While the concept of “Still Life” is more often than not associated with painting or other more manual art forms, there is still quite a lot of benefit when it comes to using “Still Life” as a style of photography. In fact, still life photos have a lot of benefits that many other styles of photos do not have and perhaps most importantly teach you plenty of photography fundamentals in an easy to understand way. Especially when you are just starting out on your photography journey, working on still life photos is so important and a must for anyone serious about taking their photography game to the next level.

For those of you who don’t know, still life photos are simply photos that are taken of a collection of small, inanimate objects. If you have heard of still life art before, then you probably know that most common subject for this style of artwork are fruit (specifically bowls of fruit). There are a couple of reasons for this. First off, the fruit themselves are fairly easy to get your hands on. But more importantly, the general shape and color of fruit along with the bowls that such fruit would be sitting in are the perfect shape for still life artwork. The round shape is typically very photogenic and creates a very elegant looking photo (or painting, or whatever the case may be) and because you have options to choose from, you can always get a great combination of colors, not just from the fruits themselves, but also from the bowls.

Having said all that though, keep in mind that still life photography does not need to involve fruit at all. You can use any sort of arrangement of inanimate objects such as a lamp sitting on a desk with a paper weight sitting on a stack of papers. The key here is getting a variety of elements all combined into a single shot. In fact, you can even incorporate nature into your still life photos – this would be an example of found still life, in which you encounter the shot naturally (typically out in nature).

To start making still life photos of your own, there are a couple of key decisions you need to make in terms of what you will be capturing for your shot. The first is probably to determine what your subject matter will be. You will also need to think about how it will be arranged on your “canvas” including whether to use a bowl or other object to bring everything together, along with specifics on that object (size, color, shape, etc.). And the last thing you’ll need to think about is the background that you intend to use.

Once you’ve got all your elements together, the next step will be arranging it onto your backdrop. You should always be thinking about how the photo will look not only from a shape, color and size standpoint, but also from a lighting standpoint. If necessary, you can even use artificial lighting to help create beautiful shadows to accentuate different parts of your still life photo.

And the last step is to take your photo. However, when just starting out, the truth of the matter is that you can, and should, be taking many photos of your subject, constantly changing the composition itself, as well as the lighting surrounding it and what angle you take your photo from. This you see, is where the learning really comes into play. Because still life photos are often your own creation, from the subject all the way to every last detail, this allows for you to try all sorts of different techniques to see what works and what doesn’t. For example, you may realize that two colors do not go well together and ruin the shot. Or simply that a particular object is taking up too much space in the “canvas” and should therefore be moved behind another object more or even removed and replaced entirely.

In other words, by being able to control what you photograph and quickly and easily see how it changes the look and feel of the photograph, you simply become better and better at shooting still life photographs over time. And the best part about it is that the knowledge and techniques you learn directly apply to all other forms of photography. This is why I literally always recommend still life photography to beginners. It is an absolutely simple way to really learn the art of photography.