Still life photography skills in daily life

Lead: As a still life photographer, the process of shooting still life is a pleasure. From contact, observation, placement and shooting, I am like a powerful director, and I will execute every step carefully, for fear that I will miss one of my highlights if I am not careful. Let's take a look at the skills of shooting still life.

Still life photography skills in daily life In terms of equipment, I use EOS 750D. Although this is only an entry-level SLR, the shooting ability of this model is remarkable in the process of still life shooting. In particular, EOS 750D has the function of Wi-Fi and NFC near-field communication. I can connect the camera through my mobile phone and use it as a cable, which is very convenient for shooting. Next, I will share my experience in shooting still life photography from four aspects: the layout of the picture, the collocation of colors, the choice of light source and the control of depth of field. I also hope that I can help you to make the seemingly inconspicuous daily necessities in our daily life full of style.

Reasonable picture layout

Every object has its own characteristics of existence. Before picking up the camera, we can carefully observe the object to be photographed in front of us, from appearance to essence. In this way, the layout of the picture can be determined according to the gas field of the still life itself. After preparing the related auxiliary props, you can begin to conceive the collocation details of the picture. Collocation and the placement of subject and object are also very important, which need to follow certain linear laws. There are several layout methods commonly used in daily still life shooting: point structure, and? s？ T-shaped structure, parallel line structure, cross line structure, open structure and so on. These composition methods basically follow the golden section method, which divides the front and back pictures in a reasonable proportion, so that the contents of the pictures are rich and not messy, highlighting the main body.

The arrangement lines of two wooden plates and two wine bottles form a cross line. This is what we mentioned above? Crossed line structure? . The foreground and background of the picture are orderly, and a multi-element picture still maintains a neat overall sense.

This one, on the other hand, adopts the structure of point, line and surface. The strip bread and knife and fork form cross lines, including the main course plate, which skillfully becomes the visual center.

Clever collocation of colors

When you design the color of a photo, it's like playing a game. Interesting and exciting, use your head more. Depending on the careful observation of the still life itself, the color and tone of the picture can be easily determined. Color matching can be divided into two categories: contrast color and tone of the same color. You can choose to make the colors contrast sharply and make everything look full of temperament; You can also make the colors even. Maybe you can create a spotless picture.

Contrast tones make the picture full of vitality. The photo above follows a contrasting color. Red tomatoes are piled on fresh green vegetables. The collision between red and green is full of vitality. Does it increase your appetite at the sight? The contrast tone with such a clear motive makes the picture very tasty. Let's take a look at the effect of unified color map.

The same color system makes the picture harmonious and unified. Look at the schematic above. White and blue colors almost occupy the whole picture, and the color of the picture is harmonious and unified, fresh and concise. See the color card for the same color scheme. A picture can be configured with 2-3 similar colors. However, it should be noted that the color saturation of matching is lower than that of the main object, because the color with too high saturation is easy to stand out in the picture, so don't steal the limelight of the main object when matching props.

Rational use of light source

Light is very important for a good photo. Whether you use indoor light sources or indoor light sources, the softness, intensity and orientation of light, as well as the control of the light ratio of main light and auxiliary light, all need your careful planning. From the broad category of light sources, it can be divided into hard wide light sources and soft light sources. Hard light source can create a picture with strong light contrast, which makes the outline of still life clear and the contrast between light and dark parts of the picture obvious; Soft light source is very delicate, which can make the light and dark sides of the object perfectly combined to show, and the picture is softer. When using this light source, the reflector can be used to reduce the light ratio. What kind of light source to use should also be treated differently according to the object being photographed.

In the above picture, the bowl lamp is placed on the front light level, which can create a hard light source. Hard light has strong plasticity, and the bamboo curtain is placed in front of the light source, which changes the shape of light. You can also make some other shapes by hand, like windows? Ten? Glyph is also commonly used in lighting modeling. Also note that the angle of the light source should be low enough to drag out a long shadow. Then, if it is soft light with weak contrast, what effect will it have on the picture?

This photo was taken in natural light, and the window is on the left. Around 3-4 pm, the sunshine is very soft and enters the room obliquely, which is very suitable for taking pictures in natural light. The reflector is used to supplement the light of the still life, so that the contrast of the light will not be too large, thus obtaining a high-profile picture with small contrast. This soft light source makes the whole picture look soft and quiet.

Accurate depth of field control

By controlling the depth of field reasonably, you can take good photos with different key points. Depth of field is controlled by focal length, aperture value and object distance. In still life shooting, the scene is deep and the blur effect is obvious, so it is more appropriate to control the depth of field. Using a telephoto lens or a large aperture can get a picture with a shallow depth of field, or adjust the actual distance between the foreground or the foreground and the clear focal section to create blur. This can be based on the scene light source and the actual object size to determine what means you use to get a shallow depth of field picture.

The lovely pink angel-shaped still life in the above picture is a mobile power supply, and I have created a secret environment for it. The large aperture of f3.2 is chosen to blur the flowers in the background. Full background flowers will not rob the existence of the main object at all, so the shallow depth of field makes the main object stand out. If you look carefully, you can see that there are two fuzzy green squares on the left and right sides of the picture, which is the jungle feeling that I put in front of the camera. Because these two leaves are farther away from the clear range of the main object, the blur is more obvious, that is, the distance between objects is used to blur.

Let's take a look at this food map again. We shot it with telephoto, because the food is small in size and the telephoto composition range is small, which will not cause distortion. At the same time, the shallow depth of field highlights the sensuality of food well, and also blurs the distant food, especially the main object.

Still life photography is a kind of photography that can relax the body and mind, and it is relatively easy to complete. The experience of still life photography is shared here. In fact, no matter how many skills, it is better to pick up the camera and shoot it yourself, and explore the fun of photography during shooting. I still hope everyone can watch carefully, shoot more and improve their shooting ability faster.