Story Book Still Life:
One of my favorite things to do as a child was read books. I have always has an interest in reading about different events, real or fictional. I wanted to take in as much knowledge and information as possible. As I got older I fell in love with vintage objects, because each object has a history. I decided to combine my love of books with my love of vintage items, by photographing still lives of my favorite classic novels: Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Nancy Drew, and The Wizard of OZ. I want each photograph to capture specific elements of the book, as a way to make the book come to life.
The "Where I began" photos I used a digital camera, and experimented with setting up still lives at home. I am interested in still lives because they are very simple and elegant. These photos where a great start to my concentration. My next step was to use the studio light and photograph the still lives in a professional setting. I used the prime lens for those photos, which created a dreamy affect. However, I wanted to take the idea even further, as much as I liked these photos I felt something was missing. The black background was too harsh and I needed something to enhance the photos. I decided to gather more objects and find pattern backgrounds to make them more visually interesting. When photographing the pattern background images it was difficult to capture certain objects I had to change the angle and lighting. The Wizard of OZ photo was definitely the most challenging because the shoes are horizontal so instead of capturing the image vertical I had to rearrange all the objects to fit in a horizontal image. Also, because the shoes were silver the light was reflecting off go of them and make the image blurry so it took some time to get the lighting perfect.
The "Where I began" photos I used a digital camera, and experimented with setting up still lives at home. I am interested in still lives because they are very simple and elegant. These photos where a great start to my concentration. My next step was to use the studio light and photograph the still lives in a professional setting. I used the prime lens for those photos, which created a dreamy affect. However, I wanted to take the idea even further, as much as I liked these photos I felt something was missing. The black background was too harsh and I needed something to enhance the photos. I decided to gather more objects and find pattern backgrounds to make them more visually interesting. When photographing the pattern background images it was difficult to capture certain objects I had to change the angle and lighting. The Wizard of OZ photo was definitely the most challenging because the shoes are horizontal so instead of capturing the image vertical I had to rearrange all the objects to fit in a horizontal image. Also, because the shoes were silver the light was reflecting off go of them and make the image blurry so it took some time to get the lighting perfect.
Where I began...
Next Step...
Where I am now...
Continue on...
I would take more time to photograph more books and gather more items to add to the still life series for example A Tale of Two Cities was my next novel.Eventually, I would like to take the books into the real world, recreating different scenes from the book, adding a modern spin, or recreate a book character with the 21st century, creating a transition from vintage to modern photos.