TheBigYin
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A few years ago, I was left tied to the house as a full-time carer to my parents... This basically put a lid on my love of landscape and outdoors photography and left me with a need to do something that was indoor, and controllable, and - lets not beat about the bush - fairly unobtrusive.
I settled upon Still Life works - mainly because I'd always had a soft spot for the rich opulence of some of the Dutch Old Masters paintings - ever since "art appreciation" sessions as part of my General Studies A-Level, seemingly eons ago now...
This post is probably as far as this project is likely to go for now - I don't think I've actually shot anything for getting on for 2 years now - I've had a couple of life changing experiences, and somehow photography (or at least taking these kind of pictures) has slightly lost its appeal...
(The whole Vanitas bit of "remember your own mortality" takes on a different meaning once you've been in the Resus Room at the hospital with the Paddles on your Chest...)
Anyhow - as you do when you start out on a project I thought "okay, what do we have around the house" - wandered around, picked up random assortment of old tat, and started to play...
Still Life - First Steps... 17th February 2011
Old Master Style Still Life by The Big Yin, on Flickr
absolute first attempt day... no fancy lighting to speak of... the whole shot was actually done with an Anglepoise lamp, standard energy saving bulb (no fancy daylight balanced one or anything like that) and a large picture frame, that I stuck "baking parchment" on the back of to make a more diffuse light source...
Enjoyed it so much, I did lots more experimenting with tabletop and similar stuff, but decided if I was going to give this a go, I needed to get some decent lighting. As I'd worked with "proper" studio flash before, but was really "learning from step one again" I thought I'd be much better off going for the kit I was used to, rather than just flash guns - partly because of not having to keep messing around with batteries, but mainly for the "modelling lights" on decent flash heads...
So, we move on a couple of weeks
First "Serious" attempt with the Lencarta Flash kit...
3rd March 2011.
A couple of weeks, some trawling EBAY for props and we arrive here...
Old Master Trial 1 by The Big Yin, on Flickr
Then I thought... I wish that candlestick was taller...
(photoshop fixed that...)
Old Master Trial 2 by The Big Yin, on Flickr
lots of things I wasn't happy with... primarily the backdrop and the table, and the props cupboard expanded a little by the next attempt... Welcome onboard "Eddie" (the skull) plus the Churchwarden pipe, vintage playing cards (images found online, printed to card, and hand-cut) but the bigger change was the "Table" - it's actually just a Tabletop I made from the offcut of Oak Veneered MDF that the stuff's resting on in the picture above, plus some Oak Moulding Strip from the DIY sheds, all plonked together and given a good coating of dark brown oak stain.... Yes, this is part photography / lighting exploration, part arts and crafts project!
14th March 2011
Vanitas Style Still Life. by The Big Yin, on Flickr
Now this was moving on, in quite a few ways, but I hated it. Primarily because of the horrible red curtain in the background, though the churchwarden was way too assertive as well
18th March, and the Plaster had dried on the "Stucco Rustico" wall
(it's actually half a sheet of plasterboard, blagged on the cheap from a builders merchants... One side it's a plain finished emulsioned wall, the other side has a "Stucco Rustico" treatment - basically white "patching plaster, with a couple of sample-pots of emulsion paint mixed into it, so when you put it onto the board, it goes slightly multi-coloured - it's possible to use plaster of paris instead of the patching plaster, in which case you can actually "polish" the surface and its a genuine Stucco Marble effect - but I didn't have any plaster of paris handy, and the more rustic look kind of appealed to me...)
Vanitas by The Big Yin, on Flickr
Ahhhh that's better... little bit too much gloom, and the vase at the back was "cut off" visually at the base which I didn't like... Also, I couldn't stop Bert the Bluebottle from finishing his lunch, so had to snap while he was eating.
So, here we go again... time for another go...
2 Days later, March 20th 2011, and I got time to set things up again. Different Lemon, peeled a little better as well, otherwise, it's same as above, but with a bit better lighting and composition of the items (IMO)
Vanitas with Globe and Fruit by The Big Yin, on Flickr
Bert's back on the skull this time, there's enouugh light to actually see the different types of fruit, and aside from the "hotspot" on the globe - i'm actually getting to the point where what I'm seeing in the camera looks something like what I'd got in my mind...
what might not be evident from the "forum sized" images, but I was really pleasantly surprised at the detail in the image... For Example - 100% crop of the "Peeled Lemon" from the shot above... I'm glad that detail comes out in a full-size image, because I went to quite a few lengths to pick up "organic" fruit where possible - as the "factory grown" pristine looking supermarket varietys of fruit wouldn't look "period correct".
And a Twist of Lemon please... by The Big Yin, on Flickr
I settled upon Still Life works - mainly because I'd always had a soft spot for the rich opulence of some of the Dutch Old Masters paintings - ever since "art appreciation" sessions as part of my General Studies A-Level, seemingly eons ago now...
This post is probably as far as this project is likely to go for now - I don't think I've actually shot anything for getting on for 2 years now - I've had a couple of life changing experiences, and somehow photography (or at least taking these kind of pictures) has slightly lost its appeal...
(The whole Vanitas bit of "remember your own mortality" takes on a different meaning once you've been in the Resus Room at the hospital with the Paddles on your Chest...)
Anyhow - as you do when you start out on a project I thought "okay, what do we have around the house" - wandered around, picked up random assortment of old tat, and started to play...
Still Life - First Steps... 17th February 2011
Old Master Style Still Life by The Big Yin, on Flickr
absolute first attempt day... no fancy lighting to speak of... the whole shot was actually done with an Anglepoise lamp, standard energy saving bulb (no fancy daylight balanced one or anything like that) and a large picture frame, that I stuck "baking parchment" on the back of to make a more diffuse light source...
Enjoyed it so much, I did lots more experimenting with tabletop and similar stuff, but decided if I was going to give this a go, I needed to get some decent lighting. As I'd worked with "proper" studio flash before, but was really "learning from step one again" I thought I'd be much better off going for the kit I was used to, rather than just flash guns - partly because of not having to keep messing around with batteries, but mainly for the "modelling lights" on decent flash heads...
So, we move on a couple of weeks
First "Serious" attempt with the Lencarta Flash kit...
3rd March 2011.
A couple of weeks, some trawling EBAY for props and we arrive here...
Old Master Trial 1 by The Big Yin, on Flickr
Then I thought... I wish that candlestick was taller...
(photoshop fixed that...)
Old Master Trial 2 by The Big Yin, on Flickr
lots of things I wasn't happy with... primarily the backdrop and the table, and the props cupboard expanded a little by the next attempt... Welcome onboard "Eddie" (the skull) plus the Churchwarden pipe, vintage playing cards (images found online, printed to card, and hand-cut) but the bigger change was the "Table" - it's actually just a Tabletop I made from the offcut of Oak Veneered MDF that the stuff's resting on in the picture above, plus some Oak Moulding Strip from the DIY sheds, all plonked together and given a good coating of dark brown oak stain.... Yes, this is part photography / lighting exploration, part arts and crafts project!
14th March 2011
Vanitas Style Still Life. by The Big Yin, on Flickr
Now this was moving on, in quite a few ways, but I hated it. Primarily because of the horrible red curtain in the background, though the churchwarden was way too assertive as well
18th March, and the Plaster had dried on the "Stucco Rustico" wall
(it's actually half a sheet of plasterboard, blagged on the cheap from a builders merchants... One side it's a plain finished emulsioned wall, the other side has a "Stucco Rustico" treatment - basically white "patching plaster, with a couple of sample-pots of emulsion paint mixed into it, so when you put it onto the board, it goes slightly multi-coloured - it's possible to use plaster of paris instead of the patching plaster, in which case you can actually "polish" the surface and its a genuine Stucco Marble effect - but I didn't have any plaster of paris handy, and the more rustic look kind of appealed to me...)
Vanitas by The Big Yin, on Flickr
Ahhhh that's better... little bit too much gloom, and the vase at the back was "cut off" visually at the base which I didn't like... Also, I couldn't stop Bert the Bluebottle from finishing his lunch, so had to snap while he was eating.
So, here we go again... time for another go...
2 Days later, March 20th 2011, and I got time to set things up again. Different Lemon, peeled a little better as well, otherwise, it's same as above, but with a bit better lighting and composition of the items (IMO)
Vanitas with Globe and Fruit by The Big Yin, on Flickr
Bert's back on the skull this time, there's enouugh light to actually see the different types of fruit, and aside from the "hotspot" on the globe - i'm actually getting to the point where what I'm seeing in the camera looks something like what I'd got in my mind...
what might not be evident from the "forum sized" images, but I was really pleasantly surprised at the detail in the image... For Example - 100% crop of the "Peeled Lemon" from the shot above... I'm glad that detail comes out in a full-size image, because I went to quite a few lengths to pick up "organic" fruit where possible - as the "factory grown" pristine looking supermarket varietys of fruit wouldn't look "period correct".
And a Twist of Lemon please... by The Big Yin, on Flickr
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