Requirements and skills of still life shooting and composition

Lead: Still life shooting and composition are also very skillful, so what skills should be paid attention to? The following are the requirements and skills of still life shooting and composition I prepared for you, hoping to help you!

Choice of theme

For the choice of subject matter, what kind of photos to take depends entirely on your own interests. But don't think that you must shoot fruits or flowers like others, and you can choose your subjects openly. For example, jewelry and colored stones, which are popular in the market now, are common decorations. They are smaller and have many styles. It is also a good choice to start with them.

When shooting jewelry such as silver bracelets, you can use a large aperture to scatter the background and present a small aperture to add beauty to the picture.

For ornaments with national style, you can match an old cosmetic box to make the picture show a sense of nostalgia.

These ordinary colored stones have their own unique colors and textures after being magnified by a SLR camera. Is it interesting to observe them carefully?

Show what you want to say to your beloved him (her) through the above shooting method ~

Shooting these small objects requires close-range photography, so the equipment used should be considered from the perspective of close-range photography. Therefore, for the choice of lens, I suggest using a medium telephoto lens or a macro lens. When using a medium telephoto lens, the closest focusing distance between the lens and the subject can be slightly larger, which is more convenient for light distribution. However, if the details of the shooting picture are required, you should choose macro lens to shoot.

Correct use of background

Choosing a good background plays a very important role in creating a successful work. For still life shooting, it is best to choose a simple and beautiful background, which will not have a great impact on your subject. Plain wall is a good choice.

The white background wall makes the whole picture look simple and generous.

If you want to make the picture look richer and fuller, you might as well find some backgrounds with matching colors or backgrounds with great contrast.

The harmonious combination of vicissitudes of background wall and foreground makes the picture look fuller.

For shooting silver ornaments such as rings, you can choose a bright background with large color contrast, which can highlight the texture of silver ornaments and make the picture look less monotonous.

For some small objects, it may not be necessary to use the background. We can use the substrate instead. For example, black velvet is a good choice, because it can absorb light and make the substrate look pure black.

composition

For still life shooting, there is no limit to the number of theme elements. So composition is particularly important. Before shooting, we should fully consider how to make our work achieve the best combination of various elements, which can not only make the picture look full, but also grasp the visual focus of the audience and not make the picture look messy. Below, the author will introduce several commonly used composition techniques for still life shooting.

1. Three-point synthesis method

Three-point composition is the most basic and safest composition method in photography. Divide the top, bottom, left and right of the picture into three equal parts, and their four bisectors intersect into four points, which is called the interesting center point, which is the best place to arrange works.

Triangular composition is often used in photography.

2. Dispersed composition

For shooting non-single objects, scattered point composition is the most commonly used composition method in still life photography. Random composition is a kind of free and loose composition structure, covering the whole picture without deliberately highlighting an object. Organize the pictures according to density or hue, so that the chaotic pictures are placed in order. This way of composition can give full play to the photographer's creative space, but friends have to work hard to make the picture look too messy.

When using the scattered point composition method, remember not to pile things together, which will make the picture look out of proportion.

3. Diagonal composition

Diagonal composition is a composition with the greatest visual impact and the strongest sense of movement. If you choose it properly, the effect will be good.

4. Triangle composition

Triangular composition is usually a triangular whole composed of three themes with the same nature. Because the three sides of a triangle are composed of straight lines in different directions, different straight lines form different forms of triangles, and different trends and changes will bring different feelings to people.

Triangular composition shooting can make the primary and secondary pictures clear and dense.

5. Contrast composition

Contrast is a form of composition, and the polarization of contrast is widely used in photography, such as color contrast, texture contrast, size contrast, dark contrast and so on. But this composition method is also the most difficult to deal with, and most of the works that can successfully use comparative composition are extraordinary. Friends who have a certain photography foundation may wish to try more.

Solid grapes are in contrast to transparent utensils, and the smooth material of glass is in contrast to the folds of the base fabric.

The metal mirror with smooth surface is in sharp contrast with the wooden board full of texture. Isn't this kind of shooting more interesting?

The use of light

The main performance of still life photography is to highlight the texture of objects. To show it, except some props, the key lies in the use of light. The light commonly used in still life photography includes direct light, soft light, side light and top light.

1. the application of soft light

Soft light is often used in still life shooting. It is not limited to shooting a certain kind of objects, as long as you want your image to show a hazy and soft artistic conception, you can use this lighting method.

Soft light mask will be used for soft light shooting.

2. Use of direct light

Direct light is suitable for representing some hard objects, which will give viewers a clear and powerful feeling.

Direct light can show the metallic texture of hard objects.

3. Indirect explanation

Front light is generally used as auxiliary light, because it is not conducive to expressing the three-dimensional sense of objects. Side light has a good three-dimensional effect, and it is also the most suitable for expressing the texture of objects. Therefore, sidelight is the most commonly used in still photography.

Porcelain should be shot mainly with positive light, soft light and refracted light should be used at the same time, the corners of the bottle mouth should be kept high, and the reflection should be minimized where there are patterns.

Step 4: dome light

The direction of the top light and sunlight is the most similar, so this light distribution method can imitate the effect of sunlight projection and make the photo have a high light sense. Many works use this light as the main light.

In the impression of many photographers, the more complicated the light, the better, and they like to shine all the light on the subject. In fact, this is wrong, because it can't reflect the layering of light, but it will leave a messy feeling.

Finally, the author reminds everyone that not only the lighting should be reasonable, but also the order of using light is very important. First, we should focus on the position of the main light, and then use the auxiliary light to adjust the contrast of the main light on the screen, highlight the level of the theme and control the projection.

Tone and emotion

An excellent photographic work not only records the truth, but more importantly, it can make the viewer feel the emotion it wants to express. Tone is the protagonist of expressing emotions. Good photography can usually convey emotions to the viewer.

Still life photography often creates different colors and expresses different emotions from the choice of props, colors, lighting layout and background. Sometimes a tone has a little contrast, just like inserting a pleasant high note into soft music, which is particularly refreshing. This technique is often used to express the theme in still life photography.

Making full use of color is my favorite way of photography. Pay attention to the color of elements, thus adding color to the picture and creating artistic conception. A good photo must give the viewer room for imagination. For example, the high-heeled shoes in the above picture remind me of a woman, whose casual posture seems like a sexy stunner, sitting lazily on the beloved rose throne, waiting for the dream lover to undress for it. Leng Yan's noble feeling highlighted in the whole picture is self-evident. Warm tones are also common tones in still life shooting. Its soft color temperature will give people a feeling of wanting to be close, and it is usually used to shoot nostalgic images. For example, the picture above is a copper pocket watch, a leather notebook, a small iron object, and a freely curled drawing. The whole picture with warm colors is like showing a corner of the study of the rich in the United States in the 1920s.

Photographic skill book

Photography social space

Zheng Gu

The theme of "Photography Social Space" is "Photography Social Space". The four articles (including a translation) included in this small series attempt to make an interdisciplinary investigation on this subject from different angles and disciplines. This effort also includes an attempt to investigate the social practice of photography in an interdisciplinary way. For example, the article "The Function of Images: Images as an Expression and the Possibility of Intervening in Urban Renewal" included in "Photographic Social Space" was written by Ms. Vagrancy, a young sociologist.

Although this book is very theoretical, there is no lack of attention to excellent photographers. The interviews with two photographers, Zhu Hao and Angle Luo, published in this book will certainly stimulate people who are as keen on photography theory as "brainstorming". Feng Yuan's prose and Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama's prose also add a lot of color to this book. Of course, information is also the direction of the editor-in-chief of this book, which is reflected in book reviews and critical reports. The column "Ferry of Ideas" is an independent translation of the classic texts of photographic culture research, and can also be recognized in the broad vision of overseas information.

Visual culture reader

Luogang

In the era of efficiency, vision transcends hearing, and images dominate words. The real-time (live) transmission of images in electronic media has unparalleled advantages and temptations. All the media that provide viewing information, such as movies, TV, drama, photography, painting, fashion, advertising, image design, network audio-visual and so on, are all included in the category of "visual culture", and all kinds of images are constructing the communication system of visual cultural symbols. "Visual culture" seems to have evolved into a complex and messy concept. In the preface of this book, editor Luo Gang standardized the concept of "visual culture" and distinguished it from the so-called "visual art". He believes that "there is an important difference between visual culture and visual art, that is, visual culture has changed the place where people watch images." Visual culture draws people's attention away from well-structured formal viewing places (such as cinemas and art galleries) and leads to the center of visual experience in daily life. "

As IritRogoff pointed out, a painting we notice may come from the cover of a book or an advertisement; Watching TV is a part of family life, not just the individual behavior of the viewer; We can watch movies on videotape, plane or cable TV, just like watching movies in traditional cinemas. Just as cultural studies try to understand the way people create meaning in mass cultural consumption, visual culture first studies the visual experience of people's daily life. In the process of watching, people can also see the classics, but the image classics are given a completely different meaning at this time. Therefore, the arrival of the so-called "picture-reading era" means that diversified visual research has not only entered people's daily life, but also changed the whole social structure. This requires researchers to have new awareness of problems and methods.

"Visual culture research" just provides an opportunity to establish such a new theoretical field, while "visual culture reader" shows the possibilities and achievements of various studies. There is no doubt that both the photography technology emphasized in Benjamin's era and the rapidly developing network technology today are the technical platforms on which "visual culture" depends. With the development of modern communication technology, image technology and electronic information technology are gradually flourishing, and "virtual space" is involved in real space, and "visual culture" has an increasing influence on people's daily life. Live television has changed the way movies are recorded in the past, and at the same time, it shows what happened in the distance. More importantly, it also means that the subject will see, listen and perceive the life world more nervously and effectively. The whole world appears remotely in an instant, and the fantasy about this world spreads rapidly without restriction. In the chapter of "Seeing and the Methods of Daily Life", it analyzes how visual culture enters our daily life, and time and space seem to merge together under the influence of technology.

Modern culture is increasingly turning to vision as the center, and the arrival of the era of visual culture marks the transformation and formation of a cultural form. The articles in Visual Culture Reader are responding to this trend. They "see" the world through the eyes of "visual culture", instead of simply treating culture as an ideological thing reflected by reality, they play a dynamic role in the process of constructing the material world as the main way to form and change reality.

Selected works of western photographic literature

Zheng Gu

From the beginning, the preset object of Selected Works of Western Photographic Literature (revised edition) is not "people engaged in theory" as the main object, but teachers and students engaged in and receiving higher photography education and photographers as the main readers. On the other hand, photography and photography education in China are always practical-oriented, blindly emphasizing practical skills and ignoring theory, which is one of the reasons why we don't attach importance to "theory" now. Of course, there are inevitable difficulties, such as the shortage of "theoretical" talents, but this does not mean that these people are not interested in theory. The only problem is that up to now, we don't have a good anthology that can make people feel that they can afford the literary theory of Photography.

Although this book is one of the professional series textbooks of the School of Photography of Beijing Film Academy, its reader orientation is not limited to "from an ordinary class". The excerpts of this book cover a wide range of contents, from the historical prose of professional academic masters to the relaxed and humorous writing of great photographers like Bresson, which is worth studying. /kloc-in the 9th century, photography was born with the technological change, and with the urbanization and civilization of western society, the theoretical system of photography was born. Therefore, as an overview of western theories, this book is a must-read in the industry.