Manchester based professional photographer | Neil Downie

View Original

Still life project

Still no further work of my own to post on here yet I'm afraid. Although I have put some time into formulating ideas for my next project. I've decided that it's going to be along a "Still Life" theme - I've never really done any "proper" still life before, one of the reasons being is that it doesn't really float my boat to be quite honest. But I figure that you never really understand something until you actually give it a serious attempt. I've been looking at quite a lot of work in this area lately, especially the earliest stuff - the work of Florence Henry, Berenice Abbott and Irving Penn. Some of which I was really quite taken with. Here are some examples:
Irving Penn - Cigarette No. 37:

Berenice Abbott - Soap Bubbles, 1940s

Karl Blossfeldt - Poppy Seed Heads

Florence Henri - Composition with ball and mirror, 1930

I'm particularly impressed with the work of Florence Henri, and considering how long ago she made these and how many images since draw references from her work, they really are seminal works.

Finally a couple of news items.
If you're a follower of Scott Kelby or any of the NAPP guys, then you can't failed to have noticed that the PhotoShop World expo is on at the moment. Whilst there, Adobe have started teasers for the new CS4 suite. They're going to do a special webcast on Tuesday 23rd September, and you can sign up here.
If you live up North (in the England), then "Ways Of Looking" - a new media festival kicks off in Bradford and Leeds this weekend coming. There's a whole raft of shows scheduled to run right through to January next year - Check out the schedule here.

Share this post :