Hi Felipe,

This is a great photo, and a worthy shot to aspire to.

It is a classic "bowl of fruit" still life, and was probably shot in a home studio type setup, but possibly using an open window as a light source.

The first thing you need to realise about this image is that it has been altered in photoshop (or a similar image editing program).

The give-away is at the base of the bowl, where the shadow that falls on the background seems to be deeper and darker than the shadow on the bowl.

This is not important, however, and you can create the same, if not better shot, without any manipulation.

What makes this shot work is that all the elements seem to "fit". Everything, from the pears, to the bowl, to the backdrop has the same "feel" or atmosphere.

This is an important consideration when doing still life shots, and you need to give the overall effect a lot of thought.

Now, to answer your question: How I would do this shot.

First, I would set up inside my house near an open window, where a lot of light comes streaming through the window. Not in the direct light, mind, but rather just in the shade so that the light does not cause any big shadows. (see the article on hard and soft light in the basic photography section).

The arrange your objects to your hearts content. If you have a tripod, place your camera on it so that you can periodically check how the composition is coming along.

Your lens should not be too wide, perhaps just a little longer than normal, say about 80mm or 105mm on a 35mm sized sensor (which is about 50mm - 70mm on your D40 Felipe). This avoids the problem of exagerated perspective that is created by using short lenses. (We are planning an article explaining perspective, so watch this space).

Finally, the sepia effect was probably created by first removing all the color from the image in an image manipulation program such as photoshop or gimp, and then adding the sepia toned color to create the final effect.

That all being said, there are always many ways to skin a cat, and you can achieve the same result in a number of different ways, so if anyone wants to give their ideas, I'd be glad to hear them.

Have a look at our still life article for more tips.

Thanks a lot for your advice, I did some tests at home and I am pretty pleased with the images I took, I will play with The Gimp and try to give it some effects, I'll post what I do.

I have actually read some about perspective with the lenses, so I have a very basic idea of what you mean, I will be looking forward to your tutorial.

I did get some hard lights in the borders, but I will try to fix it with the editing tool.

As soon as I skin this cat I will let you know.

Thanks a lot!!

Hi Felipe,

How did you get on?

We'd love to see your efforts with Still life photography, as it is, in my opinion, one of the purest forms of fine art photography.

Show us some pics please.

Ps. for those readers who don't know about Gimp, have a look at our review of the free image editing software.

After playing a lot with different settings and reading a lot about different effects in image post processing this is where I am at the moment.

I do not like the background, I will try to do it again and get a less distracting one, I will also play more with the angle, I have several pictures, but this is the one I liked the most.

I do like the way the natural color of the wood came up, I like the contrast that can be achieved with this effect (curves)

This is not by far an imitation of the image I posted before, it is just what I have done so far.

Thanks a lot for your help.

http://www.illustratedphotography.com/v/users/feloescoto/tazon.jpg.html

Image Type: jpeg (The JPEG image format)
Width: 1800 pixels
Height: 1197 pixels
Camera Brand: NIKON CORPORATION
Camera Model: NIKON D40
Date Taken: 2008:06:21 09:35:52
Exposure Time: 1/79 sec.
ISO Speed Rating: 400
Flash Fired: Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode.
Metering Mode: Pattern
Exposure Program: Not defined
Focal Length: 55.0 mm
Software: GIMP 2.4.5

Good effort Felipe,

Not bad for a start. The great thing about still life, though, is that you can go back over and over and do it again until you get a perfect result.

If you do decide to shoot it again, you may want to use a little more depth of field (ie use a larger f-number). This will give you a little more focus in the foreground area. You will need pretty bright light though.

A slightly higher point of view will also be nice as it will allow you to see more of what is inside the bowl, and less of the bowl itself.

But like I said, a good effort overall.

Yes, I like that too about still life, I have some more pictures from this session, what I liked the most was the practice that I did, it was excellent and I hope to do it again.

I see what you mean about a higher point of view, I do have some pictures like that, but I did not like the way they came out.

Thanks a lot for your help, we'll keep on posting my advances.

Regards,
Felipe