Finding flavor in still-life candy art
I’m a sucker for sweets, whether it be ice cream or candy. Obviously they’re appetizing, but they’re also fascinating.
We were challenged to take still-life photographs with our mobile phones this week in #LUComm197. I had the idea of gathering candy and creating something beautiful out of the colors and textures. I was originally inspired by @byrobinblair. She uses still-life photography to market her candy art. If we’re being totally honest, the design intrigued me more than the photos.
Turns out, candy is expensive and unhealthy! I had to switch gears, but I didn’t want to lose the bright and fun nature of sweets.
I researched more using the #stilllifephotography hashtag and found Colors Collective (@colorscollective). I had the same feeling of “bright yummy summer fun” when exploring this account as I did with @byrobinblair.
This Brooklyn based design and photo studio employs many of the skills we learned about photography in class. The lighting is always bright, the background is always clean and the objects are ordinary but intriguing.
It was cool to go behind the scenes on their Instagram to see how they made some of their photos. One of their stories shows reels of solid-colored backgrounds — vibrant ones, pastel ones and black ones. It inspired me to find a vibrant color myself, and there was no better place to do that than my lawn’s highly saturated green grass.
I like how focused on details Colors Collective is. If they were doing work for clients, they really understood how to find the best aspects of the product and highlight them in their photos. I was drawn to the detail for their clients @fancysprinkles.
For my project, I planned to emulate Colors Collective’s designs by focusing on the details of my objects. Yellow-orange and blue are opposing colors on the color wheel, so the fruits I chose were an intentional choice to show contrast. The bed of blueberries made a nice pattern by itself, but I made sure to dice the mangos as symmetrically as possible to create leading lines.
I thought the green texture of the grass made for a perfect background and highlighted the simplicity of my objects. Also, the asymmetrical white bowl looked crisp and classic.
I adjusted the brightness and brilliance to highlight the details of the fruit and headed to Instagram. I have a personal account (@cicicoffey) and will begin to use @carolinelcoffey for more digital content.
From my research and playing with my own ideas, I think I completed my goal of achieving @byrobinblair’s “kid in a candy store” nature and @colorscollective’s simplicity and attention to detail.
