Still Life

Still Life


Sam Kaplan

Sam Kaplan, New York City based still-life photographer.
Sam Kaplan was born and raised in Boston, MA. He received a B.A. from Wesleyan University, that most liberal of liberal arts colleges. Sam studied both conceptual sculpture and traditional photography.
Through photography Sam is able to exercise his two favorite skills – creative problem solving and conceptual thinking. He lives in New York City with his wife, Laura, and hundreds of heavy books.
Studio photographer Sam Kaplan pushes the limits of still life, one painstaking millimeter at a time.
The challenge for a product photographer like Sam Kaplan is to create an engaging image from objects that are seen almost every single day.

Here are two pictures of Sam Kaplan's.
The first picture is of a light bulb. If you look closely there are silver small spikes covering the whole bulb so you cant see the inside of the light bulb.
The second picture is of a cola bottle by the looks of it, as for this picture the bottle is covered in red little spikes which go all the way around the bottle.
I like how its been kept to one colour of spikes on the objects instead of more than one colour its very basic and simple which I like as it doesn't look too overdone.
The background of the image is the same colour as the gems on the bulb and bottle. I think having the gems on the bulb and bottle bring the object forward and stand out more.
There is a clear focal point to the pictures which is the objects as there is nothing else in the pictures its plain and all kept to one colour.
I like this picture as its different and I think it is creative.


Jenny van Sommers

Jenny Van Sommers is an award winning still life photographer. Van Sommers was awarded the Golden Lion at Cannes for her work with Stella Artois.

Jenny van Sommers lives and works in SE1 in London with frequent visits to the US and France. Editorial clients include Another Magazine, Dazed, and Vogue. Advertising clients include Apple, Audi, Hermes, and Nike. Her favourite artists include George Condo, Kurt Schwitters and Sarah Lucas.

This picture is from Jenny Van Sommers. The picture is of a perfume bottle with rope of some sort wrapped around the bottle which I think adds more to the picture and gives you something more to look at.

I think having a basic simple background makes the object stand out more making it the clear focal point.

I think taking pictures of a bottle with 2 different lighting variations will look nice because I can highlight and create shadows with the different variations.

I like the idea of doing perfume bottles as there are loads of different colours/shapes of perfume bottles.

This is my final image for still life. 

The picture is of a perfume bottle called little black dress.

 I decided to use a Little black dress bottle as it has minimal detail and its a plain simple bottle compared to the other bottle. For this image I placed it in a lighting cube tent as there had to be a white background so I thought this would work well. I placed the tent on a table and a soft box to the right and left of the tent and placed the perfume bottle in the middle before taking the picture the bottle was shaken and then placed in the tent then I took the picture this is why the liquid is slightly raised on the left side of the bottle compared to the right side and why there are bubbles showing at the top of the perfume. You cant see it clearly because there is a white background and the liquid in the bottle is transparent but it wasn't just a line of bubbles at the top of the bottle the bubbles went all down the bottle but it just isn't clear in the picture. I decided to shake the bottle up to add a bit more to the picture and so there's more to see as its just a plain perfume bottle.

The camera I used to do this was a Canon EOS 650D. The F-stop for this image was F/5.6, Exposure 1/400,  ISO - 1600, Focal length 46mm and there was no flash on the camera as the tent was lit up by the soft boxes surrounding the tent.

I did Photoshop this picture at first I cropped the photo down to get rid of the unnecessary parts which was just the white background as all I wanted was the bottle. I used the spot healing tool to get rid of some blue stain which was left in the tent and I then brightened the picture to make the background more white and make the bottle stand out more. I couldn't brighten the picture too much as the bottle is see through so I needed to make sure the bottle shape was clear as it almost blends in with the white background.

For my second still life image I used a bottle with more things on it and took the picture from a different angle as I didn't want the two photos to look the exact same as I think that'd look quite boring. So for this picture I think the main focal point would be the top of the bottle's there's a pump and lace which catches the eye. I think the pink pump really stands out as its the only burst of colour in the picture.With the background being white and the bottle being black this brings the bottle more forward and makes it stand out more.  I like how the top of the bottle has been nicely lit as the silver just really stands out as its that shiny.

If you look closely you can see the dust that's been building up on the top of the black bottle. I didn't shake this bottle up or anything as I think the bottle looked fine the way it was and I wanted to capture the beauty of the bottle. I'm happy with the way my shoot went for this bottle I got shots from loads of different angles and I like how two completely different bottles have been used.

The camera I used to do this was a Canon EOS 650D. The F-stop for this image was F/5.6, Exposure 1/320,  ISO - 1600, Focal length 34mm and there was no flash on the camera as the tent was lit up by the soft boxes surrounding the tent.  For this shoot I put a light to the left right and back of the tent so the whole tent was lit up more as the bottle was black and I thought it'd make the bottle stand out more.

At first I cropped the photo down to get rid of the unnecessary parts which was just the white background as all I wanted was the bottle. I used the spot healing tool to get rid of some blue stain which was left in the tent and I then brightened the picture to make the background more white and make the bottle stand out more. When I brightened the picture it made the top of the bottle really stand out with the pink pump being more brighter and you could see through the lace more than before the picture was photo shopped.

Portrait

Portrait

 Here's a picture I found on Google which is of a 50's styled photoshoot which did catch my eye I don't know who the photographer was for this picture. It is a formal head shot which was created using a soft box. I like how half of the models face is fully lit and the other not so much. For my picture I do want to have one in black and white as I do like black and white pictures. I think with a black and white picture you can see so much more detail and I think it just overall looks nicer. I like how the model fills the frame and the background is black which makes her the clear focal point and stand out more.










Irving Penn

Irving Penn (June 16, 1917 – October 7, 2009) was an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits, and still life's. Penn's career included work at Vogue magazine, and independent advertising work for clients including Issey Miyake and Clinique. His work has been exhibited internationally and continues to inform the art of photography.

While perhaps best known for his fashion photography, Irving Penn’s repertoire also includes portraits of creative greats; ethnographic photographs from around the world; Modernist still life's of food, bones, bottles, metal, found objects, etc.; and stunning scenes from photographic travel essays. That said, his fashion photography is paramount to his career, and his creative eye helped to shape the post-World War II feminine chic and glamour photography of the mid-twentieth century.

Penn was among the first photographers to pose subjects against a simple grey or white backdrop and used this simplicity more effectively than other photographers. Expanding his austere studio surroundings, Penn constructed a set of upright angled backdrops, to form a stark, acute corner. Subjects photographed with this technique included Martha Graham, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, W. H. Auden, Igor Stravinsky.

Here is a picture taken by Irving Penn which is taken of Miles Davis. This is an extremely close up of miles which is of his face. This picture is in black and white pretty much like all of Irving's work.

I like this picture as its pretty simple its just his face with no facial expression. The light hits his forehead and middle section of his face which is the most lit up in this picture and then gradually gets darker as around his face its complete darkness. The focal point of the picture would be his face as its the only thing in the picture.

Here is another picture which was taken by Irving Penn or a shoot inspired by his work but either way I liked this picture. This was a fashion shoot picture that he had done. I like how the eyes are really dark with the makeup used making the models eyes really stand out compared to the rest of her face which is quite bright.

From looking at Irving Penn's photos I want my model to keep a straight face show no facial expression. I want the photos to be kept simple so no props or anything to be used.

As I said in one of the other photos I do want to have one of my final portrait photos in black and white.

This is one of the portrait pictures that I have taken. For this picture I wanted my model to show no facial expression just to keep a really straight face which I think I achieved.  I took loads of pictures which show a variety of facial expressions just in case I wanted to use them but for the end product I wanted a straight face which I think I achieved and im happy with.

I had the model sat slightly turned facing the soft box that I was using as I wanted to create a shadow on her face like the picture I found in my research.

I got the model to wear a strapless top as I wanted all of her tattoos to be on show and her hair to be down straight as I wanted all the focus to be on her face.

The main focal point of this picture is the models face as that's really clear and in focus and then my eyes get drawn to the massive tattoos across her chest.

For this picture I had the soft box to the right of my model which is why her right side of her face is more lit up than the other side.

I have photoshopped this picture to start of I cropped the picture down because there was so much of the background on show so I cropped it down after that I got the spot healing tool and removed any blemishes she had and I decided to remove her facial piercings apart from her nose ones. After that I changed the saturation and made the picture black and white. Once I had done that I played around with the brightness and contrast until I was happy with thee picture.

 The camera used to take this picture was a canon EOS 650D, the F - stop was F/ 4, exposure 1/20, ISO - 800, Focal length 27mm and there was no flash used when taking this picture.

This is another one of my portrait pictures. For this picture I wanted the model facing me and her body facing me to compared to the other picture her body is slightly turned as is her head.

I had the model once again keep the strapless top on which is black as I didn't want there to be any bright or splashes of colour I just wanted to keep it basic and as she has black hair I wanted the focus on her face and tattoos not a bright coloured top. The focal point of this picture is her face and chest.

I asked the model to wear fake eye lashes and eye liner just to make her eyes more darker so they eyes stand out more and with the highlighter in the tear duct it really makes the eyes pop and stand out which I wanted.

In this picture I wanted her to keep a straight face once again but this time to have her mouth slightly open. When photoshopping this picture I kept the facial piercings in where as the other portrait picture I had taken them all out apart from her nose ones. I decided to keep these ones in as I liked the look of all of her tattoos on full show and then the piercing I think it gives the picture an edgy rocky look. I like how all of her tattoos are on show I didn't want them covered up as I think they are nice and her tattoos are part of her so I wanted them on show.

When photoshopping this picture I didn't crop the picture as I was using rule of thirds and she is directly in the middle which I liked. I changed the brightness, contrast and saturation and played around with them until I got this picture and I was happy with it.

For this picture I had a light set up to the left of my model which created a shadow the right of the model which I liked.

 The camera used to take this picture was a canon EOS 650D, the F - stop was F/ 3.5, exposure 1/20, ISO - 800, Focal length 18mm and there was no flash used when taking this picture.

Metallic

Metallic

These are 2 pictures I found on googled after I googled metallic photography as I wanted to get some influence and ideas for my metallic shoot. 

For metallic at first I wanted to do metallic nails with jewellery on the persons hands, but then I came across these pictures and changed my mind. I liked the idea of doing bolts and screws and other objects like that because I wanted to get some rusty and dirty one and some clean ones so you could see the colour different and I thought the dirt and rust would show up really well against a white background and having the clean shiny nails there as well to show the colour difference.

This is my first picture I had taken for my metallic shoot the pictures found in my research really influenced my shoot so I wanted to incorporate both clean and dirty/rusty objects to really show off the different colours and to show how my findings had influenced me. In the picture there is silver and gold clean screws and then I put in rusty nails and other rusty objects that I could find. I thought this would look good as its something different as there's a lot to look at in the photo. I think having the white background really brought out the rusty objects and the clean screws. For this picture I used shallow depth of field as the front of the picture is more clear and in focus compared to the background of the picture its quite blurred. The focal point of the picture I think is the front of the picture as its more clear so that's where my eyes go right at the centre at the front of the picture.  When placing the objects down I didn't want them any specific way I just put the screws down first and them chucked the rusty objects on top as I just wanted to fill the frame.  I like how its different coloured nails and screws and how its not all one colour or the same object.

This picture was taken on a Canon EOS 650D the F-stop was F/5.6,  exposure 1/160, ISO 1600, Focal length 30mm and no flash was used when taking the picture.

I used Photoshop on the picture to brighten the picture as I wanted the screws and nails to stand out more and be more brighter. When brightening the picture the orange/brown rust on the nails became really clear and stood out more than it did before I brightened the picture. I like this because you cans see the clear difference between the clean screws and the dirty nails.

This is another one of my pictures that I have done for metallic. For this shoot I had the tent once again on the table with a soft box to the left and right of the tent. At first I put the box in flat and took some pictures like that but it just looked boring with all the screws in the box so I decided to turn the box on its side and to get some of the screws and drag them out so it would look like how it does in the picture. I was happy with it looking like this so I kept the box like that and continued to take my final pictures for metallic. Shallow depth of field has been used here as the screws at the front of the box are clear and in focus and as it goes further back they aren't as clear.  Using rule of thirds the box and screws are right in the centre of the picture with just the white background around it making it the clear focal point of the picture.

This picture was taken on a Canon EOS 650D the F-stop was F/5.6,  exposure 1/160, ISO 1600, Focal length 30mm and no flash was used when taking the picture as with using the tent and the soft boxes it was bright enough and flash wasn't needed.

For this picture I used Photoshop to brighten it and make the white more whiter so the gold screws would stand out even more. By brightening the picture the screws and even shinier  and the box that the screws came in almost blends in with the background as its that white.