Still Life | My Tips & Images

Hi everyone!

So after a short break for Christmas I thought I'd take a step away from portraiture and show you some of my still life work. I've also decided to make my blogs more interesting by spending more time explaining both the technical process of taking the image and the editing process in case you wanted to try and use the techniques in future. I'm really not being big headed here I'm just sharing some tips I use when photographing and I'd be really interested to hear any tips you might have for me as well so leave a comment if you have anything to add!

I think the key to taking good still life images is good composition. Positioning the object in a way that shows it off to the audience. Aspects such as lighting and camera settings are also crucial elements to consider when producing clear and impressive images.

Modern cameras come often come with a selection of settings which allow you to adjust the camera settings to suit the environment you're in. For still life photography the setting you would be most likely to use is the 'Marco' setting which can be set by selecting the little Tulip icon on your camera. This setting allows the camera to capture a lot more detail in the object which could also add texture to your image. I would advise you to use this option if you've only got a compact camera as it will improve the quality of your shots. However, if you have a Digital SLR camera then you have so many more options you can take to improving the quality of your still life images.

Instead of buying a special macro lens for your camera, I would advise you to invest in a set of extension tubes for your camera. They come in sets of three and you can use a combination of all three tubes, just two or even just one to take your image depending on how much detail you want to capture and how close us you want to get. 

They're much cheaper than another lens, a lot lighter so it's easier to carry them around and they are so easy to use. All you need to do is once you've decided which one(s) you want to use, just slot them onto the body of the camera and apply the lens on top of them. Then you're ready to take your image.

For all the final images I have on this post I have used extension tubes to take the images. 

I took this image earlier this year and the main thing I was focusing on was the intense colour of the peppers and the chillies. I used a lots of light to take the image because I wanted to make the colours appear very vivid. I also used a white background because I knew samples of the background would be visible in the image and I still wanted the image to appear as bright as possible. Using extension tubes really helped me frame the image excluding any bits of the image I didn't want the audience to see. 

With this image I mainly used the extension tubes to capture some of the detail and texture of the strawberry. There isn't really a lot I have to say about it, I just like the image.

In the project I'm continuing at the moment I decided to include a couple of still life based shoots. Unfortunately, I used a really boring piece of jewellery. I added the chain so I could position the ring differently rather than just led on a table. I also used a white background with lots of light to create an initial contrast between the ring and the wall. Editing these images is what made them impressive. Always play with the brightness and contrast levels of these sort of images, it can make them appear really sharp and makes the detail stand out massively!

The final images in this post are from one of my most recent shoots where I decided to keep the ring as a focal point but add a bit of mystery to them by including the model from my previous portrait shoots in the image. Only difference is you can't see his face!

  Thanks for reading, I'll be back soon!