Still Life

Claire has won us over this month with her incredible still life shot of a king chess piece on a glass chess board with atmospheric blue smoke. It reminds us how minimal and simple still life set ups can have huge impact. Choosing a glass object that can be illuminated from the underside is also a very clever consideration. Great work!

Zlato's use of different sized screws and bolts to replicate a city skyline is fun and creative. The side black backgrounds gives it a minimal feel and the reflective glass surface helps create the illusion of water at the base of the photo. Great job!

Mohammed's still life shot is simple and minimalistic with just a wine glass, some red wine and a bunch of grapes placed on a glass table. The dark background and low key lighting make this image very atmospheric and dramatic. Great job!

Lee's shot proves that you can get fantastic still life shots just by having around in your garage draws. The arrangement of hammers gives this shot loads of brilliant shapes and lines that pull the viewer's eye in, gritty textures and a muted colour palette too. Great work!

Claire's shot is super simple and very effective, with nothing more than a safety pin bent into the shape to make it more human, and with some cardboard walls and writing to give the impression of a prison cell. It's a very clever and thought provoking image with minimal equipment - great job!

Focusing on this knight chess piece and using a wide aperture of f/2.8 to blur the rest of the chess board has created a shallow depth of field making the knight in Venkatesh's image the obvious focal point. Great job!

This still life shot goes to show that you don't always need an elaborate setup or expensive camera kit to take an interesting photo. The curves of the shoes make perfect lead-in lines and the shot is abstract and eye-catching.

Szekely has captured a wonderfully low key and minimalist still life here using nothing but bottle of wine, a glass, black background and a creative use of rim lighting to beautifully illuminate the curved edges of his subject. Great work!

Natalia's chess still life scene is full of wonderful colour and depth, with a wide aperture of f/4 and shallow depth of field that has blurred the rest of the scene nicely. The additional bokeh effects added in post-processing also compliment the scene well.

Vikki has created a brilliant still life full of beautiful colours and textures, you can practically smell this photo! The black background adds a clean, minimalist look that really helps all of the colourful spices to leap out. Great job!

Howard's still life shot is incredibly atmospheric, focusing on the four tips of a fork prong with a macro lens and using a wide aperture to blur the rest of the fork into an ethereal blur and create this amazing abstract shot. The black and white conversion also works wonders, top job!

Jan's image caught our eye because she decided to photograph a gerbera that was wilting, rather than one that was standing perfectly upright. This has turned the flower stem into a fascinating lead-in line, and the petals on the flower head have curled up in an interesting way.

Karen's transformed a very simple still life setup into a fascinating shot bursting with colour and refraction physics that boggle the mind. The central composition works wonderfully well and the colour palette is strong with the warm oranges giving good contrast to the cooler blue tones.

Sabrina's fantastic food still life shot is full of delicious items that get the mouth watering. With a long shutter speed of 37 secs, we expect that she manually spot lit various components around her board with a torch to light them and creates a wonderful studio look.