What is Still Life?

Still life is a painting or drawing of an arrangement of objects, typically including fruit and flowers and objects contrasting with these in texture, such as bowls and glassware. It is also a work of art that shows inanimate objects from the natural or man-made world, such as fruit, flowers, dead game, and/or vessels like baskets or bowls.

Fernando Botero Angulo was a Colombian figurative artist and sculptor from Medellín. His signature style, also known as “Boterismo”, depicts people and figures in large, exaggerated volume, which can represent political criticism or humor, depending on the piece. This style is shown through his still life photos by using large fruit with large abnormal objects to show uniqueness and creativity.

Here is some of Fernando Botero’s best still life work that he has produced over the years!

Another really important and famous artist is Caravaggio. He was a divisive and important Italian painter. He was abandoned when he was 11 years old and trained with an artist in Milan. He relocated to Rome, where his art became well-known for the tenebrism method he employed, which used shadow to highlight brighter regions. His success, unfortunately, was brief. Caravaggio departed Rome after killing a person in a scuffle.

Caravaggio with his Basket of Fruit gave still life new dignity, by putting it on the same level as figurative painting. Caravaggio didn’t search for aesthetically pleasing representations, but he searched for reality, because to him painting meant to accept life as it is, without decorations and with all its imperfections. It looks like he has the basket of fruit on the rule of thirds which shows that is the main focus.

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. Here are some examples.

What is Memento Mori?

Memento Mori is an object kept as a reminder of the inevitability of death, such as a skull. 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.

Some Metaphors and Symbols used in still life would be:

Fruit: Varying Symbolism In Still Life Paintings.

Candles: The Passing of Time.

Seashells: Birth, Purity, And Fertility.

Insects: Transformation And Decay.

Dead Animals: Contradiction And The Hunt.

Trade/Slavery/Colonialism: Shown through objects they used or materials they used/picked e.g. cotton.

What is still life?

• Still life is a work of art that shows inanimate objects from the natural or man-made world. This typically including fruit and flowers and objects contrasting with others textures, such as bowls and glassware.​
• It became a widely accepted art form in the early 16th century to symbolise religion and morality.​
• During the slave trade when colonialism was at its peak, northern European and Dutch artists travelled to these countries where they have exotic and lavish objects like new fruits and colourful vases ext. These where placed into paintings to represent wealth and power.​
• As photography started being used more, it was inevitable that still life would move over to photography.

Examples of still life photography –

American photographer (born in 1949) Paulette Tavormina is famous for her 17th century inspired still life photography, similar to Giovanna Garzoni and Maria Sibylla Merian paintings. She lives and works in the chaotic city of New York, yet manages to capture stillness in her work. Her arrangements often recall the sumptuous detail of seventeenth century Old Master still life painters and serve as intensely personal interpretations of timeless, universal stories.

 Mat Collishaw’s Last Meal on Death Row series uses old techniques combined with modern aged ideas. Each meal is actually a meal people on death row have had as a last meal. This creates a melancholy effect mix with the eerie stillness of the image.

A collection of famous still life paintings:

“A basket of fruit” by Caravaggio – painting

“Living Still Life” by Salvador Dali

Timeline of still life photography

• 1839 – the first photo was taken and it was convenient to have still objects in images so it was inevitable that the still life movement from paintings will move over to photos.
• A few decades later… – modernist still life became popular and it tries to capture a sense of rejecting the past and using unconventional methods.
• mid 20th century – modernist still life was still popular but more simplistic images where becoming popular. For example the Man Ray’s dead leaf was very simplistic with only one object in the scene.
• now – photographers are continuing the work of Man Ray, while exploring other ideas like truth and illusions (e.g. Sharon Core) or eeriness with Mat Collishaw.
• the future? – AI like dall-e 2 is likely to compare with real still life photography and could be used to help create new movements in the still life genre.

Symbolism in still life

• Exotic fruit – used to symbolise wealth
• Normal fruit – fertility
• Skulls – the Certainty of mortality
• Candles – the passing of time
• Flowers – growth and life
• Musical instruments – Beauty And Transience
• Dead animals – Contradiction and the hunt
• Sliver/gold – luxury in 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. It often uses skulls, dead plants and an overall messy collection of objects:

What is Memento Mori?

an object kept as a reminder of the inevitability of death, such as a skull.

In class, we worked as a team to analyse a photo and this was our final outcome:

Still Life originated in the Netherlands in the 16th to the 17th century during the urbanisation which led to people emphasising on peoples homes, personal possessions and commerce. Colonialism is when there is one person in power over other people. By 1840, photography had spread like wildfire and become a vital aspect of European colonialism. Colonialism led to the suppression of traditional African art forms and the promotion of European art. In early still life images you can see skulls, candles and hourglasses. These were very popular in the 19th century. These still life objects could symbolise death and fragility of life, the hourglass connects with the skull to portray the time that you have left.

Still Life – Mood Board

What is still life?

Still life is an arrangement of different objects, such as skulls, fruit, candles and books like you can see in this photograph. It is also a work of art that shows images of objects from the natural and man-made world. Still life is found everywhere in the world even from the ancient Egyptians tombs where there is seen to be daily still life objects carved on the side. The genre became popular in the Netherlands during 17th century when urbanisation led to an emphasis on the personal possessions.

In this mood board it has some still life images. There are skulls, fruit, candles and hour glasses seen in these images. I really like these still life images because there is always a story being told through the different objects and also the placement of the objects. The top image in the middle presents old age, or even death. I can infer this from the image because there is a skull which symbolises death, and there is also a a feather in a pot of ink which is what people used to write with in the 6th century. The feather could also represent the feather of a dove. A dove symbolises peace and love which could refer back to a peaceful death.

Image Analysis

Features

Quick edit which is on the right hand side of adobe lightroom. Has a crop option, white balance and also a black and white section when the drop down is used.

The catalogue shows all the photographs. These can be filtered and saved in Collections.

Collections are files within Lightroom. The plus in the corner adds a collection and you drag images into it. If you ‘ctrl’ or ‘shift’ you can select multiple at a time.

This changes how you view the image. The grid shows the whole catalogue at once, the rectangle shows the one selected image in large. The ‘x/y’ shows two selected images back to back for comparison if there are two similar images.

For filtering and rating images there are three options:

• Flags, are a simple yes/no option. If you press p, its a white flag and ‘pass’ or ‘yes’. If you press x, its a black cross flag and a ‘no’. A yes means it is relevant to the project and a no means it is not relevant.

• Stars are a five star system. If you press a number on the keyboard the corresponding number of stars will show up under the image. 5 is 5 stars. 3 is 3 stars. Stars are the quality of the image and the second stage of the process. 5 stars means everything is in focus and in frame. 1 star means the quality is not usable.

• Colours are a small rectangle to the right corner of the bottom of an image. A drop down will reveal 5 different colours for further filtration and organisation. This is the final step after using stars. This refers to whether it is going to be edited. Red means no it will not be edited. Blue means unsure and depends on the amount needed. Green means that yes it can be edited and yellow means it will definitely be edited.

Edited Images

I started with 46 images and narrowed it down with gradually with each filtering option. I finally settled on one yellow and one green photograph which I edited in the quick edit tab.

Both the images were brightened using the white balance option however I didn’t know how to crop or rotate them. The first photograph has a shiny background and reflected the light differently to the second which has matt paper as a background so the whites look different.

By Yann

Photography Research 

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

Writing with light 

2)What year was the first photograph taken with a camera? 

1826 

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

1874 (Julia Margaret Cameron) 

4)Who made the first ‘selfie’? 

Robert Cornelius (1839) 

5) When did the first color photograph appear? 

1935 (Kodachrome) 

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 Pictorialism movement? 

To affirm photography as an art form 

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? 

How much of your image is in focus 

14) What factors affect Depth of Field? 

Lens focal length shutter speed and lens aperture. 

15): What is composition in photography? 

The arrangement of visual elements within the frame. 

16)What is your understanding of aesthetics in art? 

Aesthetic qualities refer to the way and artwork looks and feels 

17) What are contextual studies in photography? 

To provide historical, cultural and theoretical understanding of images. 

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) 

This is the Canon camera simulator. It is a useful tool to teach photographers what the different features on a camera do and how they affect the image.

To get a good image, the exposure meter must be on or close to 0 so that the image is not too dark or too bright. Every setting that you change (shutter speed, aperture, ISO) will raise or lower the exposure meter

Here is an example of an overexposed photo. The photo in this case is overexposed because the aperture is too big at 2.8. If I change the aperture to 11, the photo will be balanced and the exposure meter will be at 0

Now, with the aperture at 11, the objects in the photo are lit well and are a lot more visible than they were previously. When you change the aperture, you change the amount of light that the lens lets in. If the aperture is too big there will be too much light let into the camera and the photo will be overexposed

Also, aperture controls the depth of field of the photo and how blurry the rest of the photo is compared to the part that is focused. As you can see, the aperture in this photo has been put to the largest value, which means that the photo has a shallow depth of field. If it was the inverse, everything in the photo would be in focus.

The shutter on a camera is basically like a curtain that opens and closes to let a certain amount of light in. The number represented on the simulator is 1/1000 sec, which means that the shutter opens for 1/1000 of a second. If this number was larger, such as if it was at 1/60 sec, too much light would be let in and the photo will be too bright. If the inverse happens then the photo will be too dark. Aperture and shutter both work together to mediate the amount of light let into the camera.

The ISO is the control for the sensitivity of the sensor. Changing the sensitivity of the sensor changes how bright or dark the photo is. A low ISO means a low sensitivity and a darker photo, so to compensate the shutter and aperture are made bigger. A high ISO means a high sensitivity, but with a high ISO, the photo will come out grainy.

Here you can see that the photo is very grainy and the photo just doesn’t come out well. A high ISO is useful for dark pictures where the sensor sensitivity needs to be higher. As you can see, because the ISO is high, the shutter speed has been made smaller to compensate.

Overall, the Canon Camera Simulator is a very useful tool to help photographers understand how the modern camera works and what features like the aperture, shutter and ISO change how the image comes out.

Nostalgia by Yann

Final Image

I chose this photo because I think it is a good photo and it feels nostalgic for me as the fountain used to have goldfish swimming in it when I was young and I used to like going there and seeing the goldfish,  

furthermore, having the seagull sitting in the fountain makes the image feel more playful and less serious which is a good thing because nostalgia is good to reflect on your fond and happy memories. 

The photo is also rather similar to Marietta Varga’s nostalgia photography as the location of the nostalgic photos she did are set outside usually in parks and playgrounds so having this photo being in a park is a great way to respond to her work. 

Lastly after editing the photo I really liked the nostalgic feel to the photo by lowering the vibrancy and colour levels so not only does it look like it’s in the style of Marietta’s photos but it also makes the photo look more faint and less clear which could reflect your past memories from when you were young as your childhood memories are quite old and not fully clear. it also makes the photo look old to help with this idea. 

What is still life? 

Still life is the arrangements of objects such as paintings or things we use in our daily lives that cannot move. The objects may have a bigger picture and may create a story from the background of where and what the objects are and come from.  

Still life Examples: 

Still life Artist 

Vincent Van Gogh: 

Vincent van Gogh is a very famous artist who creates many still life paintings which all have a story or some kind of history behind them, his artwork is quite old and represents the older era of life.  

His work: 

Vincent van Gogh’s work presents an image of what life was like when he was growing up and presents that within his work to present that for others to see what it was like. 

What is Vanitas ?

Vanitas is a genre of art which uses symbolism to show the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. The paintings involved still life imagery of transitory items.

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.

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

• Fruit: Varying Symbolism In Still Life Paintings.
• Skulls: The Certainty Of Mortality.
• Candles: The Passing Of Time.
• Flowers: Symbols Of Life And Growth.
• Seashells: Birth, Purity, And Fertility.