Still life photography has lots of practical and valuable uses. Perhaps you want to take a photograph of a beautiful bowl of fruit or perhaps you have learned that an important key to eBay success is uploading quality photos of your products. Learning still life photography can also give you opportunities for selling your photograph downloads on microstock sites or to food magazines. No matter what your reason, still life photography is a great skill to learn and can give you some nice pictures to display in your favorite picture frames.
Unless you are photographing specific products or pictures for a magazine assignment, the subjects for your still life photography are endless. Despite common belief, still life photography isn’t limited to just pictures of apples and grapes. Even something like artfully arranged spools of thread can be interesting and visually appealing. These types of pictures can look beautiful displayed in decorative wood picture frames or unique ornate picture frames. Microstock sites like Shutterstock and iStock that cater to commercial users have a high demand for all sorts of still life, often of very simple objects, like a cup of coffee or a key.
People often times think of still life photography as a lot easier than other types of photography like sports or landscape photography. With still life pictures, you can arrange the objects exactly how you want them and have full control over the photo’s composition.
In other ways, good still life pictures are more challenging to capture. That’s because they are close up so it’s easy to spot imperfections like a blemish on a piece of fruit that would usually pass unnoticed.
Despite its challenge, by using some basic photography skills and applying these tips, you can create stunning still life pictures with just a little practice.
Still Life Photography Lighting
Professional photographers usually use a soft box or a light box to shoot their still lifes. Although soft boxes can help out a lot, they still aren’t absolutely necessary to get good results as you’ll see shortly. But if you do want one you can either buy a soft box online or make one yourself using online instructions. The purpose of these tools is to provide good, even light.
You can also get a good quality of light by setting up your photo shoot outside. A high overcast or bright sky can create a natural soft box effect without having any of the harsh shadows.
Composition for Still Life Photography
Arrange your objects in a pleasing composition. You should consider using classical composition techniques like the “Rule of Thirds,” “Leading Lines” or “Frame within a Frame” for ideas of how to best compose your pictures. Artfully arrange the objects, and use your imagination. For example, if it’s a picture of a piece of cake, instead of including the entire table setting, place a gleaming, silver dessert fork upside down on the plate and remove a tiny bite from the cake.
Fill the Frame with Your Subject
Remember, the only thing that should be in your viewfinder or on your preview LCD screen is your composition. You need to remove any distractions or clutter from the background so you can have a clean and up close image. What if there’s a background you don’t want? The soft box or light box solves this issue, but if you are shooting outside, here’s something you can do: place a piece of white foam board or piece of material behind your subject, and voila – no more distracting background. Be sure to use Macro mode so that you get a sharp image.
Look for a Good Angle and Start Shooting!
Instead of shooting from your height, hold the camera so that it is level with your subject. Then take some shots from varying angles.
Hopefully you can start applying these still life photography tips immediately so you can start seeing a difference in the quality of your still life images.
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