Still life photography is a genre of photography used for the depiction of inanimate subject matter, typically a small group of objects. Similar to still life painting, it is the application of photography to the still life artistic style. Still-life photography’s origins reside in the early 20th century. Art photographers emerged such as Baron Adolf de Meyer. Most still lifes can be placed into one of four categories: flowers, banquet or breakfast, animal(s), and symbolic.

First still life painting:

The painting generally considered to be the first still life is a work by the Italian painter Jacopo de’Barbari painted 1504. The “golden age” of still-life painting occurred in the Lowlands during the 17th century.

Most famous still life artists:

• Paul Cézanne, 1895
• Caravaggio
• Georges Braque, 1910
• Henri Matisse, 1910
• Paul Cézanne, 1898
• Jean Siméon Chardin, 1728
• Vincent van Gogh
• Adriaen van der Spelt, 1658
• Francisco de Zurbarán, 1633

Most famous artists these days:

sara tasker

Yukiko Masuda

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. Vanitas is also a still life artwork which includes various symbolic objects designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and of the worthlessness of worldly goods and pleasures.

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 onwards. 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.

Photoshoot 1

This is the first photoshoot I did based on Formalism. This one is inspired by Walker Evans and Darren Harvey-Regan. However, some of the photos didn’t turn out with good quality. I also don’t appreciate the lighting and backgrounds so for the second shoot, I used different objects and backgrounds.

Here are a couple of photographs from this shoot that turned out well:

Photoshoot 2

In this photoshoot, I experimented with using different lights and unique objects to create circular shadows on the white paper. I like how these photos turned out and have different shape, patterns and lines from the shadows. For these photos, I used the studio light and positioned it in certain ways to allow the objects to create shadows. For the photographs with just the circle shadows, I put an object which had holes all over it, in front of the light to project circle shadows onto the white paper. I really like how this turned out.

Edited Photo

These are my favourite photo from this shoot, I like how the lighting was manipulated to make the photograph unique and eye catching. I slightly edited this photo by changing the levels and curves through photoshop.

Walker Evans

Walker Evans was an American photographer and photojournalist. These photographs are some of his formalism photographs, he has captured images of different tools against a white background. This allows the object to be the main focal point and be seen clearly. There are no shapes made out of any lights in these photographs as it is focussed on the whole area. These photographs are quite simplistic since the subject of the image is quite central, in the majority of his photographs. This leaves quite lot of negative space around the object. His photos are very monochromatic since it’s mostly black, white and grey ones with a couple of them having more yellow/orange tones.

Darren Harvey-Regan

Darren Harvey-Regan did similar work to Walker Evans as Evans inspired him. He used two halves of sperate tools and then joined them together to photograph. This put a unique spin to the past similar work, and modernised it. His work is eye-catching because of its beauty and quirks.

“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

For the shoot I started out by choosing objects that I could make a nostalgic tie to, for example I used to play the violin and music has always been a big part of my family. I then added in some objects that looked cool or

I started off by thinning down my photos to the ones I thought where the best. that got me from 66 down to 12. However, I then further removed a photo as it wasn’t the best.

I then edited my photos to a basic level with pushing up the exposer in darker ones, altering the shadows so they looked a bit better and cropping them, I could see which ones I liked the most.

Picking the three that worked the best I then further edited them changing the temperature on some and sharpening the others to just get the letter right on the book without making the scratches on the violin to distinct.

Using colours and stars to identify which was my best and which was the best out of the three and these were my final pieces.

1) What is the etymology (origin & history) of the word photography?

Writing with light

2) What year was the first photograph made on camera?

1826 (Joseph Nicéphore Niépce) 

3) When did the first photograph of a human appear?

1838 (Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre)

4) Who made the first ‘selfie’ ?

Robert Cornelius (1839)

5) When did the first colour photograph appear?

1861 (James Clerk Maxwell)

6) What do we mean by the word genre? 

A style or category of art.

7) What do we mean by the genre of still-life? 

An image that shows inanimate objects from the natural or man-made world.

8) What was the main purpose of the Pictorialist movement? 

To capture moving objects.

9) How do we describe the term documentary photography? 

Capture images that truthfully portray people, places and events.

10) What is exposure in photography? 

The amount of light that reaches your camera’s sensor.

11) What controls exposure on your camera? 

Aperture, shutter speed, ISO. 

12) What control on our camera records moving objects? 

Shutter.

13) How do we explain depth of field? 

A view across a field. 

14) What factors affect Depth of Field? 

Lens aperture, distance from camera to subject, and lens focal length. 

15) What is composition in photography? 

The arrangement of visual elements within the frame.

16) What is your understanding of aesthetics in art? 

Concerned with the nature of beauty and taste. 

17) What are contextual studies in photography? 

Consider factors outside of the image, as well as inside the frame. 

18) How many images are captured on average every day worldwide? 

4.7 billion.

19) Which portrait is the most reproduced in the world? 

The Queen (Elizabeth II)

To create my virtual gallery I used Adobe photoshop as well as Lightroom to edit my photos before. I used the photos of my own belongings for my gallery.

Step 1:

Step 2:

To make the rest of the adjusting simpler I created a new style which allowed me to apply the same drop shadow filter to the rest of my photos.

Final outcome

I am happy with my final outcome as it looks realistic especially with the light shining on the photos and the shadow.

i made this photo grey form inspiration from walker evans as he documented things of the great depression and darren harvey regan focusing in on only the object itself and i think colour can be an influence so i made it grey.

this picture is in focus with a shallow depth of field, and the photo is a continous light, originally there was 2 continous lights coming from the side and i turned off one to enchance depth and shadows.

First Photo Editing Process

For my photograph, I first made the background purple whilst making the shadows darker and the highlights brighter so above the sunglasses is a lighter purple which also helps the reflection on the sunglasses because they had lighter parts on too! Also, used the vignette to create a shadow around the whole photo making it seem darker and surrounded.

Second Photo Editing Process

Third Photo Editing Process

Walker Evans

Walker Evans was a Photographer and Journalist who was best known for his work documenting the Great Depression. He was born in 1903 and unfortunately passed in 1975. His photographs generally captured the everyday struggles and lives of people which has made a lasting impact to documentary photography. Walker Evan’s work is recognised to this day for its cultural and historical significance and influences many other photographers, such as Diane Arbus. Walker Evans also produced a series of photographs named ‘Beauties of the Common Tool’. This is a series of still life photos featuring tools in black and white.

Beauties of the Common Tool

This series was posted in Fortune Magazine in 1955, spread across 5 pages. It captures a variety of tools, shot from above with the same lighting that appears to give them depth and emphasise their small details. These images could be an example of typologies as they clearly have the use of the same lighting, angles and they have the same purpose, which is to highlight the elegance of the tools. Additionally, Walker Evans intentionally made these images boring and not interesting so that the viewers will focus on the tools.

Darren Harvey-Regan

Darren Harvey Regan is an English Photographer, born in 1974, who’s work is highly inspired by literature and the forming of words to convey ideas. He personally believes that most of his work is a sculptural in the process and photographic in the end result. In 2010, he graduated the Royal College of Art and since has had many exhibitions and features in Museums, such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Some of Darren Harvey-Regan’s Work

Darren Harvey-Regan typically makes sculptures out of plaster and photographs them, however, he also produced a series of photographs in which he digitally montaged Walker Evans’ photographs by snipping and rejoining them to make them into something more enticing and unique. These photographs were printed out 87 x 69cm and are rephrased versions of Evans’ work.

Darren Harvey-Regan Interpretations of Walker Evans’ work

Work Comparison

Technically, both pieces of work are originally by Walker Evans, however, Darren Harvey-Regan used Evans’ photos to make them into something more. Regan’s montages appear much more interesting and, by first glance, may be quite confusing to some viewers as they no longer appear as ‘common’ tools. The contrast between the tools and background in both artworks draw your focus towards the tools and in Darren Harvey-Regan’s montages the tools appear to have been made darker with a lighter background. This makes the images appear more clear and pristine.