High School Still Life Photography

Still Life!

The First fronteir...
 Still life has been around as long as art has been around. It stays in one place and it is great way to test your observational drawing and photography skills without having to worry about your subject getting up and taking off.



As fair as the Hierarchy of fine art goes it is near the bottom... as you can see.

However, there did not stop it from being one of the most profitable genres. Even today think about the photographers and their jobs and who is considered the most respectable.

1. Photographers who go into war areas and that take pictures for national geographic are considered very pristigous.

2. Just under that we have people who do the portraits for magazines or the photographer who takes pictures of the royal family. This shows they have patronage(Just like in the old days!).

3. Genre photos are harder to nail down but we could put spots photography in that category.

4. Landscape photography is still respected but think about your own perceptions when you compare someone who takes pictures of Angelina Jolie (and not in a sneaky way like a poperazzi)

5. Then there is animal photography.

6. Then you have Still Life. You would not usually think about hiring someone to come take a picture of an item just sitting on the counter, but if you think about the photographers that take picture of items for ads in magazines you will see there is actually a huge market for still life photography, even though it is not thought of as the highest form.


First we talk about setting up a still life and how to light it.

To keep it simple I give them a set of guidelines.
1. Keep you object in odd numbers
2. Make your items create a triangle
3. Make your you lighting is intentional

All the rules you can either follow or not follow, but you should always do so on purpose. 

Here are some examples of student work.