STEP BY STEP HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH A CLASSIC STILL LIFE
1 WINDOW LIGHT
We set up next to a window on a cloudy day so that our vase of flowers was lit from the left side by diffused light. The result is a chiaroscuro-style lighting effect similar to what you see in classic still-life paintings from artists such as Rembrandt. If you want a little more control over your lighting, try using a reflector or diffuser.
2 BACKGROUNDS
We used a collapsible background from Lastolite (LL LB5722), but you could shoot against a plain wall or sheet of cloth. If you’re struggling to hang a sheet, try sewing a hair tie to each corner of the fabric – you can then loop them over objects such as picture hooks to hang your backdrop securely.
3 WHEEL OF FORTUNE
Colour is an important consideration when arranging a still life. Colours that are opposites on the colour wheel are complementary, and so work well together, so we chose to shoot yellow daffodils against our purple backdrop; the green cloth also complemented the red rose. You can edit colours independently using the HSL/Color panel in Adobe Lightroom.
4 ODD ARRANGEMENT
We selected five flowers as our subjects – as you can see, an odd number of subjects makes for a more pleasing composition, as per the rule of odds. We wanted to position our flowers at different heights to help them fill the frame, so we used a pair of scissors to cut the stems to different lengths.
5 USE LIVE VIEW
Set up your camera on a tripod – we used an L-bracket to secure our camera in portrait orientation. Use Live View to compose your shot, but don’t rely solely on bubble levels or your camera’s virtual horizon; even if your camera is level, your subject might not be. We suggest using the grid overlay to align your frame with your subject.
6 CAMERA SETTINGS
In Aperture Priority mode set the ISO to 100. We chose an aperture of f/8 to keep the subject sharp. To make the shot feel more like a classic still life, we added some negative exposure compensation to underexpose and create deeper shadows.