Assignment Three: Simple Still Life

Assignment Three is a simple still life shot.

First – there is a difference between product shots and still life. Product shots show, well, products – tech or cooking utensils or cameras. A still life can be made up of items that are not for sale, but instead are used to project an idea, thought, or feeling.

Still life can be an exploration of color and contrast and texture and light… always light. It is a quiet, reflective kind of photography that lets you work a shot over and over – without a whining or tiring subject.

Some Source Material:

Marcel Christ: Some product and some still life.
A Gallery of Still Life Photographs.
Another Gallery (some product shots in there as well – can you spot them?)
This Gallery has a lot of wonderful still life work.
I really love Jonathan Knowles still life work. Take a look.
One last long gallery of 100 Still Life photographs.

Now for some particulars:

I want you to “make” not “take” this shot. Found still life is a blast, and a lot of wonderful still lives are all around us waiting to be photographed. Not this one.

Gather the props, find a suitable surface, bring in your light (sun through a scrim, or natural overcast or even direct sun… whatever works for you) and work the shot like crazy. Experiment withe aperture, shadows, reflectors and anything else you can find to work the photograph out of the props in front of you.

One light to start with. Add reflectors and such as needed, but this is to be a ‘natural’ looking still life. The fictional client wants a still life to represent “calm and relaxed” for a spot in a brochure. The image can be vertical or horizontal.

I suggest that you begin slowly by gathering what you are going to shoot and study it before even picking up the camera. Watch for a video before this weekend with more info. It will be placed here.

NOTE: THIS POST WILL GROW AS ALL ASSIGNMENT POSTS WILL. You will be notified on the Flickr Group page, but make it a point to check this page out at least every couple of days.

Flickr Page Here.

Page ONE of the Flickr images critiqued here:

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Page TWO of the Flickr images critiqued here. The balance are on the Vokle video.

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Video Show includes the last dozen images on the page.
Click Here.

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