Still Life

The Corner

Even if I am experimenting I like to work methodically so I decided quite early on to categorise my still life experiments into three areas of activity: colour, form or assemblage, ie the shapes and composition of the objects and how to work with the table or tables in my studio. I could add light to those three but I have a good diffused natural side light and haven't yet taken to artificial lighting slight remains as constant as natural light can be. In fact the whole business of getting the table right - the angle, height of shot, colour of cloth, backdrop, is perhaps the most problematic of all and I still haven't found all the solutions. I do often wonder how other still life photographers solve these matters.

​Here we have three corner shots, all jpegs straight from the camera (these are test shots after all) with slightly different arrangements of four simple elements. For me the most successful is the first shot. The apple distracts the eye and the angles are too obvious. The second shot uses a wider aperture which throws the apple slightly out of focus and I think this enhanced depth of field pulls the eye around the image more effectively. The light however has changed in number three, for the better I think,  and this is one of the most interesting aspects of working with natural light, the changes between shots and a measure of unpredictability which perhaps goes against the grain in a studio setting. But it teaches me to look ever more closely which I believe is one of the cornerstones of becoming a better photographer.