I have a passion for still lifes! They certainly are tougher then they look. Good ones look effortless. Some have suggested that they want them to look like they just happened rather than were carefully arranged.

This shot was a response after seeing the beautiful window light in one of Amy Weiss’s fantastic images.

I built this shot up with a fake background wall made of rough pine boards. The “table” is the back of an old clock. Then the wire basket with apples and the rustic plates with main apples in the front. The “hero” apples are placed in one of the golden intersections of the rule of thirds. The apples were place to reflect light in a certain way. Also I studied some old master’s paintings and noticed how much more interesting the bottom of the apple can be. Many of the paintings I checked out showed the bottom of the apple.

I think the little extra details like the dried leaves and the rough edges of the plates are what give something like this a bit of umph. Also the three largest apples form a triangle with move the viewers eye around in that bottom left region.

I used a studio light. Small softbox directly from the left. I blocked out some of the light towards the back to keep the background darker. Poster board on the right to bounce some fill light back in.

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