Still-Life Images, 2012

[polyglot]

Hi all. I never did "get" still life, never really saw the point until I found a couple of photos on LFPF that inspired me to have a try. Therefore, seeking your honest critiques on the following...

First of all, something a bit safe:


More interestingly, I got to spend a couple hours in my grandmother's abandoned house (she died about 2.5 years ago); found a few things that haven't been claimed yet.
The Cards:

Watching Over:



(all shots are Toyo 45A, 150mm, Fomapan 100, EI50, D76 1+1/Jobo).

[theBDT]

Hi all. I never did "get" still life, never really saw the point until I found a couple of photos on LFPF that inspired me to have a try. Therefore, seeking your honest critiques on the following...
...

The first one is the strongest "as-is" in my opinion. The last one has the best concept, but I'm not feeling your composition. I don't have much of an opinion one way or another about the middle one.

[Ramiro Elena]

The first one is the strongest "as-is" in my opinion. The last one has the best concept, but I'm not feeling your composition. I don't have much of an opinion one way or another about the middle one.

I agree. Nice detail and composition in the first. Good dof too. I would have tried to make the bottle vertical perhaps... but that's just personal.
The other two could make a very interesting project, not sure I see it in large format. Maybe 120. Just saying... talking...

[polyglot]

Thanks. I agree that the first one is most visually compelling (I actually had some lighting to apply) but IMHO it suffers from the "but why bother" problem I have with most still life. I'll be going back to the house soon; see if I can get something better next time.

[cjbroadbent]

... it suffers from the "but why bother" problem I have with most still life....

There's not much 'as-is' landscape photography. It takes time to get the camera into the right place at the right time.
Likewise for 'as-is' still-life photography. It takes time to get the stuff into the right place.
I'm not alone in believing that photography requires a pretty strong feeling of intention (or bother). The light must feel right, the structure must feel right even if the intention is hidden, and the idea must show through. Your grandmother shots sprang to life only when I read the text and the intention. That shouldn't be necessary.
And I'm sure that if you fought with the whisky shot for an hour or so you could get some light and structure into the thing and turn it from an as-is into an as-you-would hope-to find-it. Not much different from walking an hour up the hills for a landscape.
I often do preliminary digiroids because if the shot doesn't look so good on digi, it is not going to look any better on large format.

[Christo.Stankulov]

320TXP@640 asa, HC110 D, Fujinon/Sinar

[mdm]

5x7 Delta 100 in Pyrocat M 2:2:100, 21cm Heliar @f16

[mdm]

5x7 Delta 100, Pyrocat M 2:2:100, 240mm Ronar

[jcoldslabs]

Morning Tea. Polaroid 665 P/N film (expired).



____________________________________________________

Jonathan

[SergeiR]

4x5 Efke 50, 150mm/5.6 Xenar, Rodinal 1+100 (finally forced myself to try it with Jobo),

Its all about luck by Sergei Rodionov, on Flickr