Still Life Objects (Part 1)

Walker Evans

Research –

  • Evans showed interest in photography during a trip through Europe in the late 1920s.
  • His first photos were published in the 1930s.
  • He also helped to publish a book called “Let us now praise famous men” with the author James Agee.
Walker evans beauties of the common tool 00

Darren Harvey-Regan

Research –

  • Many of his photos were inspired by the work of Wallace Evans “Beauties of the common tool”.
  • He has taken part in many solo and joint exhibitions.

Comparison –

Walker evans beauties of the common tool 01
I think that this picture from Walker Evans photoshoot called “Beauties of the common tool” in 1955 is a good example of a still life object photo. This is due to the plain background which contrasts the tool as it is quite dark. This makes the finer details of the scissors stand out well which due to the highlights which also make them more defined from the way the lighting has fallen on it.
Therefore I think that this is a successful, modern comparison of Evans “Beauties of the common tool” by Harvey-Regan because they share the similarities of taking pictures of tools but this image is interpreted to look as if it is stabbing through a picture of itself on a wall. The dark contrast of the photo works well in highlighting the hammer and projecting the picture in a 3D way but it can make it harder to see due to the darker tones.

My Photos

Here are the different set ups which we used in the studio to create our photos –

Here are photos that I have taken of vintage objects in various ways and put into adobe Lightroom, selecting my favourites to present.

Editing

Here I edited some photos on Adobe Lightroom so that I could use them to create a piece of work which is similar to the work of Wallace Evans and Harvey-Reagans “Beauties of the common tool”.

On these 4 pictures, I didn’t edit them as I liked how they were. I only changed the filter into black and white, similar to the artists work.

An experiment of my work similar to theirs

I really like how this has turned out as it is similar to both of the photographers work, yet shares a personal element of my editing style as none of them have the same black and white filter which adds a level of uniqueness and individuality to them as they look less uniform which I prefer.

Still life research + photoshoot

Moodboard of varying still life photos

Walker Evans

Walker Evans' Beauties of the Common Tool – greg.org

While a staff photographer at Fortune magazine, Walker Evans produced a photo essay titled, “Beauties of the Common Tool,” which ran in the July 1955 issue. Dr. Chris Mullen has scans of the five-page spread as published, on his Visual Telling of Stories website. Images of a reamer, an awl, a bill hook, an auger, various pliers, a couple of variations on a T-square ,some wrenches and a trowel were among the tools used in the collection.

Darren Harvey – Regan

‘The Erratics’ (2015) by Darren Harvey-Regan

Harvey-Regan first constructed a montage of Walker Evans’s images to make new forms. He then sourced matching tools, cut them in half and re-joined various halves together, with the resulting physical objects being photographed to create his final work. The montaged tools become both beautiful and bizarre objects, in which a ratchet wrench is combined with a pair of pliers and a Mason’s trowel joined with a pair of scissors.

Harvey-Regan finds photography that photographs objects – whilst in itself being an object – interesting as a concept. “It’s a means of transposing material into other material, adding new meaning or thoughts in the process. I think photographing materials is a way to consider the means of creating meaning, and it’s a tactile process with which I feel involved. Touching and moving and making are my engagement with the world and my art”.

Darren Harvey-Regan: A Shifting Sense of Things at Sumarria Lunn Private  view Wednesday 30th January 2013 - FAD Magazine
One of Harvey-Regan’s reimagined images of Evans’

Photoshoot

In our photoshoot, we used 3 different types of lighting: a copy stand, soft boxes, and flash. We used an infinity curve as well as coloured background on a product table. We used 1 and two point lighting, allowing shadow to be manipulated in our images.

DIY copy stand for DSLR scanning - Hardware - discuss.pixls.us
Copy Stand
Photon dome photo table with infinity curve – Dynamic Choices
Infinity curve table set up
Types of Film Lights (and How to Use Them)
Example of 2 point lighting

environmental portraits hw

Shoot 1 – Outside

For my outside photoshoot I went to the La Crete Shellfish van that sells outside Homefields Farm Shop. The guy there was very friendly and was happy for me to take photos of him.

About La Crete Shellfish:

This is taken from their page on getfresh.je:

La Crete Shellfish is committed to creating a sustainable supply of seafood servicing both wholesale and retail customers. Our seafood trailer is located at Homefields Growers in St Clement.We pride ourselves on supplying quality seafood at affordable prices whilst supporting local fishermen and producers in these challenging times. Our range of products includes local shellfish (lobsters and crabs, cooked to order), oysters, fresh crab meat and hand dived scallops as well as a wide selection of fresh fish (mackerel, salmon, bass, seabream, brill and many more), smoked fish, prawns plus additional products such as seafood soups.

Best Image:

Shoot 2 – Inside

For my inside photos I photographed a worker at Reid’s Pharmacy. Unfortunately it was a small shop, with prescriptions behind the till that had peoples names on them, so I could only photograph from a certain angle to protect the patients confidentiality.

Best image:

Still life Compositions

Creating still life compositions can be done in many different ways due to the diverse combinations of lights, backdrops and camera height, and camera settings that join together in order to create an interesting set of photos, even when using the same prop throughout the photoshoot.

For example:

Smaller Set Up:

Coloured backdrop with a studio lamp

This set up allowed the lighting to be 100% controllable as the lights allowed the temperature to be changed along with the brightness through the use of nobs on the back of them which could give the photos a yellow or blue tone whilst saturating the colourful background. Along with that, the lights had ‘barn doors’ which could subtly change the direction of the light without moving the whole light itself, making it easier to eliminate shadows.

Some examples of our photos:

Bigger Set Up:

Product table and flashing light system

This set up used flash head lights that only flashed when the shutter button on the camera was pressed which created harsher lighting and increased the exposure of the photo, especially as the product table was white as it helped brighten the image further. The product table was had an infinity curve which eliminated the shadows from the images and gave the photos a professional look.

Some examples of our photos:

Birds-Eye Set Up:

Camera propped onto a stand above the white backdrop

This set up was difficult to use as we had to stand on a stool in order to see what we were photographing which led to a lot of trial and error as we couldn’t tell if the photos were in focus until after they were taken. We changed the light set up and used flash head lights which took some time as the lights didn’t want to connect to the camera but it created better lighting for our images.

Some examples of our photos: