DSLR Photography Forum

The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.
- Robert Doisneau

According to Wikipedia, "A still life is a work of art depicting inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (food, plants and natural substances like rocks) or man-made (drinking glasses, cigarettes, pipes, hotdogs and so on) in an artificial setting." They give us ways of working with composition and light that just don't happen by chance, but more freedom than we'd have in a typical studio shoot.

For this assignment, let's look at the arrangement of objects, and the art that they turn into when photographed. It can be a formal setting, a chance arrangement, or even something unexpected that you find in the street.

For those wondering about the quotation at the start of this assignment, and thinking that perhaps it would be more suitable for a "decisive moment" type of street photography, you'd only be half right. Mr. Doisneau's most famous photograph, Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville ("Kiss by the Hotel de Ville"), showing a young couple kissing on a Paris street, was staged using models.

There's a new high-tech gadget in the house that's been waiting to pose for this Assignment.

First, we have to peel off the sticker with the # of megapixels on it.
Then I have to decide what to pose it with.....no hot dogs, so maybe bacon.
I love bacon.

Then choose a background--high-key or low, color or no.

Serious or comic?

So many decisions, I might get trapped by an endless loop of 'what if...?'

I am always thrilled to know about the next assignment, Matt, and this one is great too...

Thanks...

I think also the season is perfect, lots of Christmas markets, and decorations at home give many subjects to still life.

At the moment I was reading your comments, I remembered my series of baskets and liquor I took last year in the Christmas market in Luebeck. It was a little plaza where the Vikings set some stands to sell their goods. These baskets caught my attention and took lots of pictures and I never worked with them. Today I prepared this series of the assignment.











All of them different colors in my post processing... I wanted not to be repetitive in the treatment as the subject was the same with little varietion in the composition...

Irma, love the colors. Can I inquire to what your trick was? How did you treat your photos, or was it all done in camera?

Thanks DJ...

The original pictures have the yellow and blue colors but not so bright. I worked first with the RAW file in lightroom, to enhance to colors or change them a bit like in the last one. Then in PS I worked with curves to enhance to contrast. Selective colors and color balance for the final color.

I don't do a lot of still lifes but this is one from several years ago when they were rebuilding the bridge near my home. Amongst the materials was this rusty bucket filled with odd bolts that had "U" shaped ends. Like the bucket that held them they were rusty. I wasn't around to see how they were used in the project but they made a nice subject.

I like a lot your picture Jim. I am very happy you posted it because it give idea and inspiration to look for different subjects...

RP Very beautiful light in your picture, the lines work nicely too...

Irma, it's great that you were able to go back to photos from last year, and I like the way you've developed them. You're right that I was partly thinking about the holiday season. It's a time of year when many of us are creating artistic arrangements of diverse objects, so the assignment seems like a good fit. Your recent still life photos also have something to do with it. (Although I do need to apologize to the Australians here, who have great weather and lots of daylight to work with outside. I promise we'll have some outdoor assignments by the middle of January. )

Jim, I really like the mix of straight bolts and all of the curves in the composition. It's an interesting and unexpected subject.

RP, you're making me want a drink. (Which isn't very nice, since I can't get to the kitchen right now.) I'm usually not a fan of tilted photos, but this one works very well. I especially like the play of light and dark tones through the background and through the rink, and the way the warm colours match so nicely.

Keith, don't tell me that the world's hardest-working F717 has a new (ar)rival. And maybe I'm just weak in art history, but would someone mention "hot dogs" in a wikipedia article without having a specific image in mind? (yes, probably.)

I was experimenting with still life composition today, and have a new favourite photo for December:

lamplight


I can't remember the settings that I was using for these, but they weren't anything too unusual. What was different is that instead of using my usual macro lens, I was using the 50-200 with a teleconverter, giving an effective focal length of 525-565mm. These were shot from about 10-12 feet (3-4 metres) away at apertures of f/8-16. Call it my "summer meets winter" series.

Nice use of negative space in these Matt.

awsome contributions!!!

Jim, I like your screws and the treatment!

Uli

Very nice series Matt...

I like a lot the lamplight picture... Very beautiful shape of the lamp and I think your framed it nicely... The detail of the picture is great... I also like very much the use of both kind of lights? I can see a bit of blue light in the left down corner and I love the detail... I am trying to work mixing lights... I don't know how well the result will be but I like to paint a bit with blue light my pictures...

Your "summer meets winter" series is also very nice... and here you won again. I bought recently some carnations but I couldn't get any picture for this assignment. I concentrated in macro since I had long time without taking macros.

This is a picture I worked today... It is the window in the kitchen with my ... bottle? where I store my onions. I hung some garlics in the background to cover that black strip of the mosquito net...

The picture I worked today was thinking about our Australian members who have beautiful summer weather...

Wow, Irma, what a shock! The colours are so vibrant and there's such a great sense of depth that the image pops right through the screen. It's a fantastic summer image. I really enjoy the diagonals created by the fabric, and the way that the straw aligns with the dark line in the grey background.

The blue in my "lamplight" picture is the a hint of daylight from across the room. I worked very carefully with the dodge and burn tools (actually an overlay layer and white and black brushes) to bring out the blue highlights and increase the modeling effect of the different light colours. Despite its simplicity, I spent a lot of time getting the photo just so both before and after tripping the shutter. I was drawn to the way the photo mirrors the lamp, and how the light in the photo relates to the lamplight in colour and direction.

A couple more from my work-avoidance efforts today:

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas


home in black and white

I don't have much experience with still life photography, but these images in this assignment are inspiring me to want to do more. I did remember this one that I did in honor of my parents' 50th anniversary a while back, and I thought I'd share it.

Both pictures are great Matt... Both tell a story an that is what I was also thinking, you can make a still life not only for you to see something in a beautiful way, but also you can tell a story...

Love the first one... The picture in the wallet makes the story along with the other signs of Christmas... The second one is also great, I like it a lot too... And you are giving them title... You are right, of course, that is something that I didn't think about.

Aine, to me it has been a bit difficult to work with this kind of pictures, as I didn't have much experience either. The other day I was really very sad thinking that probably it was matter of showing your own still of living or good taste... but then I started looking for this kind of photography and see a lot of them. I didn't copy them but they gave me ideas, as if you get the feeling and eye to see still life pictures as you didn't see them before... Now I want to do as you and Matt did... I want to tell a story too...

Your picture is beautiful, and I am very happy you share it with us, because this story is very beautiful...

Matt, thanks for your comments on my picture... Far from the original picture and idea, since I had a palm plant in front of the flash to give shadows in the wall... It looked nice but the colors not so bright. As I increased the contrast I lost the shadows That is why I have that gray spot at the left but I left it anyway not to be so white. I bought the piece of fabric for 2 euros it was a remnant ?, but I liked the colors a lot for my pictures...

I started this idea in summer, placing some little wild flowers in a small vase and the original idea didn't work well. I forgot them in a corner of a shelf and I found them few days ago. I worked with the vase and the already dry dandelions and some other flowers. This is my first series I took yesterday. The other one I took last week was with beige background but I haven't post process it.

Here you have my first try...





This one a bit more manipulated...

wow, that second one is stunning irma! I really like what you did to this one.

Uli

Thanks Uli...

aine-caitlin, I really like your photo. The highlight is in a perfect spot to bring the gold rings out against the gold plate and showcase them. It's a very skillful touch.

Irma, I agree with Uli, that second photo shows a great imagination and vision. I like how the shapes in the background and the highlight creates a subtle "heart" image.

Thanks Matt, I didn't see the heart... You have a great eye...

I took this picture with the 85mm lens and the raynox adapter. I like how both work together for macro.