Still life (lifes, lives ?)

sirch

sirch

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The other Chris
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Somehting I have tried a number of times and it's one of those things where I look at some other people's photos and really love them but am never sure what I am doing when I have a go. So here's some I just shot, what's good and why?

#1
Flowers-110.jpg

#2
Flowers-115.jpg
 
Not that I know anything.... but I like the top two, they invite the viewer into the centre of interest, where it's in good focus. The last two have too little in focus to hold my attention.
 
Cluster said:
Not that I know anything.... but I like the top two, they invite the viewer into the centre of interest, where it's in good focus. The last two have too little in focus to hold my attention.
Click to expand...
Thanks
 
focus is the key here not forgetting compostition
use a big depth of field and manually focus on the closer areas to make them sharp intially...
do you use a tripod ??
compositionally centre really puts your shots into the botanical category
try some combinations...with props as it were...to give the image width interest...
ps try to do some cropping of the image...our cameras lead us into what they are set with...4:3 2:1 etc
square is ok and keeps the eye from checking out all the non interesting areas
cheers
geof
 
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Well I really like them as they are - particularly the first two admittedly, as the single "front and centre" approach really works with minimal dof.

How are you lighting these - because if it's with continuous lighting, remember it's called "still life" for a reason - you can stop the lens WAAAY down to the point where you're losing some sharpness with diffraction if needed, and just have stupid long exposures because, well, they're still subjects - heavy tripod locked off, cable release, let the camera take 30 seconds to gather the light if needed. If it's flash however (like an awful lot of my stuff was) I found I needed to use a hell of a lot of power on the flash for such small items...

For digital stuff, I used to actually shoot tethered to the laptop, so I could use the laptop screen to view and preview DOF and get things just how I wanted - used to take HOURS/DAYS for some of my more over the top images if I'm honest - my family used to joke that it'd have been quicker for me to get out the Oil Paints and paint the bloody scene...

I think you've also picked the tough way to work - going for the black background - I found using "enviromental" backgrounds much easier, as you're not just trying to light the flower and nothing else...

Who's that over there? by The Big Yin, on Flickr

Half a Dozen Roses v2 by The Big Yin, on Flickr

But, as I say, I really like what you've done here, and I'd like to see more the next time you've done something daft enough that it merits buying the other half some flowers ;)
 
I really don't have a clue about still life but I had two students do it for final projects this term and it provoked an interesting discussion about the "close up" still life that Weston did and the more environmental thing that Mark has illustrated above (of which, that 1st one is a belter).

I prefer the latter I think. It's why when I first looked at this, I liked #4 the most but couldn't put my finger on why. For my simple brain, close up still lives(!) work well for me when I can look at shape & form (like Weston's peppers etc_) and 'see something else'. Then there are masters of it like Mapplethorpe whose still life work is incredible.
 
I like still life photography, alright I'm not particularly good at it.
I used to like the black background look, but now I favour a more textured background.
What you've done with these works fine and #1 is the best of them (for me anyway). The light is good, picking out the petals well and is the right about of dof.
 
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TheBigYin said:
Well I really like them as they are - particularly the first two admittedly, as the single "front and centre" approach really works with minimal dof.

How are you lighting these - because if it's with continuous lighting, remember it's called "still life" for a reason - you can stop the lens WAAAY down to the point where you're losing some sharpness with diffraction if needed, and just have stupid long exposures because, well, they're still subjects - heavy tripod locked off, cable release, let the camera take 30 seconds to gather the light if needed. If it's flash however (like an awful lot of my stuff was) I found I needed to use a hell of a lot of power on the flash for such small items...

For digital stuff, I used to actually shoot tethered to the laptop, so I could use the laptop screen to view and preview DOF and get things just how I wanted - used to take HOURS/DAYS for some of my more over the top images if I'm honest - my family used to joke that it'd have been quicker for me to get out the Oil Paints and paint the bloody scene...

I think you've also picked the tough way to work - going for the black background - I found using "enviromental" backgrounds much easier, as you're not just trying to light the flower and nothing else...

Who's that over there? by The Big Yin, on Flickr

Half a Dozen Roses v2 by The Big Yin, on Flickr

But, as I say, I really like what you've done here, and I'd like to see more the next time you've done something daft enough that it merits buying the other half some flowers ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the time, your input is really helpful and apprecitated. I was hoping to get somewhere close to Melanie Kern-Favilla (@spiffypix on Instagram) hence the black background. I was shooting tethered and it's a mix of ambient and flash to get some light through the petals, the first has more ambient CFL light which is introducing a bit more colour to the white rose. I have painted up a few backgrounds in the past but I need to get better at it as they usually don't look very good. Over all getting the colours right is one of the many things I struggle with, your look great. For once I hadn't done anything requiring buying the other half flowers but it does no harm :)


Harlequin565 said:
I really don't have a clue about still life but I had two students do it for final projects this term and it provoked an interesting discussion about the "close up" still life that Weston did and the more environmental thing that Mark has illustrated above (of which, that 1st one is a belter).

I prefer the latter I think. It's why when I first looked at this, I liked #4 the most but couldn't put my finger on why. For my simple brain, close up still lives(!) work well for me when I can look at shape & form (like Weston's peppers etc_) and 'see something else'. Then there are masters of it like Mapplethorpe whose still life work is incredible.
Click to expand...

Thanks for reminding me about Mapplethorpe, and I know what you mean about #4, I think it could be improved and whilst it wasn't quite what I was looking to achieve it seems to be heading in an interesting direction if that makes sense.

Nostromo said:
I like still life photography, alright I'm not particularly good at it.
I used to like the black background look, but now I favour a more textured background.
What you've done with these works fine and #1 is the best of them (for me anyway). The light is good, picking out the petals well and is the right about of dof.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dominic.
 
both beautiful in their own ways - love how the inherent Smoothness of Acros 100 somehow brings out the soft nature of the flower - I'll be honest my still life stuff was almost always on digital - it started out as thinking "i'll use the electric picture maker as a hi-tech polaroid, then get the proper camera out" - but initially so much of the image ended up getting retouched I was always slightly disappointed with the film - plus, I didn't have a lens for the Bronica that would let me get quite the same aspect as I could on digital, and 35mm on the EOS-3 was just too small on the negs.

If I'd still been shooting, I think I'd have snatched Steve's hand off for a Chroma LF camera when he launched them (I was tempted anyway, and I hadn't shot a frame in 2 years at the time!) though I'm guessing LF and Flash photography would have been quite an expensive learning curve...
 
TheBigYin said:
i'll use the electric picture maker as a hi-tech polaroid,
Click to expand...
TheBigYin said:
though I'm guessing LF and Flash photography would have been quite an expensive learning curve.
Click to expand...

I have an MPP 4x5 and if you do digital "polaroids" it's not too expensive a learning curve with flash -



PrincessLiz2.jpg


But then continuous lighting is easier, especially if you are shooting B&W and the colour balance doesn't matter as much

IMG_1004 (Small).jpg
 
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