SHOOTING STILL LIFE WITH INEXPENSIVE GEAR
SUMMER SCHOOL 2019, CLASS ONESUMMER SCHOOL 2019 CLASS ONE
SHOOTING STILL LIFE WITH INEXPENSIVE GEAR
Class by Barbara Sherman, Flagstaff, Arizona
I don’t own much equipment and no studio so my images are often made by a window in the corner of my bedroom using white and black boards, pieces of reflective paper and anything I can put together for a background and sometimes a single speedlite.

I first set up my background board in front of the window so light was coming over the top and around the sides.(It’s an old fence section cut down to a small size and rubbed with chalk).

For this photo, I wanted to have “sparkly” water while lighting the fruit so added a speedlite bouncing off a white wall and back through a diffuser to the left side. A piece of black construction paper was clamped onto the diffuser to flag the light on the left side of the glass so the highlight would be the size I liked. To add some contrast and eliminate reflections on the right side of the glass, I placed a small black card on the right side of the water jug. Notice the jar is sitting on a large beer mug turned upside down so the spigot is at the right height …Staying cheap here!

I shoot alone most of the time and have found a wireless remote set to a 3-second delay works great. Get in position, hit the remote count to 2 ½, start the action, move your hand quickly out of the way…..REPEAT.

Homemade backgrounds, limited equipment, found space and your imagination and you can shoot anything.
Read more“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.”
–Peter Lindbergh
Never play it safe
"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary." --Peter Lindbergh
The Proof Is In The Pudding… Make Sure You Have a Killer Recipe
“The proof is in the pudding.” Always wondered about that term, so I looked it up. According to the Urban Dictionary; “The original phrase is "The proof of the pudding is in the eating!" Which means you have to eat the pudding to know what's inside of it. The modern...
Ten Beliefs That Suck the Life out of Photographers
What if I told you it was not the industry, the bad economy, where you live, what camera you shoot with, how many lights you have or how small your Facebook following is that is holding you back. None of those are truly capable of stopping you, they are only...