To respond to the genre of Still Life, I went into the school studio to take my own still life pictures using objects taken from SSIs around Jersey. I used two stations: one with a semi-reflective infinity curve and one with a paper background and base, to create two different colours.
Contact Sheets
Editing Process
As Still Life images tend to require less editing than landscape or portrait images (as they tend to be more controlled), less editing than usual was required for this shoot.
To start the editing process I removed the spots on the images using the spot remover tool on lightroom as there were a few smaller bits of pieces left on the station we used to take pictures.
Next, I chose the best images using the ‘Pick’ and ‘Reject’ (Or ‘Flagging’) function on Lightroom.
As well as the Star Rating Function.
Next, I edited the images themselves by manually changing the exposure, contrast and temperatures of the images to make them stand out a bit more, but not too much as to remove them from their original aesthetic.
Edited Images:
These are the final edited images from this shoot, the changes I made to them are minimal as still life photographs do not need to be changed as much.
I also made some black and white versions for some of the images, which is gives each image a completely different tone.
Alexander Apostol was born in Barquisimeto in 1969. Encompassing photography and video, Apostol seeks to expose fractures in the modernist project, both in the artist’s native Venezuela and across South America. Since early in his career, he has concentrated on the iconography of the urban landscape. Apostol digitally altered the images to conceal windows and doors.
I chose Apostol as an artist because I like how he edits his images to cover the windows which to me portrays the idea of isolation and what our world may look like in future and or it could foreshadow how man- made buildings etc shouldn’t be there.
Using Apostol’s work I could alter a landscape of the Sand dunes and manipulate them so that the Sand dunes are in the foreground and a large sky rise building and or office building is in the background
Edward Steichen
Image Analysis
interaction between architecture and people so compare size
Gray scale of concrete fields
Towering skyscrapers
Bold Geometric structures
after sunset
Inspiration
Camilo Jose Vergara
Vergara photographs and documents the poorest and most segregated communities in Urbanized America. He says “I feel that a people’s past, including their accomplishments, aspirations and failures, are reflected less in the faces of those who live in these neighbourhoods than in the material, built environment in which they move and modify over time. Photography for me is a tool for continuously asking questions, for understanding the spirit of a place, and, as I have discovered over time, for loving and appreciating cities”. Throughout his work he revisits places as a way of becoming historically conscious.
Still-life is a form of photography in which it depicts inanimate objects or subject matters.
History of Still-life Photography
Still-life photography was recognised in the 19th century and rapidly became popular in Europe. Artists created compositions which from first glance looked simple however has complex meaning. Paintings depicted burnt candles, human skulls, dying flowers, fruits and vegetables, broken chalices, jewellery, crowns, watches, mirrors, bottles, glasses, vases all in which are symbolic to death, power, beauty and health.
Inventors changed with the times when the daguerreotype was created by Louis Daguerre in 1839. Shortly after in the mid 1800s Charles Aubry formed a company to manufacture plaster casts and make photographs of plants and flowers. By the 20th century, Baron Adolf de Meyer used soft-focus lenses and painterly darkroom techniques to make photographs that resembled drawings and prints.
There is an underlying theme through arrangement of objects with implies a meaning.
Death is a common theme demonstrated through still-life
By adding layers to a painting or in photography also can communicate a socio-political point in which the painter or photographer is trying to raise. By adding layers the image or painting is mimicked adding more context which can result in being unethical but this method is used as a powerful way of communicating to the audience.
Still life photography is a genre of photography used for the depiction of inanimate subject matter, typically a small group of objects.
History
The origins of still life photography date back to the early 20th century. This is when the first still life photographers emerged and started getting attention.
Analysis
Sir Nathaniel Bacon did not paint professionally, although he was a skilled amateur artist. Very few works attributed to him survive, so the appearance of this work on the art market presented the Collection with a rare opportunity for acquisition. Furthermore, the subject matter, a cookmaid surrounded with lavish produce, more usually associated with Dutch and Flemish art, is highly unusual in England for the period and associated only with Bacon. Every item depicted is known to have been growing in England: Bacon himself grew melons on his Suffolk estate.
‘Cookmaid’ and market scenes, popular in the seventeenth century, evolved in the Low Countries from a genre practised by Pieter Aertsen (c.1533-c.1573) and his pupil Joachim Beuckalaer, which combined contemporary kitchen scenes with a New Testament episode beyond. Bacon could have seen such works on a visit he made to the Low Countries in 1613. An inventory of 1659 connected to the will of the artist’s wife lists ‘Ten Great peeces in Wainscote of fish and fowle &c done by S:r Nath: Bacon’ (quoted in Gervase Jackson-Stops, ed., The Treasure Houses of Britain, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 1985, p.140). Two other ‘Cookmaid’ pictures are known to exist: Cookmaid with Still Life of Game and Cookmaid with Still Life of Birds, both in the possession of the artist’s descendants. The Tate’s work is possibly part of this group. Such groups were often intended to depict the four seasons or the twelve months of the year. In the case of this piece, however, although every item represented in the painting was grown in England at the time, not all would have been in season simultaneously. Bacon, according to a letter dated 19 June [1626], was growing melons at his estate in East Anglia, and he was known to have a keen interest in horticulture. The subject would most likely have had erotic connotations. The abundance of ripe melons surrounding the cookmaid echo her voluptuous cleavage.
I started with an arrangement of unedited photos, all the same size and tone. I then edited an individual image to the specifications I wanted, then copied these edits to the rest of the images. This allowed them to remain the same, yet in black and white.
I then used the PhotoMerge algorithm within Photoshop to combine the photos together and create a singular large image. This is done by File/Automate/Photomerge. After dropping the files within the algorithm and waiting for the process to complete, this final product was produced.
Still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, etc.). The term ‘still life’ was coined in the Netherlands in the 17th century, but the practice itself dates back to ancient times, it began as an art form rather than photography. Some of the earliest still life artists were Giotto, Hans Memling, and Jacopo de Barbari who all helped to influence still life both in art and photography.
The earliest forms of still life dates back to Ancient Egypt and Rome. In Ancient Egypt, what is sometimes categorized as still life, may actually be more of a list of gifts as seen above. In Ancient Rome and Greece however, vegetables and game were painted as a way to depict pleasure and abundance. Throughout the 1000 years of the Middle Ages, all non-religious art largely ceased. Coins, fruits, etc were used to decorate the boarders of illuminated manuscripts and the same could be seen in small sections of religious paintings, but nothing that could truly be considered a still life in itself was created in this time.
Fast forward to the 1500s this painting was created (Still Life with Partridge and Gauntlets by Jacopo de’ Barbari) as seen above. Considering it wasn’t until the 1600s that the term ‘still life’ came to be, this painting is considered to be one of the first still life paintings. The Netherlands invested heavily in exotic flowers and in turn, in paintings of exotic flowers. While still lives were largely of food up until this point, flowers now came to be a prime subject. With the stock market crash of 1637, painters began to shift the symbolism of abundance and the vanitas came to be. The Dutch vanitas paintings were reminders that abundance was temporary and life was fleeting. We see this in depictions of skulls, dying flowers, rotten fruit and imperfect table settings.
With the invention of photography came a big step for still life, both in an art form and exploring new forms within photography, however most early photographs of still life maintained the same aesthetic used in art, like this image above which still has the stereotypical fruit and object placement of still life art.
As time has gone on and both photography and art have developed, still life has been explored in many different ways especially with the change of art trends such as abstract or modern art having an effect on still life some still life photos nowadays may only have one object or still many.
IMAGE ANALYSIS
The photo above is in colour and captures a variety of objects in a dimly lit room, the only light appears to be illuminating the objects on the table, which features cups shells and grapes, grapes being typically featured in still life images and symbolizing wealth because when still life first became popular grapes were considered a delicacy to eat. The objects are organized with the smallest ones on the outside and the biggest in the middle to draw the viewers eye in. The dark background also makes the gold and silver colours stand out. Shadows are being cast over the objects so the lighting is clearly not natural and must be from an overhead light.
Still lighting set up with the flashed lighting set up in the background
Settings for the still lighting set up
Still Lighting Set Up
Flashed Lighting Set Up
We went to the photography studio and focused on taking still life images using two set ups (still lighting and flash lighting set ups). There we took images of objects that related to our project ‘My Rock’ like: shells, seaweed, rocks and plants. We used different coloured backgrounds to experiment with colours and we also move our objects around to experiment with different compositions.
Contact Sheet:
I only used the still lighting set up and this is my contact sheet. I used different coloured acrylic sheets to change the colour of my images to make them look more interesting. I experimented with the acrylic sheet by putting it in front of my lens and flashed light, as well as under the table where a smaller light was located. I turned the light off for some images to see what it would look like. My favourite acrylic sheet was the purple one because I liked how warm the images looked. I also combined the sheets together to experiment with new colours. I used various items that were collected by students and teachers on walks by the beach. Some of the items I used were rocks and shells because they are small and easy to move around, you can also make a lot of different things with them. I experimented with different combinations of items until I got something I liked and photographed it.
contact sheets
Here I went through all of my photographs and flagged them using P (images to keep) and X (images to get rid of). Then I went through them for a second time and colour coded them in order to get my final selection (red-no, yellow-maybe, green-yes).
Still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, etc.). The term ‘still life’ was coined in the Netherlands in the 17th century, but the practice itself dates back to ancient times, it began as an art form rather than photography. Some of the earliest still life artists were Giotto, Hans Memling, and Jacopo de Barbari who all helped to influence still life both in art and photography.
The earliest forms of still life dates back to Ancient Egypt and Rome. In Ancient Egypt, what is sometimes categorized as still life, may actually be more of a list of gifts as seen above. In Ancient Rome and Greece however, vegetables and game were painted as a way to depict pleasure and abundance. Throughout the 1000 years of the Middle Ages, all non-religious art largely ceased. Coins, fruits, etc were used to decorate the boarders of illuminated manuscripts and the same could be seen in small sections of religious paintings, but nothing that could truly be considered a still life in itself was created in this time.
Fast forward to the 1500s this painting was created (Still Life with Partridge and Gauntlets by Jacopo de’ Barbari) as seen above. Considering it wasn’t until the 1600s that the term ‘still life’ came to be, this painting is considered to be one of the first still life paintings. The Netherlands invested heavily in exotic flowers and in turn, in paintings of exotic flowers. While still lives were largely of food up until this point, flowers now came to be a prime subject. With the stock market crash of 1637, painters began to shift the symbolism of abundance and the vanitas came to be. The Dutch vanitas paintings were reminders that abundance was temporary and life was fleeting. We see this in depictions of skulls, dying flowers, rotten fruit and imperfect table settings.
With the invention of photography came a big step for still life, both in an art form and exploring new forms within photography, however most early photographs of still life maintained the same aesthetic used in art, like this image above which still has the stereotypical fruit and object placement of still life art.
As time has gone on and both photography and art have developed, still life has been explored in many different ways especially with the change of art trends such as abstract or modern art having an effect on still life some still life photos nowadays may only have one object or still many.
IMAGE ANALYSIS
The photo above is in colour and captures a variety of objects in a dimly lit room, the only light appears to be illuminating the objects on the table, which features cups shells and grapes, grapes being typically featured in still life images and symbolizing wealth because when still life first became popular grapes were considered a delicacy to eat. The objects are organized with the smallest ones on the outside and the biggest in the middle to draw the viewers eye in. The dark background also makes the gold and silver colours stand out. Shadows are being cast over the objects so the lighting is clearly not natural and must be from an overhead light.
Still life paintings dates far back to Egyptian and Roman times, while still making appearances in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Era. Although, it only became a genre of art after these time periods yet falls quite low on the hierarchy of visual art.
The timeline –
This low placement in the hierarchy of visual art for still life paintings was due to the 1699 historiographer, André Félibien. He created a system of categorisation for the different types of visual arts, starting from the highest than moving down to the lowest. These consisted of:
History Painting
Portraiture
Genre Painting
Landscapes
Still Life
1615 Jacob Van Hulsdonck.
What is a still life?
There are various types of still life’s such as flowers, banquets, breakfast, animal and symbolic. The style of Vanitas falls in to the Symbolic category, Vanitas are used to represent life and death, as it means “Vanity” in Latin and shows how life is short and we shouldn’t focus on the materiality side of life as it can be seen as vain. Vanitas may be more recognisable due to their use of skulls, watches and hourglasses which show the passing of life throughout time, they also used dice, wine, fabric, jewels etc in the artworks. Throughout time, Still Life has progressed from Ancient Egyptian to Modern which I will talk about below.
Example of a Vanitas.
Ancient Egyptian
Still Life for Ancient Egyptians included common foods/objects and were used as tombstone decorations. They were used to honour the dead and show what the person may have in the afterlife such as food.
Renaissance still life
Mainly religious artworks in a style with a symbolic meaning. Renaissance Still life were made to explore the natural world through observation which then was used to transform in to a painting and could be found in the backgrounds of religious paintings or illuminated manuscripts, but these were more common in northern Renaissance and Early Netherlandish paintings.
Dutch still life
Originated in the Netherlands or countries referred to as “Low Countries” such as Belgica and the Netherlands. Still Life became very popular during the Dutch Golden Age which was due to the Dutch becoming independent from Spain and creating the Dutch public. Artworks in this time had a specific style which was mainly flowers, and they were favoured as they showed everyday scenes of people and their lives which was relevant during the Protestant revolution throughout this time and this eventually became known as “Dutch Realism”. The common types of Still Life paintings were still popular this time such as Vanitas, florals and everyday still life pieces.
Modern still life
Modern Still life guided new artworks such as Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. This era of Still Life brought artists to life such as Vincent Van Gogh, who’s known for his expressive paintings of vases, flowers, etc. Many modern Still life’s still consisted of fruit, bread, wine but the way the work was created was different as these modern Still Life artists used larger brushstrokes, colours and a variety of different perspectives, seen from the picture below.
Vincent Van Gogh 1889.
Famous still life photographers –
Jan Bruegel
A Flemish painter and leading artist in the Still life Genre.
Born in Brussels, 1568.
Specialised in floral paintings and paradisal landscape paintings, which he is most known for as he gained the nickname “Flower”.
“Flowers in a Wooden Vessel”, 1606-1607.
Willem Kalf
Born in Rotterdam, Amsterdam 1619.
Specialised in the style of Pronkstilleven, and was a popular artist.
His work has unique characteristics such as including porcelain Chinese bowls and jugs while paying close attention to detail which enhances the symbolism of composition.
Used a dark palette in his work and enhanced this with texture and light, for example how light bounces off silverware and the colour of lemons seen in the work below.
Still Life with a Silver Jug and Porcelain Bowl, 1656.
For this experiment I was inspired by Jody Powell and decided to make something similar to her. I like how she created a simple 3d sculpture using one image. For my sculpture I used the same picture I took on photoshoot at L’Etacq and used a black and white version of it and a colour version. I did this because I wanted my sculpture to stand out more by having colourful and colourless layers.
Jody Powell
I printed both versions of the image twice because I wanted four layers in total and decided I wanted my layer to go colour, black, colour black (from top to bottom). I used a glue stick to stick them on to some card paper then cut uniform shapes into the images using a craft knife and a mat. I started with the black and white picture at the front by cutting it smaller than the other images and making it in the shape of a mountain and repeated this process with the other images. The more I cut, the bigger the image became from the last one.
Instead of making a proper stand I used some spare paper that I had cut into strips and stuck them on to the back of each image, making a 90 degree angle so that it could stand up on its own. Then I placed all the pieces in front of each other starting with the biggest image and photographed the sculpture.
I like how the black and white images make the colour pop in the other images and how it looks because it’s a very simple design. I enjoyed making this sculpture because it was quick and easy. I will most likely re use this technique later on in my project and I’d make print the images in A3 and use more layers. I would also probably stick the images on to foam board and make a better stand so that the whole sculpture is more stable.
Experiment 2:
[figure 1]
[figure 2]
[figure 3]
Original Images
For my second experiment I was inspired by Letha Wilson who is a mixed media artist that works in photography and sculpture. I chose her because I liked the idea of having multiple layers and using them as a puzzle. For this edit I used 3 images (one from Plemont and 2 from L’Etacq).
I briefly edited my images in lightroom then printed them out. I stuck them on to some card paper using a glue stick and used a craft knife to cut them . I used card paper instead of foam board because I thought it would make it easier to cut and put together. I started by cutting a straight line through figure 1 using a craft knife because I knew I wanted to put another image through it. When I decided, I drew a curve on figure 3 and cut it off because Wilson’s sculptures usually have that curve and I wanted my work to be similar to hers in a way. To finish it off I made a slit into figure 2 on the left and attached it to figure 1.
It’s a bit tricky to put up at first because of the amount of pieces but once you get it to stand up it’s pretty stable. I like how it turned out because I think all the shapes of the rocks look interesting together. I enjoyed the process of making this and I would totally try it again by experimenting with multiple images and shapes.
