Studio Lighting- Still Life

Still life photography is a demanding art, one in which the photographers are expected to be able to form their work with a refined sense of lighting, coupled with compositional skills. The still life photographer makes pictures rather than takes them.

Before you begin to understand studio lighting you have to think about what lighting is, or even to go back a bit further and think about what photography is!  The word photography is from the Greek and means "Drawing with light" and when we use artificial light we are basically drawing with light but trying to use the light in a way that makes it look natural. This sounds much simpler than it is, but I learned all about it in my class yesterday.

I had my first experience with studio lighting and setting up all the plugs, power packs with 2400 Volts of energy, cords, fill cards, grids, lights, light meters, Cstands, sand bags, soft boxes, sync flashes etc, with a group of three other people. (I was thankful I didn't have to do it alone) It was quite intidimidating, because before now, everything has been set up for me by the Professors at the College and I just take the photograph. It was more fun than I expected though; professional Photography here I come!

It is a lot of work to set up a simple Still Life Photograph, and I don't think most people have any idea! You have to take many things in to consideration, and the slightest movement of a light or camera can drastically change the photo. It took us 3 hours to take about 4 somewhat decent photographs. Lighting is everything- if you get it wrong by even a few inches, everything can look horrible.  Still Life Photography is for the most patient, perfectionistic kind of people. I'm nore sure that it's my style, but it is far more interesting than I thought it would be. It was definetely a good learning experience!

Here's a few of the shots I took:

Take a Photography class, and try something you might not otherwise do. You may surprise yourself.