PH1300 - Introduction to Photographic Practise

Part Four- Still Life Photography

Still Life Flowers:

For my Still Life of flowers I wanted to produce very strong and vibrant images that show defined detail in all of the flowers but not too over powering that for the viewer its hard to focus and understand the images. So by using a black backdrop and soft lighting from a soft box I was able to project a subtle burst of light onto the flowers which meant I could control the flowers shape, character and colours.

I was inspired by Karl Blossfeldt I love how his photographs are very strong he uses the negative space around the still life subject to draw attention to it, the composition and symmetry make the images bold and structured. I took note of the little details from his work and my thoughts and used this to refer back to,to help me produce my own still life of flowers.

Yellow Rose: I love the composition of this flower and how it sits in the centre of the page surrounded by black negative space during the attention to it, the single petal that has wilted adds to the character of the flower creating a sense of sadness and loneliness. the flower contradicts itself by the fact its a vibrant flower but the character and mood is quite opposite.

Mollucella ( Bells of Ireland ) : The composition and textures in this image are very strong and bold and by projecting a soft light onto the plant it enlightens the features and details within the plant creating contrast. Even with little negative space compared to the other images it still draws attention to the plant because of the light and textures in the photo. 

Thistle: The soft lighting I used for this image works very well as it defines the detail of the flower especially using the black back drop it helps a lot as its not off putting and does not takes the focus of the subject,  unlike using a white back drop I believe that combined with lights can be harsh and over whelming. The framing  and composition  of the thistle works well, again with the excess negative space creates contrast with the subject making it stand out.                                                                                                     

Blue Rose:  Out of the four images i believe this is the weakest because it lacks texture unlike the others that have a lot going on, the negative space around the subject does nothing for it I chose to add this image to the finally set as it had a consistent theme and link throughout but personally its not my favourite. 

Found Still Life:

I took a trip to Poland and thought this would be a great opportunity to capture my found still life imagery whilst spending my time away I was always thinking of themes and constantly taking photos that were interesting and hoping I get the shots I am after as I am unable to go back to Poland to re-shoot.

I narrowed my photos down and was left with 5 images of items from the victims of world war two that I photographed at Auschwitz, I still had two images to cut down to make my final set of three. As the subject is quite grim I wanted to portray the imagery in a dark but sensitive way.

I chose not to use this photo as the composition doesn’t work unlike the final set of photos I have chose this is because it is a wide shot, it is very over whelming and powerful meaning you have to step back to view it to get an understanding of the photo, with the final three I chose to zoom into a section creating a personal relationship between the image and the viewer because you have to be up close to view it.

My final set of photos all have a consistent theme and an obvious visual link, for example they all have an item in the image that is red whilst the rest is dark. I believe it is quite similar to the film Schindler's List with the girl in a red coat and her surrounding black and white all of this ties in together with the theme. For this reason I never chose to use the image of the suitcases because it does not have any red in it.

This photo is the first of my final set of three found still life images, I chose to base my photos around this image because it has a strong frame and composition, I have been sensitive by focusing in on one part of the bigger image. The colours are warm and dark giving it a atmosphere which is necessary because of the subject that it is, My finally set of images are calm they're not too overwhelming  and do not have bold striking colours.

For the other two photographs I had to slightly edit areas to make them consistent with the first, by adding warm tones and decreasing the exposure I was able to achieve the effect I wanted. What draws me to the images are the single red items it adds to the photos giving it more mood and atmosphere. It shows not every image needs bright colours to draw viewers in but by having simple subtle features in the image it can create a hole different view on an image.