Last year in my digital pictures class, we did a Still Life
Photography unit. I did not to well in that unit. We had to do a bunch of still
like pictures at school, and I had zero motivation so my pictures weren’t that
interesting. My friend who was also in my digital pictures class did very well
in this unit. She took her camera home and did all of her still life pictures
at home. They turned out very nicely. So I decided that I would give still life
photography another chance.
I find still life photography can be somewhat difficult and
can also be somewhat frustrating at times. I made sure to do as much research
as possible on this type of photography because I had difficulty with it last
year. I am actually very happy with how my still life pictures turned out. I’m
going to talk about 2 of my still life pictures and how I took them. But first,
here are some main pointers that helped me.
Still Life
Photography Tips
- Try setting your still life scene in front or by a window.
I would suggest to set up near a window that you can control how much light is
coming in. On one of my still life attempts I tried taking a picture of a red flower that I had set up on a purple sheet to use as my backdrop in my sunroom because
there is a lot of natural light in that room. But it was actually too much
light, so my pictures that I took of the red flowers, had all these bad glares on them and I couldn’t figure
out how to get rid of them. On another one of my still life attempts I took a picture of a snowman set up on a light blue pillow case as my backdrop. I set the snowman and the pillow case in front of one window in my living room. I was able to control how much
light was coming in and I got a very nice picture from it. I made a comparison of the two pictures below.
- Avoid reflective objects
- have good backdrops, nice and simple. I used pillowcases
and bed sheets for some of my backdrops. They worked out really well.
- Consider rule of thirds.
I usually think of the rule of thirds when editing my pictures.
- Use a tripod to make sure your camera is stable.
- Try taking still life pictures in the dark using flash, you can get a lot of shots for doing that.
I googled searched 'still life tips for
beginners' and found a lot of good advice, but the thing I found frustrating was
they would have all these examples of back drops and lighting tools that you
could use, but they were all very un practical and would cost a lot of
money to buy or make. So I had to figure out a way to set up my camera, backdrops, and still life objects by myself. It turned out to be really easy, so i thought i would share how i took some of my pictures.
Example 1:
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Example 2:
Websites I used:
http://photography.tutsplus.com/tutorials/10-tips-to-get-started-with-still-life-photography--photo-8278
http://digital-photography-school.com/5-still-life-lighting-tips-for-beginners
http://oneslidephotography.com/snap/still-life-photography-tutorial/
http://digital-photography-school.com/5-still-life-lighting-tips-for-beginners
http://oneslidephotography.com/snap/still-life-photography-tutorial/
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