Still Life Projects

I love still-life photos and keep returning to making effort of taking them.

I never know where to start but eventually I get to some result that I like… but I can tell you, it’s always a struggle.

So why doing it at all, you may ask…

I guess the briefest answer would be that we all have something inside us which drives us, which pushes us, which speaks to us, and if we hear the calling and react to it, that brings us certain satisfaction. Regardless of the struggle and frustration involved.

“A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.”
― unknown author

So I appreciate the challenge, as hard as it may be. It makes me bring something out of myself, something, which would otherwise never see the light of the world. It’s a journey of discovery where you come across many valuable lessons. A journey, not a destination, and it doesn’t really matter whether somebody else likes the photos.

Regarding the still life, I’ve learned that it’s really important to choose the theme of the photos, just grabbing a few things and trying to arrange them is painful and potentially not leading anywhere.

Every detail counts and you spend plenty of time by moving the objects, changing light, changing perspective, and if the resulting image is just so-so, you get demotivated rather quickly. So I believe that still-life photography works better with at least partial pre-visualisation. You can improvise, but just as part of the process.

If you can use tethered capturing by which you can see the shot photos on a laptop screen rather than on the miniature camera screen, that is really helpful. I don’t have a laptop so I see the photos fully only after ending the session and downloading the photos onto the PC and oh my, there you start seeing the mistakes properly.

An incorrect position here, insufficient light reflection there, a disturbing fold in the fabric or the colours and patterns not quite supporting one another, there is so much to miss. Then you can either get back to the already changed setup and repeat the process with modifications (which is never my case) or just learn the lesson for next time (when you mostly cannot apply the knowledge because the composition and objects are incomparable).

Editing the photos is an important part of still-life photography, another challenge for sure. It can improve the photo as well as spoil it, there is always the risk of overdoing it. Beware of making this mistake.

Looking back at my still-life journey, each project I started to keep the challenge and motivation coming, pushed me forward and helped me grow. You can find more about the projects on the following pages: