Anyone who has had any exposure to still life photography or studio work will know just how expensive backdrops can be. I have a couple from Kate Backdrops company, one of which I use very often, but I've been hankering after a few more.
Did you ever dive into an I Spy book as a kid? These photo books were filled with incredibly detailed images that showed tens, sometimes hundreds of objects in a single shot, and challenged children to find specific items within those pictures. And each illustration was captured using real objects by photographer Walter Wick.
Unlike with most genres of photography, still life requires two levels of composition: composing your frame, and composing your props. The latter is commonly called photo styling, and this short video offers three simple tips for upping your photo styling game.
These water glass photos are not created in Photoshop. In fact, all photographer Alexandre Watanabe needed to shoot these striking shots was water, two colored plastic sheets, and a little bit of refraction.
Photographer Greg Stroube of the Bruton Stroube studio recently had a little bit of fun photographing cocktails. The still life series, called Classic Cocktails, imagines how the great master painters of the past might have painted the classic cocktails of today.
Photographer Neal Grundy knows how to mix multiple elements to create stunning abstract work, and his recent personal project titled simply Flowers and Paint is just that. By mixing two still life staples together, he creates something eerily beautiful.
For the most part, Dutch photographer Arjan Benning specializes in still life photography. Crafting strange scenes for advertising agencies, museums, magazines and cultural institutions worldwide, he tries to walk "the fine line between authenticity and amazement."
His series Ice Age does this by juxtaposing white, domestic, cluttered scenes -- which in and of themselves are sometimes quite strange -- with a touch of color.