We have been pondering still life shots a bit. What does it takes to make a great still life photo?
So what ELEMENTS do we have to work with? We have the subject or subjects, the background, and shadow. We also have light - the overall amount of light, the color of light and what is lit or not. There is also composition, angle and what is in or out of focus.
"Shooting still life photography gets more exciting if we keep in mind what ELEMENTS we have to work with and try them each out."
Since the theme is "Some Of Our Favorites" we chose organic vanilla beans and old glass for our subjects. The shot is a well lit "product photography" style image, arranged upon a wooden cart near a window for natural light. We used this as a starting point.
Still Life It is about inanimate objects...
The idea is to try out each of the different ELEMENTS listed above. So for example, after studying the image above for a while we felt there might be a bit too much background per subject matter. The image could seem a bit stark, or is it just fine? So we should try out some of the ELEMENTS we have to work with listed above. We only tried a few of the ELEMENTS so far, but the results are interesting and this is fun.
We added some organic cacao beans and cocoa powder and got closer to the subjects so there was less background and more color. If you click each image, you can see a hi-res version to get a better idea.
Black and white with more contrast was suggested for the vanilla image and below is are some black and white versions.
So which image do you like best?
1Choose a theme for your still life photos.
2Shoot some photos.
3Study what you like and dislike and what works and does not work.
4Try working with some of the different ELEMENTS listed above.
For Further Study: Still Life.
If you suddenly want some Organic Vanilla Beans
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