Still Life

Still life Photography

Dictionary Definition: a type of painting or drawing of an arrangementof objects that do not move, such as flowers,fruit, bowls, etc.:


Still life photography is the idea of creating photographs of objects that do not move hence why we call this still life. You are in control of the positions of the object and where you want to place it. For example arranging out some objects on the table possibly flowers, a spoon, plates, books etc. And then photographing them. This type of photography originates from the ancient art of still life art, where artist used to draw and paint people generally royalty or the rich as they were the only people who could afford them. Paintings were very much popular in those days, as cameras had not yet been invented.

Lighting 
There are various elements which we should consider when taking photographs. One of the most important elements in photography is lighting. Depending on which effect you are trying to achieve there are different types of lighting affects we can create. A famous technique used in still life photography is Rembrandt lighting.

Rembrandt light: 

This is an interesting technique. This consists of two lightis, a small triangle light shining on the subject however this light must be opposite the main light source. This technique is generally used in portrait photography. It has been used for many years. For example in paintings of the Kings and Queen many decades back.

Mood board

This mood board represents different aspects of still life photography, we as a audience have a general view that still life is generally used when photographing fruits and plants all set out on a beautiful table. However having researched into still life I discover that still life varies from photography fruits to photographing food and make up. The idea of producing still life images is arranging objects in a certain position and playing around with different lighting effects to produce photographs.

Kevin Best

Kevin Best photographs use Rembrandt lighting. This makes the objects he using stand out, his background is fairly simple and which is effective as the background does not distract the viewer from the objects.This is a very good example of this technique. Having looked closer at the image your eyes explore every single object separately and in the same amount of detail, this is due to the light bouncing off different parts of the objects.The lighting enhances the colour in each object.

I think this image may convey wealth and status, the owner of these objects may come from a high class background i.e. The violin and the jewellery box, these are personal object which have meaning and represent the personality of the person whom they are supposed to represent, this has an ancient Victorian feel to the picture we almost feel as though we are in the scene and that the movement is frozen . For example the smoke in the back ground it is frozen in that exact moment. The background appears fairly simple there are various object in the picture by having a busy background this would over power the entire image.

Edward Weston

Edward began to study photography at the age of sixteen and when he started to take photographs he would take imagess of his aunt’s farm and the park. As the years went on he started to photograph children, pets and also funerals. He decided to go and study photography at Illinois College of Photography in Effingham. His photography techniques improved and he started producing photos which demonstrated amazing lighting in them. He then later opened his how portrait studio.

This image shows great use of Rembrandt lighting and the broad lighting in the second image. The images are in black and white which enhances the features of the fruit/vegetables.They stand out a lot more. The smooth texture is also effective and in the first image due to it being black and white the rough texture of the pumpkin is interesting. When viewing this image our eyes are attracted to the dominant part of this image which is in the texture of the vegetable. The subject is central and the background fairly simple and dark; this enhances the features on the pumpkins further. This image also has a low exposure due to the darkness. I find the lack of colour amazing and simple. There is not a great deal happening in the images, however the photograph is striking as a result of the lighting. The contrast between the light and dark areas produce a classical image. 

 Marcel Christ
This talented photographer attended a photography school in Amsterdam called Photography academy. He is very talented and has already worked/photographer for big labels such as L’Oreal, Samsung, Nokia just to name a few. Marcel has a love for still life photography. In his work his photographs changes simple everyday objects into art form he does this by manipulating the objects form, this may be by breaking a fragrance bottle for the effect it will make in his photographs. He current shoots Elle magazine and in style.

I love this Photograph because of the simplicity but also the complex of it. The idea of photographing bubbles seems fairly simple but the magnificent element of colour which is brought out using light in the picture; the image has a low exposure making the image appear dark. This image demonstrates what the lighting of an object can have on the outcome and how successful the image will be.

George Rustchev



Shoot 1 :  Still life attempt

My first shoot was not as successful as I had hoped; it was fairly difficult to get the lighting correct. I tried to experiment with flash as the lighting in the room was very poor, this did not improve my images they appeared too light and gave an artificial light look to my images, it also created shadows .The light reflected from the glasses and I felt as this have a mature look to my images. I then experimented with using natural light which also did not work in my favour as my images where still not bright enough. However managed to get the focus correct when taking some of images, I had my camera on the manual setting for the focus. The ISO was set to 100 which clearly affected the brightness of these images. I think if I had possibly increased my ISO and increased the size of my aperture my images would have come out lighter For my next shoot I will experiment with using natural lighting and change the position of my objects in order to reduce shadowing .I think it would be interesting to experiment also with different objects in order to reflect my title weird and wonder.

Shoot 2: Glass 'n' Roses

 I was very pleased with my images as they were an improvement from the last shoot.I then decide to do a response in the style of George Rustchev I really like the images as he produced a photograph with a flower placed inside a broken glass. I liked the idea of photographing flowers and glasses together and so changed my shoot to make it my own. For my shoot I collected Rose petals and some objects form picnic baskets which consisted of glasses cutlery and table clothes. I also thought it would also be interesting idea if I experiment with water as well. I was using natural light and not using the flash light in this shoot, it was hard to achieve the right balance of light, some of my images where over exposed and some of my images where under exposed. The settings I used on my camera where the ISO was on 100 this this explains the lack of lighting and the images which were under exposed. For my next shoot I am going to experiment with photographing fruits also in the same style has George Rustchev.I will used the studio and experiment with different types of lighting.