Still Life Fine Art and Food Photography

About This Group

Please submit only your finest images.

There is no simple way to express the group theme in the title.
Hopefully Still LIfe Fine Art and Food Photography will convey the message for the type of content and fine art we wish to have in this gallery.

“Still Life, or, in French, nature morte, is one of the staples of photography. In the earliest days, when exposures ran to many minutes, still life was easier to photograph than people, and it remains often easier to assemble the elements of a still life than to find a model for a portrait or nude study. Most importantly of all, a photograph of a still life can be a thing of beauty in its own right.

In the earliest days of photography, even photographers such as Henry Talbot who were often merely researching technical processes made superb still-life images, and Roger Fenton’s still-life photographs of the 1840s are among the finest ever shot. One of the greatest decades in non-advertising still-life photography was the 1920s, when ‘abstract’ pictures enjoyed a great vogue: objects such as folded paper, light bulbs, cutlery, and much else were photographed as studies in line and form, without ‘content’ in the conventional sense. And one of the worst decades was the 1950s, with its craze for saccharine ‘table-top’ pictures of glass ornaments like dancing fauns. In the 1960s, still life all but disappeared, only to reappear in the late 20th century with the latest super-saturated colour films.

Overall, however, still life for its own sake has often been surprisingly neglected by amateurs and even by art photographers: by far the greatest numbers of still-life images that one sees are advertisements. The main reason is probably the belief that still-life photographs are time consuming and difficult, and require a lot of space and equipment. But, as an examination of photo magazines reveals, this belief is wrong: those who shoot still life often use simple equipment, yet produce striking images.”

“Still life paintings often adorn the interior of ancient Egyptian tombs. It was believed that food objects and other items depicted there would, in the afterlife, become real and available for use by the deceased. Ancient Greek vase paintings also demonstrate great skill in depicting everyday objects and animals. Similar still life, more simply decorative in intent, but with realistic perspective, have also been found in the Roman wall paintings and floor mosaics unearthed at Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villa Boscoreale, including the later familiar motif of a glass bowl of fruit. Decorative mosaics termed “emblema”, found in the homes of rich Romans, demonstrated the range of food enjoyed by the upper classes, and also functioned as signs of hospitality and as celebrations of the seasons and of life.[2] By the 16th century, food and flowers would again appear as symbols of the seasons and of the five senses. Also starting in Roman times is the tradition of the use of the skull in paintings as a symbol of mortality and earthly remains, often with the accompanying phrase Omnia mors aequat (Death makes all equal). These vanitas images have been re-interpreted through the last 400 years of art history, starting with Dutch painters around 1600.

The popular appreciation of the realism of still life painting is related in the ancient Greek legend of Zeuxis and Parrhasius, who are said to have once competed to create the most life-like objects, history’s earliest descriptions of trompe l’oeil painting. As Pliny the Elder recorded in ancient Roman times, Greek artists centuries earlier were already advanced in the arts of portrait painting and still life. He singled out Peiraikos, “whose artistry is surpassed by only a very few…He painted barbershops and shoemakers’ stalls, donkeys, vegetables, and such, and for that reason came to be called the ‘painter of vulgar subjects’; yet these works are altogether delightful, and they were sold at higher prices than the greatest paintings of many other artists.” read more on the definitions of Still Life here

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