“Still life” works of art portray typically inanimate objects, highlighting their shape, composition, texture, quality, and color. It showcases commonplace objects both natural and man-made, from flora and fauna to coins, vases and instruments.

Edward Weston was an American photographer whose radical approach to composition, lighting, and form changed the history of the medium. The photographs Shell (1927), and Pepper No. 30 (1930), shows Weston’s ability to transform landscapes, portraits, and still lifes into visual enigmas. “The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh,” the artist once stated.

• Still life photography is a genre of photography used for the depiction of inanimate subject matter, typically a small group of objects. It is the application of photography to the still life artistic style. An example is food photography.
• This genre gives the photographer more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within a composition compared to other photographic genres, such as landscape or portrait photography. Lighting and framing are important aspects of still life photography composition.
• Popular still life images include groups of flowers, food, and desk space, but still life photography is not limited to those 3 categories. Typically, still life’s are not close up to the subject nor far away, but at a very medium angle. The art in still life photography is often in the choice of objects that are being arranged and the lighting rather than the skill of the photographer.

Examples of Contemporary Still Life Photography