Still life

The photographic depiction of an inanimate object often in a specific composition.

Fichili and Wiess

Peter Fichili and David Wiess are a photography duo, they met in 1978 – wiess was an artist, he initially rejected photography as a career path. They, at first formed a rock band (this didn’t last long) they then started to collaborate on photography projects (the first being Wurst serie – directly translating to sausage series which consisted of small scenes made of sausage meat and everyday objects). Together they have had many solo exhibitions of their work, including representing Switzerland in the Venice biennale – a large contemporary art exhibition. They work in both photography and other Medias such as clay to manipulate everyday experiences into something new.

Peter Keetman

A german photogrpaher who became interested in photography thorugh the enthusiasm of his father who was an amatuer photographer. he prefered black and white to colour as he belived it would show the use of light on his subjects better, taking pictures of stakced car hubcaps and water droplets that are almost unrecognisable in the finished photo.

David Levinthal

David Levinthal is a still life photographer who lives in new York. He has won many awards for his photography which is brilliantly simple- he takes small plastic figurines of everyday people and creates tiny scenes for them out of shoeboxes , cardboard and foam. These scenes range from anything like offices to baseball pitches. However his work isn’t just for fun – the scenes he shows in his photographs attempt to represent the basis of American culture from barbies to warriors – all in miniature form. He prints mainly in Polaroid photography (self developing film) which only serves to make his shoots even more amazing. His shoots sometimes cause controversy, notably his “blackface” exhibition which was made up of photographs of black memorabilia was cancelled while still in the planning stages due to the taboo surrounding its subject. Though most of his photographs are easily identifiable as toys , some do look as if they are real life , especially the photos in “Hitler moves east” where the scenarios are eerily reminiscent of ww11 documentary photographers work – and knowing the implications behind Hitler’s invasion of Russia only serves to give the scene more meaning.

Olivia Parker

Parker became involved in photography in 1970 , she graduated from university with a history of art degree , and started out as a painter. Parker is a still life photographer who has had hundreds of solo exhibitions in the united states including at the Museum of Modern Art ( MOMA) . Parker is a mostly self taught photographer , she makes compositions that are short lived and experiments with the uses of light in photography. Her latest project still and not so still life combines normal compositions with elements of the unexpected – for example a set of a walnut and a flower which have been set on fire – the fire being not only fleeting but also of an unexpected movement filled nature in a photograph which is said to be “still life”. Another composition from the Still land not so still life collection consists of a stationary tulip and one kin motion – parker uses a slower shutter speed to create blur. The vase holding the stationary tulip is smashed , adding to the discord of a photo of flowers which ordinarily would be tranquil.

My Aritist Inspired Pieces - Levinthal

I chose not to make exact copies of Levinthal's work as it focuses on American culture and legends - which does not relate to me. Therefore i decided to take photos that represented traditional british culture, for example the legends of Robin Hood and St George and the Dragon , which are shownm below.

The set up was more complicated than i anticipated - i had to make tiny trees out of brances and a stake for the princess during the dragon shoot. However i beleive that the end results were pretty successful and luckily they did not require too much editing.