Still life is a form of photography used for the description of inanimate small group of objects, in front of a camera. This genre gives the photographer more ideas in the arrangement of design elements within a composition compared to other photographic genres, such as landscape or portrait photography. The photographer has more control over the lighting and composition of the image.
Here are some examples of still life photography, in these images you can see the background of most of the images are dark creating a narrow depth of field focusing on the objects carefully arranged.
History of Still life
What is Vanitas?
A still-life painting of a 17th-century Dutch genre containing symbols of death or change as a reminder of their inevitability.
Some of the standard elements in vanitas paintings, usually reflecting wealth and death, include books, playing cards, maps, wilting flowers, fruit, goblets of wine, jewellery, hourglasses, skulls, and recently extinguished candles. The way the objects are placed create an ominous feel to the photographs.
What is Memento Mori?
Memento Mori is an object kept as a reminder of the inevitability of death, such as a skull. A basic memento mori painting would be a portrait with a skull but other symbols commonly found are hour glasses or clocks, extinguished or guttering candles, fruit, and flowers. These kinds of images are said to breath more life into our lives.
What kind of metaphors and symbols are used in still life and why?
After importing my images from my documents I flagged the pictures that I would like to use for my editing.
My selected images, after flagging them and deciding which images I wanted to keep (p to keep and x to delete).
We compared two images using compare view. You can zoom in and out using the magnifying glass. Helping to choose the better image.
Experimenting by using develop mode, editing my image changing the exposure and contrast.
Using other tools on the develop mode, on a different lighted image.
This shows me exporting my edited image and editing the image size to save into my folder. Creating a folder in my media drive where all of my edited images will be saved to.
Photography has been changing and developing meaning it’s original purpose was mutated and photography started to be used for many different purposes. Photographs are art and can be interpreted in many different ways, for some they will carry a meaning which would be personal for each individual, the meaning behind them would not be straight forward.
Ted Gore Location: USA
There are said to be two types of the way photography is shared, through conventions and through words, words in magazines or books, where a photo is convenient in order to help the readers imagination. Personally I believe there is one type of photography used for art purposes, where it is unique and does not follow a specific format and is limitless, But also there is another form of photography where photographs are used for more convenient purposes where the mind simply cannot remember information, or cant share it in any other ways to others.
CHRONICLES. Events throughout the People Power Revolution in 1986 grace the front page of newspapers. PHOTO FROM THE BOOK BAYAN KO!
What i believe is very important about photography is that no matter how it is used or the meaning behind it or its real purpose, photographs capture a specific moment in an individuals life and are amazing storytellers. What is fascinating is how a single moment can be captured through one photograph, however that specific moment can not be relived again and all that is left of it is the photograph. This is why photography is so important to people. As not only people can embrace the creativity, on top of that, photography can connect people.
A single image can be shared with others infinite amounts of times, through photography people can communicate, almost giving photography its own language. Millions of different people can be looking at one image and understand it, no matter where they are from or what language they speak, that one image will carry a message but each individual is going to have their own meaning of the photograph. I found a quote suggesting this “the reader/viewer was free to make her own connections”.
“Photographs confuse as much as fascinate, conceal as much as reveal, distract as much as compel. They are unpredictable communicators.” “confuse as much as fascinate” I think what this means is the a photograph can be interpreted as a piece that boggles the mind and can move a person emotionally. A photograph can also be secretive but still signify an open book, where any photograph could uncover a specific meaning it is hiding or revealing. This also means the meaning of it can be easy to spot but not always and not for everyone. The meaning of “distract as much as compel” to me means that in the photograph, depending on what is being photographed or the scenery “distract” in the photo can be serene but turbulent, this again means a photograph can really affect a persons feelings.
Stanley Forman’s famous photo Woman Falling From Fire Escape |1975
Harry Shunk and Janos Kender, Yves Klein leap into the void 1960
Leap into the void , was taken in 1960 of a performance by Yves Klein, which gained popularity over the interesting act Klein did. because of the times it was taken , it was so fascinating as photomontages or photo editing existed. this image was taken in 2 parts. where one was taken of Klein jumping off the roof and others catching him when he falls, and another of the scenery with the bicycle in the background, then these 2 pictures have been put together to form a shocking photograph.
The statement said above and my interpretation of it: “Photographs confuse as much as fascinate, conceal as much as reveal, distract as much as compel. They are unpredictable communicators.” can be interpreted to this specific photograph. this image is very fascinating yet confusing as an act of jumping of a roof for artistic purpose can be confusing to some but can fascinate others as it shows he is willing to do this for art and is passionate for the story he is trying to tell. Regarding my point earlier, this image will have a different meaning to each individual and peoples views and opinions of the photograph will differ based on their culture, religion, place of living, gender etc. What the photo means to me is that the title ” leap into the void” suggests some suffering, almost giving up, to the point you are so helpless you are willing to jump into nothing, or empty space, which he demonstrates by not only jumping passionately, showing he wants this, also by choosing the location which is almost an empty street. By having no cars or no people in the picture except one cyclist may suggest he has nobody that cares about him, extending that idea, the cyclist ,cycling away from him may mean this carelessness from the public. This means he isn’t trying to gain attention, he is taking this “leap” because he wants to, maybe to find a meaning of something or find a solution specific to him.
Still life derives from the Dutch word stilleven, coined in the 17th century when paintings of objects enjoyed immense popularity throughout Europe. The motivation for this term came as artists created compositions of greater complexity, bringing together a wider variety of objects to communicate allegorical meanings.
It is defined as a work of art that shows inanimate objects from the natural or man-made world. This would include things such as fruit, flowers, dead game, and vessels like baskets. Most still life’s can be placed into one of four categories: flowers, banquet or breakfast, animal(s), and symbolic.
Flowers will often either have many flowers or a singular one. Nearly all of these pictures will be in colour and will often symbolise innocence.
Banquet still life shows a variety of food, usually showcasing luxurious backgrounds/ settings.
Animals in still life are usually depicted doing something or having a full background.
Symbolic still life often shows skulls and other meaningful items so get a message across to the viewer.
Examples of still life in paintings
Flowers
Banquet
Animals
Symbolic
Examples of still life in photography
Flower
Banquet
Animal
Symbolic
A time line of still life
Still life is generally considered to be started with the work by an Italian painter named Jacopo de’Barbari who is said to of “painted the golden age of still-life”.
Early still-life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted in them.
What is Vanitas?
Vanitas is a still-life painting of a 17th-century Dutch genre containing symbols of death or change as a reminder of their inevitability.
A vanitas painting will contain collections of objects symbolic of death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures; it encourages the viewer to consider mortality and to repent.
What is Memento Mori?
Memento mori is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity, and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period on wards.
The point of Memento Mori isn’t to be morbid or promote fear, but to inspire, motivate and clarify.
Still life photography encompasses everything that is an inanimate object in front of a camera.Still life is a unique genre of photography. One thing that makes it so special is that often the subjects aren’t very interesting. They’re just ordinary objects that you normally wouldn’t pay much attention to.
Here are three example of still life photography. As you can see in all three images there are basic items (in these particularly food) they are infront of plain backgrounds. Most still life images have a narrow depth of field, only focusing on the objects in the image.
modernist still life
The most significant sub genre of photography that conveys inanimate subject matter—typically everyday things, whether created by nature or by man—lively and profoundly is still-life photography.
These are examples of modernist still life
contemporary still life
Contemporary still life art is defined by the representation of objects with a double characteristic. They are inanimate and they make part of daily life. Many artists seize and push this to its paroxysm, even to the point of bias.
These are examples of contemporary still life
what is Vanitas?
a still-life painting of a 17th-century Dutch genre containing symbols of death or change as a reminder of their inevitability.
what is Memento Mori?
an object kept as a reminder of the inevitability of death, such as a skull.
WHAT KIND OF METAPHORS AND SYMBOLS ARE USED IN STILL LIFE AND WHY?
some common objects used in still life that symbolize something:
Fruit/fruit bowls- symbolize variety of religious and mythical symbols.
The word Photography literally means ‘drawing with light’, which derives from the Greek photo, meaning light and graph, meaning to draw.
However, photography essentially is the process of recording an image – a photograph – on light sensitive film or, in the case of digital photography, via a digital electronic or magnetic memory.
where, when and how did it all start?
Photography, as we know it today, began in the late 1830s in France. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce used a portable camera obscura to expose a pewter plate coated with bitumen to light. This is the first recorded image that did not fade quickly.
The photo is seen to capture the view outside of Joseph’s window.captured here is the first ever coloured photograph
The Tartan Ribbon
The tartan ribbon, the world’s first color photo was produced in 1861 by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell. The image was created by photographing the tartan ribbon three times through red, blue, and yellow filters, then recombining the images into one color composite.
The first photographic technologies were produced during the 1830s and 40s. The invention of photography would revolutionize culture and communication in the West forever. For the first time, images of ‘real’ life could be captured for posterity and sent around the world, this was the original purpose of photography.
Louis Daguerre
French painter and physicist who invented the first practical process of photography, known as the daguerreotype.
Henry Fox Talbot
He is best known for his development of the calotype, an early photographic process that was an improvement over the daguerreotype of the French inventor Louis Daguerre.
Richard Maddox
Dry plate, also known as gelatin process, is an improved type of photographic plate. It was invented by Dr. Richard L. Maddox in 1871, and had become so widely adopted by 1879 that the first dry plate factory had been established.
what is the purpose of photography?
Essentially, the purpose of photography is to communicate and document moments in time, you are able to capture still life and hold that image with yourself. Photography is so beneficial to us as we can use it in so many different ways.
why is photography important today?
Photography has the power to inspire many people. An inspiration that could lead to a change for the better. It’s also a visual learning tool that helps non-verbal people communicate. Photography is important because it opens a view into a person’s mind and allows them to convey messages.
Photography is important because we can document something and have it forever. Photography lets us see something we may never have noticed otherwise. Photography is history and allows us to learn and visualize what life was like in the past, or even show ideas of what life will be like in the future.
Photography is used everywhere, on the news, on TV, on social media, newspapers, books, magazines, the internet and so on. It is also looked at in a scientific way; this is because scientists would have no idea what things such as cells look like if it weren’t for photography, they wouldn’t be able t prove or show anything.
DAVID CAMPANY
Considering his assertion that: ‘photographs confuse as much as fascinate, conceal as much as reveal, distract as much as compel. They are unpredictable communicators.’
I believe that David Campany examines the seemingly ordinary act of looking at a photograph. Unpredictable and inscrutable, images, he argues, are anything but mundane. In this quote he is basically proposing that there is a deeper meaning behind just a photograph.
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.
Still-life photography stems from still-life art, which is one of the fundamental genres of Western art. The English term ‘still life’ is derived from the Dutch word stilleven. A still-life painting is a rendering of a group of objects which are still or inanimate, designed to express an allegorical meaning.
still life photography examples^
still life painting example
Chronological timeline of still life photography
Still-life art has existed from the 17th century until the modern-day, but in the 19th century, artists adopted photography as a new medium for still life art, to express their concepts in a novel format, and thus the still-life photo was born.
Baron Adolf de Meyer 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.
Baron Adolf de Meyer still life photograph
Emil Otto Hoppé is an esteemed British photographer who is known primarily for his portrait photography and travel photography, but he also produced wonderful still-life photography in the 1920s, with a handcrafted style, comparable to Baron Adolf de Meyer’s.
Early photography required long exposure times, and still life provided an ideal subject. Photographers embraced the genre, arranging objects and traditional motifs to create visually pleasing arrangements. These provided an opportunity to test the possibilities of photography through experiments with composition, framing and light; producing photographs that have an enduring influence on contemporary work.
What is meant by Vanitas?
Vanitas paintings communicated a moral or religious message. They particularly emphasised the shortness of life and the inevitability of decline and death. Many objects had complex allegorical or symbolic meanings. These were found in common motifs such as falling petals, decaying fruit, skulls, timepieces, and burning candles.
What is Memento Mori?
Memento mori is a Latin phrase meaning ‘remember you must die’. A basic memento mori painting would be a portrait with a skull but other symbols commonly found are hour glasses or clocks, extinguished or guttering candles, fruit, and flowers.
What kind of metaphors and symbols are used in still life and why?
Still life photographs and paintings tend to use symbols to create a deeper meaning for example, fruit is a symbol of life in still life as in Christianity, apples signify temptation and knowledge in reference to the Old Testament account of Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Grapes symbolize the themes of pleasure and lust associated with bacchus, the Roman god of wine. Pomegranates are associated with persephone, the Greek goddess of spring and queen of the underworld.
Where as, skulls are the symbol of The Certainty Of Mortality as it is a reminder of the certainty of death. Such a symbol is called a Memento Mori, a Latin phrase meaning “Remember that you will die.”
Still life is a style of photography that is used to display inanimate objects. Usually a selection of objects are used like the photo displayed above. Many things have to be considered to create a good still life style photograph for example, symmetry, object placement and lighting. Another important factor is background. It is important to use a plain background, as to not take away from the inanimate objects used. There are two types of still life, created still life and found still life. Still life is not only used for photography but also painting. Here is an example:
Still Life Photography Timeline
16th and 17th century– Paintings of inanimate objects became popular in Europe
18th century– floral displays, kitchen pictures, food, religious, symbolic still life photography became popular. Live animals became a part of these displays used for still life. Jean-Baptiste Oudry used textures of fur and feathers on simple backgrounds.
19th century– with the upcoming of European Academies which had a huge role in academic art, still life began to decrease in popularity. Emotion and mood becomes a more central part of still life.
20th century– still life continued to evolve, with abstract paintings and photography beginning to gain interest. Such as Jackson Pollocks paintings. Henri Matisse used bold outlines and bright colours.
21st century– evolves into using even video and sound to create these still life pieces. Some artists even used whole galleries for these still life pieces! Computer generated graphics have also developed into still life photography.
Vanitas
Vanitas is still life art which has a variety of symbolic objects which are made to remind the audience how they are mortal and of the worthlessness of worldly goods and pleasures.
this is an example of Vanitas
Memento Mori
Memento Mori means “remember that you die”. It is a style of still life that reminds you that death is inevitable.
Metaphors and symbols used in still life
Metaphors and symbols can be used in still life to display deep feelings and fears (topics such as death) It can also be used to symbolise a place, such as the beach or a woodland or food, nature and more. It can display a lot through the feelings these objects create to different viewers.
Still life is exactly as it sounds. It is a picture or mainly painting consisting of an arrangement of objects in a specific formation and placement.
Still life originated from the Egyptian and Roman periods around the 15th century growing an independence during the 1600s, but originated in the Netherlands as a genre, mainly consisting of flowers. There are many different meanings for still life, for example in Italian it translates to natura morta, also meaning “dead nature”.
It was used during this time for some to show off your riches, showing off your hierarchical placement, and the unique objects you obtain. Eventually the meaning behind still life grew for artists, with more moral reasonings behind them creating unique looks.
You could see still life was a deep concept, showing the beauty of life, and how it can be placed in any manner possible, showing the uniqueness of forever changing life within each picture and/or painting.
During the post impressionism, famously Van Gogh brought sill life paintings to life, with one of his paintings called “sunflowers”, creating inspiration for other artists to be influenced by and adapt from in their own way.
Vanitas
Vanitas was one genre within still life, which where paintings consisting of dead objects or things. This was to show people in a creative concept about death, and how it should be bought to attention as peoples inevitability.
It was look at in a unique way to show people how everything should be taken lightly in life, and how it is destiny for life to end, and is a common occurrence in life. It was also seen as Emptiness, worthlessness, but was still seen in an accepting light.
This links in to the phrase “mememto mori” with the same view of inevitable death and a similar meaning of remembering you must die. With the paintings mainly consisting of skulls, and other dead objects.
Most of these paintings and pictures where seen mainly of symbols and metaphors for life, about life. It gave people a better view and meaning in life, almost a comfort, with the knowing and acceptance of death, whilst also seeing the present beauty of life.
In Greek terms, the word “Photography” means “Drawing with Light”.
Aside from that, “Photography” is the practice of when you take photographs using a Camera.
Photography has very deep roots in our history, thanks to photography we can capture a significant thing that had happened in that moment. And it can be used to remember that specific moment, whether it be of a family holiday or a conflicting moment that shocked you and many others.
David Campany:
David Campany was a writer who published a book called “On Photographs” in 2020. It talks a lot about the messages photos hold and how we decipher them. In the book he asks: What shapes our response to photography?, Where does the meaning we ascribe to it come from? And how important to our reading of it are the photographer’s intention?
The Day Nobody Died:
“The Day Nobody Died” was a photograph that was made in Afghanistan in 2008 by Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin. During this time, a war in Afghanistan was happening.
This photo, rather interestingly. Was created on a day when no deaths were reported, meaning no one had died, which is where it gets it’s name from.
Broomberg and Chanarin made this by leaving six metres of photographic paper in the sun for twenty seconds. Being taken in a warzone, this image is said to capture the themes of war, like conflict and suffering. While as no deaths may have happened that day, the fear and the destruction remained.
I believe this fits very well with what Campany said when he asked “What shapes our response with photography?” and even his third question, “How important to our reading of it are the photographer’s intention?” can fit in too.
In general our response to photography is a combination of your own upbringing, culture background and life experiences
Use in response to question about the photographers question
A person who may be viewing this for the first time may think this picture looks very cool and pretty. But when you dig deeper into the origin of this photo you begin to realize that its actually about the very scary and horrifying themes of war. It may change the way you see the photo after.
The second question, “Where does our meaning we ascribe to it come from?” also applies here.
This quote put simply is talking about how photography creates emotions for us. For example, when you know about the picture’s origin you begin to understand that this art piece symbolizes the fighting and destruction of war. You may feel a variety of emotions, an obvious one would be sadness as this photo was taken where people have died, and if you think about it you realize that people had to die for this photo to be taken. Another feeling some people may have could be relief. As this photo was taken when the war was at rest as no one had died during that slight period.
Leap into the Void:
“Leap into the void” is a photograph taken in 1960 by Yves Klein, Harry Shunk and János Kender. It shows a man falling off a ledge and is captured mid fall.
The meaning behind this photo is a “demonstration of freedom and constraint” which is why the man is seen jumping off the ledge, he is almost forgetting the rules of reality and is trying to bend them. There is also a contrast seen here which makes the photo more interesting, with the person seen on the street riding the bike, that person is very different to the leaping man because the person can be viewed in this context as not free and instead obeying reality.
In conclusion, Photography from my point of view, Is a passion you can really invest yourself into. With Photography you can create anything you want, from showing the way you see reality to creating an abstract picture to deceive and confuse people from the real meaning it may hold.
