Still Life

This image has such a strong and creative concept, it had to be our winner. The skull connotes death, while the butterflies symbolise not only life, but rebirth. We also love the extremely subtle pressed flowers beneath the skull, as well as the reflection. The beam of light that scythes through the frame acts as a spotlight, highlighting the macabre arrangement. And to finish, a cool, muted colour palette, which contrasts against the warm oranges used to represent the butterflies.

You’d be forgiven for thinking this classic-looking still life was an oil painting. The impressionist style was achieved in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, and while applying a painterly filter on an image has become arguably kitsch, it’s clear that a great amount of time and effort was taken to achieve such a convincing transformation. Far from being a simple filter, the result is a carefully crafted digital artwork. It’s hard to imagine how the end product could look more authentic. A fantastic image!

We’re impressed by this surrealist still life’s clever concept and execution. It’s well lit so the inside of the shell, and specifically the tallies, aren’t obscured by dark shadows. The composition works well too, with the egg shell placed on the left portion of the frame, so the footprints trail off to the right, creating active space.

The single subject and muted colour palette have formed an attractive minimalist still life. The lighting is great and the soft shadow, cast by the bowl, is key, providing a sense of relief without distracting from the subject, by being overly harsh. A great image!

This is a fantastic still life photograph. Various textures create interest throughout the frame and a large depth of field provides front to back sharpness. We also like the striking autumnal colour palette and pop of yellow from the half-peeled lemon.

This attractive flat lay looks like a piece of graphic art. Yellow and orange sit next to green on the colour wheel making this a particularly striking colour palette. The near-80mm focal length (35mm equivalent) has prevented any noticeable distortion, crucial when capturing a square-on composition.

It is hard not to be drawn in by this excellent still life’s striking yellow colour palette. Chiaroscuro lighting makes the yellow objects stand out even more against the rich shadows. A fantastic twist on a traditional still life image!

This image depicts a pair of hyacinths and is a still-life masterclass. The cool blues and purples provide an analogous colour palette (as neighbouring colours on the colour wheel), while the draped cloth adds texture to both the foreground and background.

A natural light source has been used to create traditional chiaroscuro lighting. We like the use of colour. Orange and blue are opposites on the colour wheel, so the orange tulips and mango pair perfectly with the blue vase and cloth.

This still life stands out as a new take on the classic genre. The objects and lighting are everything you’d expect from a still life, but it’s the narrative that really caught our eye. The way the mannequin interacts with the flower adds interest by building a story. A great image!

Traditional still-life paintings often explored the macabre, with human skulls used to represent death or mortality. This arrangement is clearly themed around early-20th-century medicine. The chiaroscuro-style lighting has created rich shadows that blend into the dark background, yet all of the items are evenly lit. A fantastic still life!

This simple idea has been turned into a fantastic surrealist image, with the serrated bread knife forming waves and the paring knife, the dorsal fin of a shark. The fin’s angle denotes its directional of travel from left to right, with space framed on the right-hand portion of the image for the subject to move into. Crucially, the setup has been photographed perfectly square on and with a standard focal length to minimise distortion.

This image is a blend of still life and lifestyle food photography. The chair in the background invites the viewer to sit at the table, while the rustic nature of the spread creates a wholesome feel. This is achieved by the dustings of icing sugar on the table and the slice taken from the pie. An image good enough to eat!

We really love the creativity of this modern take on a classic genre. The glass appears to have been lit from either side to capture its shape and filled with pomegranates to provide interest. But what really makes this image pop is the strong lighting in the top of the frame and the glittering bokeh, all tied together with the golden cloth below. A stunning image!

It’s not surprising that this image looks stunning, an awful lot of work went into it. We love the subtle lighting, created by ‘light painting’ multiple frames with a torch and blending them together in post. We’re guessing the window-frame-like shadow was created using a gobo, while the gorgeous painterly background was achieved by hand-painting an old door. An excellent image!