Sometimes it's the Camera

I saw a garland of dried orange slices on Pinterest. They looked so pretty with the sunlight shining through them and we had some lemons left over from a recipe that were getting past their prime. (Or maybe not, but that was how I justified using one of them.)

Here's what I learned from the project --

Next time, I should use a sharper knife and make more uniform slices of fruit.

Tying slices of  dried lemon on thread so that they're evenly spaced is harder than it sounds.

So is hanging them from a window frame with thumbtacks while four different family members wander through the kitchen asking what you're doing and why.

What I couldn't do was get a decent picture. I tried different times of day and different angles, blaming the light. It was later in the week that I figured out what was happening. My wonderful intelligent camera was focusing on the tree and blurring the fruit slices. Once I told it that I was taking a portrait, it focused on the fruit and blurred the branches.

It's not just a matter of making the thing and having it turn out the way you hope it will. Sometimes it's a matter of making the thing and having it look as good in pictures as it does in real life.