours when I saw the folder size...)

So, an indoor blip was called for - but I thought I ought at least to use the opportunity to improve my skills a little, so I shot this little secessionist mustard pot in close-up with the 70-300. The fact that camera and 70-300 nearly went sideways off the dining table because I hadn't sited the tripod properly.... well, that's the kind of thing that can happen to any bad-tempered, hung-over blipper, isn't it....? And it didn't happen (though only because the gap between the bottom of the tripod leg and its foot had caught on the edge of the table and held) - so there's really no reason for me to be sitting here shaking, is there?!

The pot is about 9cm tall; it was made in around 1905 by the WMF company of Germany, the design attributed to Albin Müller. The silver plate is pretty beaten up, and the spoon is a replacement, but it does have its original blue glass liner. I tried converting the pic to mono but thought it looked a bit boring, so I put the colour back.

ISO 200; 1.6 sec; f/8; 70-300 lens at 200mm