Behind the Shot: Still-Life by Nick Church Photography
My photography has always been inspired by art and I wanted to use some studio lighting to create an atmospheric still-life.
Many Baroque artists like Caravaggio and later Peale painted still life as a way to develop and demonstrate their skill with lighting, detail and realism, and this is something I wanted to explore with photography.
I wanted to capture a simple scene, lit in a way faithful to those master painters, with a similar atmosphere and texture, albeit in a more contemporary setting.
In this series of articles, I talk through the kit, technique, settings and editing behind the shot.
If you would like more in-depth guidance on lighting and photography, consider our Photography Workshops which are successfully running remotely and at 50% off the standard priced shown.
How I got the shot
All these shots were with my Sony A7Riii and Zeiss Batis 85mm f/1.8 lens.
Step 1: Position
For this sort of shoot I wanted a quick fall-off of light in all directions with no spill. This allows me to isolate the bowl of fruit without any pesky background elements getting in the way. This also meant I did not need to set up a black backdrop!
Step 2: Ambient light
When shooting in a studio, you usually want total control of the light. This means ensuring no ambient light is coming into the shot.
The easiest way to do this is to turn all artificial lighting off and set ISO 100, f8 and then starting with a slow shutter-speed, increase until you have a totally dark photo. Note these settings, as you must not increase exposure or you will let some ambient back in.
For this setup in todays’ light it was about 1/50 second. I was using a tripod and nothing is moving in that fruit bowl, so we’re good to go. As you can see my studio is by no means ‘dark’, but this is one of the great benefits of using strobes rather than continuous in the studio.
Step 3: Light positioning
I wanted to simulate a Vermeer-syle window light coming in from the side and from slightly above. So this is where I placed my main.key light, a Godox AD200 in this case inside a gridded Godox soft box. The grid keeps things directional and controlled. In order to keep the light as soft as possible and because my soft box is quite small, the light was positioned as close to the fruit as possible.
The rim light behind, a Godox/Ving v860ii was used to create some highlights on the fruit. Again, I wanted to control this so I used two honeycomb mag-grids together on the speed light.
Step 4: Test Shot
Lets’ fire off a test shot to just see what’s what.
Too dark for poor old banana
This showed me that the two light setup I had was giving me most of what I wanted. Yes, all a bit dark, but I could adjust that later. But it also showed me it was getting way too dark on the right side of the fruit, particularly on the banana and the pear.
With both Main and Rim lights on the left of the fruit, it’s not surprising that the shadows are a bit deep. I didn’t want to use a reflector as I thought this would kill the contrast and dark atmosphere of the shot.
To the rescue was my trusty ICE Light. This is a continuous ‘wand style’ light source.
With the barn doors attached to the ICE Light (can be seen in the video), I could just pick out the banana and pear, without lifting the atmosphere away from everything else.
Step 5: Banana light (who knew that was a ‘thing’!)
I switched off my Godox X-Pro trigger again so that the only light in the shot was from the ICE Light. Continuous light works totally differently to flashes, so I moved this as close as possible to the fruit and used the barn-doors to avoid hitting anything other than that side of the banana.
Just enough to bring some of the fruit out to total shadow
Step 6: Highlights
Time now to bring in the highlights. There is not real right or wrong order to do set up your Main light and Rim light. But where highlights are very important to the shot, I do like to use see them on their own first. So with the Main light still switched off, I adjusted the position of the v860ii rim-light, and changed the power until I was getting just the right amount without clipping highlights too much. This brings LIFE to a portrait, whether it’s fruit or human!
Just enough to give some ‘life’ to the picture
Step 7: Main Light
Time now to bring in the AD200 main light with just enough power to finish off the shot. I wanted to keep the highlights from being overpowered, and also this style of image (and my style generally) needs nice shadow contrast, so I kept the power quite low.
Step 8: Take the shot!
Just about right: highlights still giving life, shadows giving depth and character
This was looking just about right to me: life, shadow, detail and character all present.
Step 9: The Lightroom Edit
I tend to find that when you spend so long to set up a shot that there is not much work to do in Lightroom, and this was no exception. I applied my general preset which keeps contrast fairly punchy.
I also had to clone out the lights that were all over the shot. Easily done in Lightroom, if it was a more complex job I would have waited until the Photoshop stage
Very pleased with the result
Step 10: The Photoshop Edit
I wanted to add some texture into the shot and give it a more atmospheric look, which naturally needs to be done in something that can deal with layers and masks. This has the effect of pulling the whole image together, and creating a great bit of atmosphere which was what I was aiming for.
The finished result: texture and balance has brought it all together well
That’s it!
If you have any comments, feedback or questions, please comment on this blog.
I hope these steps help you to shoot still life images. If you would like to learn more about still life photography, then check out a complete guide to still life photography tips by Pixpa. This excellent article covers everything from the kit, techniques and approach you need to create your next still-life masterpiece.
Pixpa create a platform which allows creatives and photographers to create beautiful portfolio websites
Nick Church Photography Education
Nick Church Photography runs a programme of education workshops, courses both at my studio facility or online as one-to-one sessions or webinars.
The Studio Lighting and Portrait Master session contains all the techniques shown in this article, as well as much more. More details here: Nick Church Photography Education
Attendees find out how to create stunning portraits with a single light, reflectors or very many lights. You will also learn how to balance, control and sculpt the light to get the stunning shots you want to achieve.
I also run remote workshops on Lightroom & Photoshop to manage, edit and retouch your images to a professional level.
All courses are currently running remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and most are therefore 50% Off the usual price. So whether it’s a new photography skill, some business coaching or using Lightroom or Photoshop then please let me know so I can get you booked in.
Thank you,
Nick Church