Still life photography

We all know what photography is...

But what is still-life photography? Still-life photography relates to taking pictures of non-living, like a glasspiece or a small doll or any thing like that .It is very much different from micro photography.It may be a non-moving, small to medium size objects, generally in a home-made or professional studio.

It can be any product, a composition of various items, a fl ower or a bunch of fl owers, a wrist-watch, a coffee mug, fruits, vegetables, or whatever else you may think of. In that sense, even food photography can be labeled as still-life. Is the first photo an example of still photography? Certainly not.

Still life photography is not just placing an object on a table and photographing it. How to place it, where to place it, how to light it, which lens to use, from what distance should the picture be shot... all add up. Human beings are living creatures and we like to see ‘life’ in everything. Of course, we cannot put ‘life’ in inanimate objects we photograph, but we can surely ‘enliven’ them through the art of good lighting and arrangement. And there lies the art—the content, how you frame the composition, the relationship one object in your composition has with the other, the highlights, the shadows, the background, the patterns, the colors...

What about macro photography? Does that come under ‘still-life’? If the subject is live (an insect for example), you cannot call it still-life. If the object is very small and requires special gear to photograph it (like when photographing the mechanism of a wrist watch using a specialized macro lens), we reserve such topics under macro or close-up photography.

There can be no excuse for poor still-life pictures. The photographer has total control over the product, the background, as well as the lighting. He has the chance to be creative. He has the opportunity to ‘create’ or to ‘destroy’ the subject; he has the chance to experiment. That’s why, the genre of still-life and food photography is amongst the most diffi cult. It may take hours (even days) to set up the ‘products’ and light them in such a way as to make the viewer to purchase the products or tempt the viewer to order the food as shown on the menu card. To put it simply, the still-life/food photographer is the link between the product and its successful marketing.

The ‘quality’ of the light used plays a very important part in determining the final result. That ‘quality’ is dependent on the size of the light source in relation to the size of the object in the photograph. Generally, we aim for ‘soft’ to ‘medium-soft’ light. For example, a light source, 1x1m in size, placed close to a 0.25x0.25m object will create ‘soft’ light, but the same light source, if placed close to a 2x2m object will not create ‘soft’ light. Let’s now consider the humble egg.

Try photographing a white egg on a white background. Ask an assistant to aim the light at the egg and move it around in a 360 degree circle while you carefully watch through the viewfi nder. Frontal lighting will cause the white egg to merge with the white background and result in a drab picture. Top lighting could make the egg appear somewhat heavy. Light hitting the egg at around 270 degrees from behind and with some fi ll-in from the opposite end can make the egg look 3-dimensional

EQUIPMENT

Camera:
Any type of camera (compact, prosumer, 35mm SLR, medium format or large format) can be used. It helps though to have the right focal length for the job. A wide-angle lens, used close to the subject, can provide a different perspective when compared to a longer focal length lens used at a distance. When using the 35mm format, lenses ranging from 70mm to 135mm are generally considered most useful.

TIP

a. Use the lowest possible ISO sensitivity on your camera.

b. Set the camera to ‘low contrast’ to avoid highlight burnouts. The contrast can be adjusted later in post-processing.

c. Avoid ‘high saturation’ settings. It is easier to saturate colors later on if need be than to make the colors ‘normal’ during post-processing.

Tripod:

A steady tripod should be considered a must. Some may say that because we use fl ash (which is often used), a tripod is not important. Let me point out that a tripod also enables precise composition and allows us to repeat the same shot (may be with a different exposure) without any movement of the camera between shots. Also, we may not use fl ash for all the shots, but may use mixed light sources.

Lights:

This is one segment where you cannot be specifi c, as different products may require different type of lighting, and hence, most professional and advanced users have a variety of lights in their possession. This does not mean that you cannot do still-life and food photography with the minimal of lights. You’ll see later on how just one light can be used sometimes, with suitable refl ectors. Even then, its nice to have two to three lights (electronic or continuous light source like color corrected fl uorescent tubes or LEDs), a soft-box or two, and a strip light (a thin soft-box). A near-5500 degree Kelvin torchlight is useful in highlighting a tiny area.

TIP

Still-life photography can also be done using natural, available light. Soft, diffused, morning or evening light, or window-light, with suitable refl ectors, can also create exciting pictures.

Flash-cum-daylight Meter:

A fl ash meter (most fl ash meters can also read daylight) is useful, though it is possible to set the correct exposure by trial and error using the histogram and highlight warning ‘blinkies’ on your digital camera.

Miscellaneous:

Variety of seamless backgrounds (made of paper or canvas), white, silver, and golden refl ectors, diffusers (to ‘soften’ the light), black cards (which help to create dark edges on transparent and semi-transparent objects), an 18-percent gray card (helps to calibrate the right exposure), a color-checker, small mirrors, blue-tac (to temporarily stick small object to background etc), odds and ends. Yes, and don’t forget a (Circular) Polarizing Filter to reduce/eliminate unwanted refl ections.

Well, what else do we require? Ideas and readiness to experiment! By

ideas’ I mean having a thematic connection with the various items that we use in the picture. For example—there would be no logical connection between a bottle of wine and a cup of tea; they just don’t mix and match! A bottle of wine with meat or cheese would be OK though. Or you could have a bottle of red wine, a cork-screw, wine glasses with some wine in them, some cheese, plus a bunch of grapes as your composition. Suiting material with a pair of scissors and a measure tape would be fi ne, but suiting material with a box of school geometry compass-set wouldn’t be in place. tom@photographyforall.ie