Still Life Photography

1. Still Life Photography

2. What is Still Life? • Still life photographyis the depiction of inanimate subject matter, most typically a small grouping of objects. • Still life photography is a demanding art, one in which the photographers are expected to be able to form their work with a refined sense of lighting, coupled with compositional skills • Knowing where to look for propping and surfaces also is a required skill.

3. Basics of Still Life Photography Composition:The first thing to consider while shooting still life photographs is the object or objects that you are going to capture in your picture. The idea is to let the photograph tell its own story. The picture has to communicate with the viewer on a very subtle yet sensory level. It has to appeal to the different sensibilities of the viewer. Therefore the object(s) which are used in the picture need to be arranged in a certain fashion. This is called the composition of the photograph. Still life photographers often experiment with different groups of objects and arrange and re-arrange them several times to get the right composition so as to convey their ‘story’ effectively.

4. Basics • Background:The second thing to consider is the background on which the objects are being kept. Your backgrounds should be non distracting and often a solid color. They add to the picture by providing a contrast to the collection of objects in the photograph. Different backgrounds create different effects of light and dark. Cloth will have folds while paper will have creases and so on. This has to gel with the composition that the photographer has in mind.Still life photographers use black velvet cloth to absorb the light so that they do not get unwanted reflections and bright spots in the picture.

5. Basics • Lighting:This is the third aspect of still life photography which is as equally important as the first two. After all, these photographs use the play of light and shadow effectively to convey the ‘story’ of the picture.Still life photographers use natural light as far as possible because natural light gives a special glow and effect to the composition. Ideally, they place the composition near a window or a light source. If they are shooting in nature, they even experiment with different types of light. For example the kind of light one has just before it rains.Still life photographers also use different types of exposures with their cameras to achieve different results. They often also use a sheet of white paper on the side opposite to the light source to reflect some light into the shadowed areas.

6. Notable Still Life Photographers • Edward Weston- Pepper No. 30 (traditional still life) • Flickr: Olivia Bell (non traditional still life)

7. Food Photography • Food photography is considered one of the most difficult specialties for professional photographers. There is a saying in the industry, “If you can shoot food, you can shoot anything.” • The primary reason for this difficulty is how little time you have to shoot before the food looks like garbage. Within 1-3 minutes after putting a beautiful plate on a table to shoot, whip cream runs, wet food dries, fried food becomes greasy, ice cream melts, and steaming food doesn’t. Sometimes you only have time to get 2-3 shots before the food is no longer at its photographic best

8. Video

9. Food and Advertising • Fake FoodThere is a law in the U.S.A. regarding truth in advertising. It requires that advertisements about food show the actual food item that a consumer would be able to buy and eat. • However, the food surrounding the item being advertised can be artificial, and food used to illustrate cookbooks or magazine articles can be bogus as well. It is often easier to work with imitation food than with the real thing.

10. Food and Advertising • For example, ice cream base is often made with mashed potatoes, or with Crisco and powdered sugar. Fruit pieces, chocolate chips, and food coloring are added to make various flavors. Cereal can be photographed with white glue instead of milk, because the cereal does not get soggy quickly and the flakes stay where they are placed. Whipped cream might have thickener added, pies have glue holding them together, and vegetables that appear to be cooked are raw and touched with a blowtorch and coated with glycerin to make them appear cooked. • Most of the ice cubes you see in drink shots are hand-carved acrylic, and almost all of the splashes in drink shots are free-form acrylic made by a model maker. Yes, the photographer blasts the drink with compressed air or additional liquid to make droplets fly, but the primary splash above the glass is acrylic. Most alcoholic beverage shots have water added to them to make them more transparent so the backlighting will work better. Other drink shots are diluted tea or coffee, or just water with food coloring added

11. Tips to use when photographing food • Lighting: • Treat the food you’re photographing as you would any other still life subject and ensure that it is well lit. Many of the poor examples of food photography that I’ve come across could have been drastically improved with adequate lighting. • One of the best places to photograph food is by a window where there is plenty of natural light – perhaps supported with a reflector to give more balanced lighting that cuts out the shadows. This daylight helps to keep the food looking much more natural

12. Props • Pay attention not only to the arrangement of the food itself but to the context that you put it in including the plate or bowl and any table settings around it. • Don’t clutter the photo with a full table setting but consider one or two extra elements such as a glass, fork, flower or napkin. These elements can often be placed in secondary positions in the foreground or background of your shot.

13. Style • The way food is set out on the plate is as important as the way you photograph it. Pay attention to the balance of food in a shot (color, shapes etc) and leave a way into the shot (using leading lines and the rule of thirds to help guide your viewer’s eye into the dish). One of the best ways to learn is to get some cook books to see how the pros do it.

14. Enhance • One tip that a photographer gave me last week when I said I was writing this was to have some vegetable oil on hand and to brush it over food to make it glisten in your shots.

15. Shoot from Low Angles • A mistake that many beginner food photographers make is taking shots that look down on a plate from directly above. While this can work in some circumstances – in most cases you’ll get a more better shot by shooting from down close to plate level (or slightly above it).

16. Macro • Really focusing in upon just one part of the dish can be an effective way of highlighting the different elements of it.

17. Steam • Having steam rising off your food can give it a ‘just cooked’ feel which some food photographers like. Of course this can be difficult to achieve naturally. I spoke with one food stylist a few years back who told me that they added steam with a number of artificial strategies including microwaving water soaked cotton balls and placing them behind food. This is probably a little advance for most of us – however it was an interesting trick so I thought I’d include it.

18. Useful tools around your house for still life photos • Plain white or black cloth for background • Mirrors • Reflectors • Colorful plates or fabric for placing under your objects

19. Still life & Food Examples