READ: Still Life Photography

Still Lifes

Artists have been painting scenes of objects for a long time. The painting above of strawberries was discovered in ancient Pompeii. It was covered by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 0079.

Still lifes use everyday objects positioned in common scenes. They are really a study of light, color and texture.

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Interesting Arrangements

One of the most famous still life painters was Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. He had the ability to use light and color to create an almost photo-like quality in his work.


Your still life photographs should use objects you can find all around you in interesting arrangements.

Simple Composition

This still life is a very simple composition but it tells a story too. You can use common objects to create an interesting story told in one frame with your camera.

Macro Setting

Don't be afraid to use your macro setting on your camera. Head for an art room for an interesting collection of colors and textures. Arrangements can add pattern and line to your composition. Flickr has a great collection of "crayon" tagged images that might give you some ideas.

Rule of Thirds

Still life photography can be fun and profitable. Think of a still life photograph as a portrait of a thing as opposed to that of a person.

When taking still life images, put to use what you have learned about lighting and composition. Consider this image of peaches. Sarah M. took this photo and used the rule of thirds to place the base of the peaches along the bottom 1/3 of the image.

Sarah composed this photograph by covering a glass table with water and lighting the scene with a single bright lamp.

Light and Lines

If you spend some time planning and experimenting you will be able to use light and composition to make even simple objects look beautiful when photographed. Stephanie H. used directional light and a background with simple lines to frame this photograph of a garlic clove.