Title: Still Life Photo Tips
Course: Digital Photography 2010

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

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

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.

If you think these paintings are simplistic you should read about how to setup a still life. Your still life photographs should use objects you can find all around you in interesting arrangements.

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

Don't be afraid to use your macro setting on your camera. Head for the 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.

I used a simple background and the blur filter in the GIMP to get the highlight effect seen in this photo.

If you're using a wide angle lens to get the photo try using a slow shutter speed and tripod with a smaller f-stop to increase your depth of field. You might also experiment with using the telephoto and taking the shot from far away for a different look.

eBay Photography

Good product photography can earn you some cash. After taking a photograph of your product, you can use selection tools in the GIMP to completely remove the background from your image. This is often desirable for photographs used in catalogs or on ebay. If you want a fun photo assignment, photograph some model cars to create advertising photographs. Experiment with removing the background or pasting in one of your own. You'll use the GIMP selection and layers tools to do this.