Pears and apple still life photo, KGT, 2013
I have 2 quick tips for taking still life photos. I make photos mostly for painting references, and often they are “fly by the seat of the pants” quality, as I have often admitted before on this blog. As a painter, I try to capture the necessary information sometimes at the expense of photo quality like sharpness of image, etc.
But here, I was amazed at this surprising little photo taken with my Iphone camera.
Tip number one: Have plenty of light. Many of my studio photos for this blog show painting progress, often at night, and with not sufficient light to get a good quality photo. Hence the term, “down and dirty.” But this photo has excellent lighting, so much that I asked myself, “did I really take this photo?”
Tip number two: White tissue paper for back drops for still life. I have white tablecloths and sheets handy for still life photo surfaces. But now I discovered that I could tape up sheets of white tissue paper I had on hand to cover over the harsh background where dark wall meets light window. I taped up the tissue paper and snapped the photo. I suppose many photographers already know this trick, but little old painter me just made a great discovery on the fly! YAY!
Sorry to seem overly excited here, but I am so happy with this lovely lighting and photo quality. So much so that I don’t think I would file this into my ideas for painting file. I’m not so much a realist painter these days. Maybe I will just enjoy this photo for the happy day it came into being. Isn’t it just so pretty?
Hue Bliss: Color & Art notes by Karen Gillis Taylor 