The word Photography literally means ‘drawing with light’, which derives from the Greek photo, meaning light and graph, meaning to draw. Photography can mean so many different things to people and make people feel different emotions.

Camera Obscura

A camera obscura is a dark room with a small hole in one wall. When it’s bright outside, light enters through the hole and projects an upside down image of the outside world onto the wall opposite the hole. Artists from the Renaissance onwards used a camera obscura, Latin for dark chamber, or a small hole in the wall of a darkened box that would pass light through the hole and project an upside down image of whatever was outside the box.

Nicephore Niepce

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited as the inventor of photography and a pioneer in that field. He created the first permanent photographic image in 1827.

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Niépce and the Invention of Photography

Louis Daguerre

Louis Daguerre invented a method and called it “daguerreotype.” His method, which he disclosed to the public late in the summer of 1839, consisted of treating silver-plated copper sheets with iodine to make them sensitive to light, he would then expose them in a camera and “developing” the images with warm mercury vapor.

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Daguerre took the first photograph with a living person in 1838 or 1839. It is a view of a busy street, but because of the exposure time was at least ten minutes the moving traffic left no trace. Only the two men at the bottom left corner, one apparently having his boots polished by the other. The men were in one place for long enough to be visible.

Henry Fox Talbot

William Henry Fox Talbot FRS FRSE FRAS was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 19th and 20th centuries.

Richard Maddox

Richard Leach Maddox was an English photographer and physician who invented lightweight gelatine negative plates for photography in 1871.

George Eastman

George Eastman was an American entrepreneur who founded the Eastman Kodak Company and helped to bring the photographic use of roll film into the mainstream.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eastman

Kodak (Brownie)

The Brownie was a series of cameras made by Eastman Kodak. Released in 1900, it introduced the snapshot to the masses. It was a basic cardboard box camera with a simple convex-concave lens that took 2 1/4-inch square pictures on No. 117 roll film. It was conceived and marketed for sales of Kodak roll films.

An Eastman Kodak 2-D 8×10 can be sold in good condition for $468 in 2021. A vintage Kodak Retina II 35mm camera with leather case sold for about $220. 

Film/Print Photography

Film, also called motion picture or movie, series of still photographs on film, projected in rapid succession onto a screen by means of light. There are three general types of film cameras: SLRs, compacts, and rangefinders.  As a film set photographer, you work for a studio and shoot photos during the production process that can be used for marketing and other promotional activities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rA52XzPlXk&themeRefresh=1

Digital Photography

Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. There are two types of digital image files fall into one of two categories: vector or raster. Each format has advantages and disadvantages in different situations, so knowing the properties of each can help determine which format is the best choice for any project.

What is purpose of photography?

When you take a photograph and share it with others, you’re showing a moment that was frozen through a picture. This moment can tell someone many things, from the environment to what people are doing.

Leap into the void

Leap into the void is an example of where photography can be interpreted in many different ways. Viewers may feel fear but be intrigued to keep reading into the image and the story behind it. Some may believe this is a live image of what happened, but instead is a set up staged picture. Two images were taken one with men ready to catch him in tar-pooling and then he was cut out and put into empty image creating a documentary photography. It was in this mass-produced form that the artist’s seminal gesture was communicated to the public and also notably to the Vienna Activists. The photograph may have some representation of the world at the time in the 1960s.

‘photographs confuse as much as fascinate, conceal as much as reveal, distract as much as compel. They are unpredictable communicators.’

This quote relates to the image as the image confuses the audience as to why he jumping off the building but also fascinates. The image distracts but compels you to dive deeper into the story behind it. This is what makes the photograph so interesting as the viewer has so many questions, they start to research and look further into the meaning.

For my first selection process I have flagged my chosen images

I have filtered out my rejects using P and X

You can compare two images by selecting compare view.

You can also zoom in on details with the use of the magnifying glass.

I separated my images by colour on their quality.

This original image was underexposed, using the side bar I edited the levels of exposure and other features.

Select correct settings to export to folders.

Adjust image sizing so picture is of a lower quality for the blog.

When printing adjust pixels so image is of a higher quality.

Still life photography is a genre of photography used for the depiction of inanimate subject matter, typically a small group of objects.

Because still life’s are in fact still, they became photography’s favourite subject back in its earliest days. Soon after the creation of the first ever photograph in 1839, it was convenient for pioneer photographers to take pictures of something that’s not moving. The reason was simple and technical enough: exposures were fairly long, so long it even took days for an image to come to life, so an inanimate object was perfect for the occasion. These works tended to resemble still life depicted in paintings, so much they even used the same objects and arrangements. As the photographic camera improved, still life was no longer a necessity, but it nevertheless remained one of the most attempted types of photo making Today, this kind of photography mostly lives in form of advertising shots, as their demand on the market is quite high, but its existence in terms of the arts certainly did not go cease either, as many photographers still do it for pure aesthetic reasons, for instance.

Where still life photography originated

still life photography’s origins reside in the early 20th century. Art photographers emerged such as Baron Adolf de Meyer. The Baron was known for his highly artistic approach to photography, as he employed darkroom techniques and used soft-focus lenses to create photographs that looked like drawings, which was fashionable at the time.

John Baldessari is an American photograph who was born on the 17th of June 1931 and died on the 2nd of January 2020. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California.

John Baldessari was known for his pioneering use of appropriated imagery. By blending photos with painting and text. His photos examine the plastic nature of artistic media while offering commentary on our contemporary culture. 

Adobe Lightroom classic is an editing software where photographers can edit there photos. its like photoshop just a bit worse.

Lightroom classic was made on the 19 of February 2007

When using Lightroom Classic you are able to filter through your photos and choose the best ones for you.

You can pick and discard each imagine using white and black flags and with the photos you pick you are able to rate out of 5 stars then colour code with a red amber green system to decide which photos will be in final use.

This systems allows you to avoid clutter and becoming overwhelmed with too much to choose from.

In the image above is my catalogue after using the filtering system, as you can see i have a significantly reduced the amount of photos to choose from allowing me to make sure I have the best result.

Collections

Here we made a collection to help organise to allow me to find my pictures easier using the collections as if they are sub folders.

Still life in photography derives from the traditional concept of photographing objects organised in such a way that orchestrates a narrative, forming complex compositions that communicate varied allegorical meanings. In its early days, still life photography took the initial meanings and ideas behind still life used in painting, and implemented it into photography, slowly becoming less and less definable over time, to where – in the modern day – still life pieces are able to take any form or definition; from concerns surrounding the environment

The use of still life was very prominent in photography inventors Jacques-Louis-Mandé Daguerre and William Talbot’s work dating back as early as the 1830s. Still life itself originated within painting in the Netherlands during the 17th Century, representing wealth of the upper classes, religion, morality, colonialism, and various other themes within literature – the phrase ‘still life’ forming from the Dutch word ‘stilleven’.

The ‘first’ still life painting ever created was created by artist Jacopo De’Barbari, although still life didn’t rise to popularity until later on up north. It depicts a deceased grey partridge, with two iron gauntlets, and a bolt from a crossbow passed through each object against a wooden table or wall.`

A vanitas is a piece of artwork that typically symbolises the transience of time and life, the idea of death being absolute, and the futility of pleasure. In its prime, vanitas paintings were produced primarily from the mid-16th-mid-17th Centuries, being another key genre during the Dutch Golden Age. The paintings contrast ideas of wealth and death, ‘vanitas’ deriving from Latin – meaning vanity – which links to Christian beliefs in the sense that material objects have no meaning, as they can’t be carried to the next life with us.

“Memento Mori” – remember death – is also another key theme presented throughout still life, vanitas works in particular, the theme that all living things must die at some point or another, and that nothing is forever.

The common themes and symbols – death, wealth, vanity, time, beauty, nature, etc. – used in still life are used to enforce a clear and concise message, and almost provide a comfort about the terrifying uncertainties that are experienced throughout a lifetime.

What is still life:

Still life photography is a from of photography that focuses on everyday objects and captures them in a unique way to make the images more interesting and engaging to the viewer. It defines detail within the objects and brings it out showing the greater depth, making them something more that just a flower or piece of fruit for example. It started in the 17th century when photos and painting of still life objects became very popular, the names ‘still life photography’ comes from the Dutch word stilleven which directly translates.

Examples of still life photography:

Types of still life photography:

There are two main types still life photography, found still life photography and created still life photography.

Found still life photography:

This type of still life photography is when you have randomly or naturally find anything life flowers or fallen fruit etc, without any help e.g. not adding or moving anything around to make the ‘perfect’ image.

Created still life photography:

Whereas created still life photography is when is when you have set up objects life fruits, flowers or food purposely to take an image. The objects are very often simple objects that are placed to make them more interesting and engaging.

What is vanitas ?

Vanitas is a symbolic style of art which shows the certainty of death and purity of pleasure. The Dutch painting was first used in the 17th century and contains anything from books, fruit, cards, jewellery, wilting flowers, hourglasses, skulls, wine and many more objects like that. Giacomo Carissimi was one of the first people to make a Vanitas painting, he made his painting between 1604 and 1605.

what is Memento Mori ?

A memento mori is an object or item that reminds us of the inevitability of death such as a skull. These items are used widely in Vanitas as it matches the structure of the piece.

What kind of metaphors and symbols are used in still life and why?

There are many different objects that are used within Vanitas such as candles, cards, wine, dead flowers, skulls, jewellery, hourglasses, fruit, bubbles and more.

What do they represent:

candles – the human soul

cards – faulty of life goals

wine – pleasure of goods

dead flowers – beauty and death

jewellery – nature of beauty and sin of narcissism

hourglasses – the brevity of life and ephemeral nature of life

skulls – certainty of death

fruit – youth and beauty

bubbles – suddenness of death

For my first selection process on Lightroom I clicked file and then import photos and videos. I then went to my drive and selected the images that I wanted to use and then imported them.

I then flagged my images with either ‘x’ to reject them, or ‘p’ to select them.

I have filtered out my rejects to only see the images that I wish to use to make it easier to work with them.

You can compare two images using the compare view and can zoom in using the magnified glass, this allows you to choose with image is of better quality.

I have now switched my image from library to develop to edit the image. I have cropped my image down to focus on the objects in the image.

To edit the image I used the auto button on the right hand side to create better lighting on my image.

I added a shadow by using present on the left hand side, as well as vignetting and I used the level medium to give the image a slight shadow.

To export my images I pressed file export and the adjusted the filters:

For the blog:

To print:

My final image: