Fancy Fruit & Vibrant Veggies
simple still lifes
A simple still life
A still life is an arrangement of lots of food and objects, but we are going to look at photographing just a simple thing - a piece of fruit or a vegetable.
We will look at choosing the right veg/fruit, background and lighting.
Examples
Instructions
ADVICE FOR SIMPLE STILL LIFES:
1) Choose the fruit/vegetable - these are by the famous photographer Edward Weston. He chose them because of their interesting texture and shape. Or choose something because of its bright color. Feel free to slice it in half or shoot it whole. Just use one type of fruit or veggie, but you can have more than one of that type.
2) Choose a dark background. Black or a dark color. �Or if it is white, like above, have heavy shadows in it.
Plain boards can be used as a background, or tape a piece of paper, fabric, or poster board halfway on the wall with half of it on a table or on the ground . Even a dark shirt could work as long as it is smooth fabric.
3) Lighting - Use directional artificial light...from just one side. You might want to shoot in a darkened room or in a box like the example above.
Lighting - use window light on one side. But make sure it is dramatic and directional
What you DO NOT want is this.
It is boring and the light is terrible. It needs stronger directional light.
4) Editing - you may want to darken the background, and add contrast & saturation. You can do this with Snapseed on your phone by changing the exposure.