The second project for my Media Production Photography course (Despite being posted first) was to create a Still Life Triptych. Here is the work I produced:
The first image of the cans took many attempts until I was happy. Positioning of the cans proved to be an issue as I had to put several poses into practice before finding one that worked well. I also found the lighting a little tricky as the can lying down was often left in shadow making the image look very dark. To overcome this, I angled a mirror over the can to reflect the light source onto it reducing the shadows. One thing I like about this photo is how both cans are battered and dinted however one stands almost like the victor of a fight giving a sense of righteousness and authority
My second image of a battered Lynx can I found much easier to photograph. I angled it in a way that showed the most damage as it reflected nice with the light and showed off a lot of contrast in the shadows. The scuffs and dints on the metal caused many shadows that I feel give a great texture to the can. I particularly like how the plastic part almost appears to be looking up looking rather regal despite being battered giving, again, a righteous stance despite its hardships.
The final picture of the plastic container was interesting to take as originally it lacked any form of interest at all as the light simply went right through it. To counter this, I scrunched up some golden foil from biscuits I had been eating and placed them inside the container as something for the light to reflect. I had to use the mirror as a reflector again in this image to bounce the light onto the foil to really get the bright effect I wanted from them and really make them glow.
The background for this piece was very simple. I took a dark purple towel and draped it over my guitar amp to create a backdrop and lit it using the LED bedside lamp build into the wall in my accommodation. I blacked out the room and occasionally experimented with covering the light source slightly to create a darker tone giving my photos a different effect. I’m rather pleased with how this turned out considering it was my first go at a makeshift studio.
A large inspiration for this project was the work of Denis Dorran in his project “Salvaged”. The battered objects on an incredibly dark background with the bright lighting really appealed to me visually and I instantly knew it was a style I wished to imitate. I first saw this style in the Lecture on Still Life Photography and made a clear note to remember this particular work as it really resinated with me.