Still Life
This brief is all about interesting objects, and giving found objects a new context. Therefore my still life project was based on the idea of childhood. Originally I was going to design my photography using objects we used to play with as children such as sticks and stones that we found in nature, but being as it was a triptych I couldn’t find a third object, so I decided to do use just pinecones instead.
JJ Sulin – Gary’s Basement.
JJ Sulin is a photographer that likes to photograph his subjects in a way that makes them seem human. In his Gary’s basement photos he has taken them in the concept of forgotten and old, much like the way he likes to humanise everything, not only in his still life, but also with his portraiture and landscape photography too.
These series of photos to me are an influence simply because of the fact that his subjects are that from peoples past. And in perticular his landlords.
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Another influence of mine is Ali Mobasser’s photography of super strength lager’s and ciders on the top of very pleasant, rich and aesthetic looking backgrounds.
The relationship of these 2 elements within the image contrasting each other so well link to the idea of the contrasting meanings behind it. For example: Carling Special Brew is marketed in a way that symbolises class with its royal red and golden coloured cans and the crown logos. Yet it is often associated with homelessness and alcoholism. These two contrasting pieces makes for very hypocritical branding – which is explored in these photos with the contrasting backgrounds of the image.
The last influence of my still life is that of Felicia Simion, she explores ideas of childhood within her photos, especially in her set “The Playground”. These are portraiture photos but nevertheless influenced me on introducing the idea of childhood within my photos, she shows her child growing up in a technology free environment, something we don’t see much of these days.
All in all, these photos have collectively inspired me to create my piece. Taking inspiration from Gary’s basement I will be looking into the idea of humanising my piece, but instead I will be humanising them in a more literal term, with things such as stick on plastic eyes and feathers to symbolise them as being more alive and bringing them back to life.
Felicia Simion has influenced me to take an approach on children, more particularly the idea of being technology free, thats why I have sourced pinecones. Pinecones are common within children as they often throw them at each other, collect them, or just pick them up to look at them, I know I loved them as a child, and thats why I will be using them as the main body to my photography subjects.
And finally I will be taking most of my inspiration from Ali Mobasser, using two very contrasting things. Nature and human made objects in order to bring my still life objects alive. Much like social media does… These human made devices such as iPads and iPhones are human made objects that we see kids playing with a lot more these days, instead of being outside playing in the mud and on the streets. These two binary oppositions make for a sarcastic and hypocritical element. Which I will also be exploring within my still life.
So how did I create my image?
First of all I decided to use a simple plain white background for each of my images, I used plain white so the colours of the pipe cleaners and foam stick out more in contrast with the brown pine cones. Not knowing a lot about camera’s and their lenses at the time of the shoot I shot the images using a macro lens, when really I know now that I should have shot the photos with something more like a 50mm lens. Because of this the final photo isn’t fully in focus as the focal point is very short. I now know and have learned from this mistake and have now learned from my experience and am now better with using the camera and its functions correctly.
After this I imported my images into Lightroom and overall made the colours more vivid.
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