What is meant by still life photography?
Still life photography is a general term that applies to the photography of still life objects, groups of objects that are inanimate, in much the same way as an artist may paint a group of objects that form a still life painting.
What is the still life photography technique?
Still life technique really brings a lot of different photographic disciplines together, firstly the concept, then the arrangement of the objects in the shot, or the orientation of a single object, the choice of backgrounds, and finally the lighting.
What are the four types of still life photography?
Most still life photography tends to be tabletop photography, which can be as a fine art photograph or a commercial photograph, food photography is another branch of still life photography, as is product photography, and even copy photography, where maybe an artist will want their paintings copied for a catalogue.
Is still life photography hard?
Still life photography is a very exacting discipline and relies upon bringing a lot of different elements together perfectly, although a lot of photographers don’t find it very exciting, I personally believe that it gives any aspiring photographer a perfect technical grounding. It can also be very rewarding when you have spent hours lighting a tricky subject, and it finally looks great.
How can I make my still life more interesting?
Experiment with the lighting, if you look at most still life commercial shots, which tend to be products, they tend to be lit from above with a large soft light, but try a hard light, maybe shining through a sheet of patterned glass, it will create interesting shadows, or through a large sheet of tracing paper will holes cut in it for a dappled lighting effect.
What camera is best for still life photography?
Any decent DSLR camera will produce good still life photographs, generally avoid using wide-angle lenses, as the perspective they produce, due to the proximity to the subject is not usually very flattering, so stick to standard or short telephoto lenses, macro lenses are a good choice, manual focussing is a must, as sometimes you don’t want the whole image to be in sharp focus.
What is the best lighting for still life photography?
For still life photography, the lighting is probably the most important element, and it’s important to understand the basics, there are two basic kinds of lighting, firstly soft lighting, which produces very soft shadows, or sometimes even no shadows at all, this is created by a large light source for example a large softbox, or a light shining through a large sheet of tracing paper, or even as simple as a photographic flash bouncing off a white ceiling, the obvious comparison in the natural world is a totally overcast sky, which is huge and will givevirtually no shadows.
Secondly, you have hard lighting, this is a very small light source and will give you sharp shadows, the further away the light source is from the subject, the more parallel the shadows become, in nature, this is the sun, which gives very sharp shadows, as it’s so far away.
Generally, unless you are going for a specific effect the most flattering lighting is a compromise between the two, ie. soft, but has some definition in the shadows.
Should I use flash or tungsten lighting for still life photography?
Most professional photographers will always use flash, but professional flash heads also have a tungsten modelling light, which will give you some idea of how the lighting will look, although experienced photographers will have a pretty good idea of how the flash will behave.
The advantage of flash is that it is instantaneous and very powerful, so it is very unlikely to be affected by any ambient light, the colour of the light will also be very consistent over the power range, whereas sometimes with tungsten there is a colour shift when using long exposures.
Do I need a studio for Still Life Photography?
These days there are fewer reasons for needing a purpose-built studio, especially if you are using flash, as the shutter speed can usually be set to around 1/150 th or 1/250 th of a second, and that, coupled with a low ISO speed and a small aperture will mean that any ambient light is very unlikely to have any effect on the final shot, so for most work there is no need for a black painted studio.
