About This Course

This course will break down the fundamentals of still life: lighting, composition and styling. A special emphasis will also be on setting up the studio, equipment, and materials needed, and post-production editing. For this project, we will use a cosmetic product as our subject.

This course aims to teach the learner about commercial still life photography. Commercial product photography is a popular genre of photography used for the depiction of inanimate subject. It has gained prominence because of the artistic style that encompasses the still life genre. We will examine the artistic styling used in the colors, as well as, the effect achieved by the dripping liquid, against the contrasting tones of the backdrop. Follow through each video lecture and learn with me as I work through the entire process. Remember to pause and reflect on what is being taught, we encourage you to take notes and ask questions. Good luck!

Curriculum Summary

The course is split up into 5 main categories. Each category will focus on a specific part of still life photography. The 5 parts that make up this course are, namely: concept, styling, lighting, photography, and post-production. During the concept stage, the instructor will be introduced, the product will be identified and the materials and design will be decided upon. In styling, we will break down the studio and how you should arrange our workspace. For lighting, all equipment requirements will be listed, and how to set up and achieve optimal lighting for the shoot. In the photography stage, we will focus on the gear needed, what settings are recommended and how to go about shooting the set-up and scene.  Finally, in post-production, we will create a workflow for our editing software, review the images, and create the final product that will be added to our portfolio.

Learning Outcomes

•  Use a variety of brainstorming techniques to generate novel ideas to achieve still life images that are of value and appeal for your clients. 

•  Incorporate the principles of your still life photography into the conceptualization and development of effective images.

•  Plan and execute the creation of still life photographic imagery following an iterative process of research, ideation, visualization, analysis, production, and evaluation.

•  Identify types of light, lenses, aperture settings, composition techniques and various digital image-editing methods (Photoshop and Lightroom).

•  Describe different qualities of light (intensity, color, contrast, direction, and diffusion). Use aperture and lighting to achieve different still life photography outcomes.