Still-life photography: Sometimes less is better
“A picture’s wroth a thousand words.”
It’s a phrase I’ve heard plenty of times before, but it never truly resonated with me until this past week.
As a journalist, my job is to report the facts and tell a story. After doing some research, I realized just how important photos are for the story.
I’d be lying if I said I knew what still-life photography was before my multimedia storytelling class, and how much it matters.
The first few things people see when they want to click on a story are the photo and the headline.
These set you up for how much attention your story will get and if someone will want to read your story.
After watching videos and scrolling through different still-life photographers’ Instagrams, I kept wanting to return to one in particular.
His name is Marcel Christ, and his Instagram is @marcelchrist_photographer.
What really piqued my interest in him is that I can look at his photos and really understand what message he is trying to convey just by the picture.
Understanding the big picture is really hard for some people, but I believe Christ does a good job with this.
“Sometimes, less is better.”
I was scrolling through his Instagram feed and was just amazed by what he was able to do.
For example, one picture I fell in love with was a coffee cup that he tipped over and he really captured the whole picture with elegance.
It’s not just the coffee cup that matters. It’s the fact that he transformed it into something that not many people would think of.
This photo can mean a lot more than people think.
It could mean someone was late for work because they had a bad day and were rushing to get their kids to school.
It could mean that they’re clumsy like me and just spilled coffee.
I plan to emulate this is when I go out by trying to capture simple photos and make them into something great.
I will not do too much or stress. I will just do what a good still-life photographer does: Keep it straightforward, and know what you want to capture.
There’s a whole lot that I learned this week, but the most important thing was to focus on the minor things to help you create something greater and think outside of the box.
Sometimes the simplest things you never thought that could tell a story make the best pictures for your story.
Challenge yourself and go take that picture of your flowers outside your house and see what you get out of it.
