● Create a set of still-life pictures showing traces of life without using people.

You could do this with your camera phone to reflect the vernacular and transient nature of these moments or you could choose to use high-quality imagery to give these moments gravitas, like Nigel Shafran.

● Your technical decisions should back up your ideas, so write a short reflective commentary detailing these decisions and the reasons for them.

Introduction

For my series, I chose the theme of the aftermath of activities related to Christmas, but not in the context of the joy of the season. I love Christmas, but am increasingly bothered by how much work goes into preparing for a single day. I get to a point with certain jobs where I am either distracted by something more enjoyable or just walk away in frustration. This series is intended to use still life to evoke a sense of how I feel at those points.

The Series – Christmas Passed

Review

I deliberately shot each of these still life photographs in a different style, mainly because each situation has a different mood to invoke from the others. In One, the elements point to a need to relax and do something enjoyable. The person watching the film has a fancy drink to enjoy and a candle to provide muted lighting. The film frame is from a James Bond Skyfall, showing the character dressed in a dinner suit, which furthers the sense of luxury or indulgence. The lighting also highlights a packet of tablets on the table. Perhaps this person has overindulged as many do at Christmas, which means the image could take on one of exhaustion which is something I tend to feel once the day’s festivities are done.

Two is a take on the tradition of leaving a drink and mince pie out for Father Christmas, but instead there is evidence of a cocktail with the thin slice of orange peel used. I love the Old Fashioned cocktail but am always disappointed at how wasteful the use of the orange peel is. The other elements in the frame are the well-stocked drinks cabinet, which suggests the the person isn’t a stranger to drinking, the bourbon bottle and the drink itself. The inclusion of the ‘cigar’ is a nod to how times have changed in celebrations at Christmas through my life. I remember every adult in my family smoking when we got together, so this inclusion (which is actually a cinnamon stick) is about how it’s no longer acceptable. Most people don’t have ashtrays anymore, so I made one of the mince pie trays into a makeshift ashtray for the consumer of this Christmas treat.

Three is something that I think everyone experiences at this time; the wrapping of Christmas presents. In this frame, the tape has run out and the person has presumably got to find some more. I always end up with odd scraps of badly cut paper as well as running the gauntlet with how much I can get done with the remaining tape. This image is intended to express the sense of the unwanted pause in proceedings and was inspired, along with Two, by the classical still life paintings of half-eaten food[2]. These ask the viewer to imagine what might be going on for the consumer before and up to the point the image was captured.

Four is a intended to be a humorous representation of the aftermath of the Christmas feast, where most of the food has gone save the leftovers. In our house, leftover meat ends up in a curry, so this picture shows the slim pickings left for that meal. There is always some beer and wine left over, so this was included to jokingly suggest that there is some sort of complete meal to be had.

Five came about because of a real experience I had last year with some Christmas lights that got tangled to the extent that it would take hours to untangle them. I am too tight to throw them out and get some new ones, so I promised myself this year that I would put the time in to sort them out. I didn’t, of course which leaves the fallback position of cutting them with the scissors.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this exercise because it was both creatively and technically challenging. The removal of the person from the image leaves the potential for creating broad narratives that tell the story of them in absentia. I used my own experiences to guide the creation of the series and each idea came with a technical challenge to represent the different moods. Lighting Is key to this, with a mix of flash, hot lights and sources that naturally occur in the environment. For example, using the light from the projector in One as the key light, left me with filling in the edges of the glass and bottle with an LED panel. Conversely, the fill light in Five was provided by the illuminated Christmas lights (the frustrating thing being that they still work, despite being tangled) and I used a further key light for the scissors. What I’ve learned builds on the tableaux work from last year, with particular attention to putting just enough context in the frame to create the mood. Using props like the cigar and the fridge evokes memories of the smell of cigar smoke and the cold storage of food, which is stimulating senses other than our sight. During this shoot, I was reminded of David Favrod’s use of phonics in some of his images in the series Hikari[2]. Still Life is something I intend to continue exploring.

References

[1] Fletcher R, 2021, “Research Task: Still Life”, OCA Blog Post, https://richardfletcherphotography.photo.blog/2021/12/03/research-task-still-life/

[2]Fletcher R, 2021, “4) Project 2: Memories and Speech, OCA Blog Post, https://richardfletcherphotography.photo.blog/2021/11/05/4-project-2-memories-and-speech/