Blog 3.5: Life in the Studio

      Quick Update!

        I just completed an amazing unit of still life photography! I'll be honest - this type of photography was much more difficult than nature pictures. Outside, the light comes naturally, so all I had to do was adjust my settings to best capture the light. When working inside, I had to seek out the best lighting options for my photos. In addition to that, I had to create my own composition. In nature, everything is just there. But with still life, the photographer has to seek out and create their own scene. So while it required much more thinking on my part, that's what made me enjoy it even more. With still life, I have so much more power over my pictures. I control the lighting and how everything looks. Nature is just there, but still life is your own.
        Still life is also more time consuming. I could set up my picture in a way that I thought was good, take the picture, and see that it was too dark. I would adjust the settings, but then it's too bright. So then I adjust it so it's just right, but then it's out of focus, so I had to move around the items in the picture. I would go on like this until I had 50 pictures of the same apple. But in the end, it was definitely worth it, because a lot of the pictures turned out to be really cool. Here are some of my favorites.

        Speaking of apples, these ones were an amazingly vibrant red, and I just had to take a picture. I set them up right in front of a big window, so that the light would really show off their color. I put a white cloth underneath them to reflect the light, but also so that the background wasn't distracting.

        These next two are some of my favorites. I really wanted to take a picture with the flame, but every shot I took was too blurry or had a weird lighting. So, I took a step back, and focused on the matches. It was definitely a struggle to get my camera to focus on the matches wince I got really close to them. But, I was patient, and snapped these two:

        I like the first one because the matches are front and center, but I also like the second one because you can see the candle and all of its layers. 

        I really like the lighting on this next one. I put these nesting dolls in front of a window, which I think makes the picture nice and bright. I also like the reflection they create on the wood table. I wanted to get the picture from the side to capture the sizes of the dolls, but when I did that, my entire kitchen was in the background. My kitchen table has extensions to make it longer, So I stood one up on the table to create a wooden background. It was like a little studio. the wood also created a dark side of the photo, which contrasts nicely with the side that's facing the window

My own studio

        I had a really good time photographing these vases. I love the texture and the reflecty-ness. The only problem I have with the picture is the background. It's not super distracting, but I'm not crazy about it. Who knows, artists seem to find beauty in everything, so maybe somehow it "tells a story". (Bonus points if you can find me in the reflection). 

Remember how I said I liked the reflecty-ness? Well... here's a (fab) selfie. 

So this was supposed to be a quick little update... but whatever. I can't believe there's less than two weeks left for this project. I'm glad to say that I feel like I have made some major improvements. On to portraits!

P.S. @efaphotography... you know what to do