Still Life Studio Session

This was one of the first opportunities to really get to "have a go" with our cameras. It was a real opportunity to be able to get into the studio and mess around with the different settings on our cameras. We were briefed to bring in something that was quick and easy to set up in the studio and shown some ideas. When starting out with still life photography, unsurprisingly simplicity is key. The tutor showed us some more complex sets that he had assembled and photographed, but the more things there are in the image, the more there was to think about.


Ideas were:

• Fruit and Vegetables
• Leaves
• Conkers
• Flowers
• Books
• Toys

We also looked at some of the "tricks" that can be used in still life - for example using glycerin on items makes it look like water drops on the item.

Before we got into the studio we also spent a little more time thinking about ISO. The higher the ISO the more grain you get in an image - so in our still life setting we want to keep the ISO as low as possible (100 or 200). In a different environment a high ISO is necessary - for example when Jon took some images of Morrisey in concert when at college he needed an ISO of over 3000.

Back to our still life briefing - we also needed tripods for this. As an aside I am still yet to purchase a tripod, but the advise is that you get what you pay for. If you spend £20 on one then you probably won't get much life out of it, and it will be very flimsy, hence defeating the point of having one, which of course is to illuminate camera shake for clarity of images.

Into the studio and it was great fun to snap away. I brought in a selection of tropical fruit. Here are a couple of pictures I took - before they are "photoshopped" later in the course!