An Apple a Day – Still Life Photography

Fine Art Still Life Photography and an Apple

I have a confession to make – yes, I play with my food. More accurately, I play with my wife’s food. She has the bad habit of going to the grocery store and buying something that enthralls me. On one recent occasion, her selection was simply a bag of apples, and once I saw them sitting on the counter my mind started to turn, and my imagination began to create all kinds of compositions and lighting setups that would turn an ordinary green apple into something more dramatic.

An Apple a Day

I love Fine Art Still Life Photography, as it allows me to take an ordinary, everyday subject and turn it into something else entirely. Moving the apple into my studio allows greater control over the lighting that defines the shape of the apple, and allows the space and freedom to move all around and create interesting compositions.

I took one of those apples into my photography studio and started to experiment a bit. Okay, my studio is really only one corner of my bedroom and an ironing board, but it works and is all I need for the majority of the photography that I do. The first thing I did was to arrange the apple on a piece of black cloth and mount the camera on a tripod.

In order to get the dramatic image that I had in my mind, I started to setup my lighting. One flash on a stand with a shoot through umbrella, positioned 8 inches directly above the apple and slightly behind it. This was done so that the light would come directly down on the subject, and that the roundness of the apple itself would block the light from reaching the bottom of the apple. With the flash power set to 1/32 power the light faded relatively quickly as it travels across the apples surface. This helps to create that very shallow lighting that transitions from highlight to shadow rapidly and softly.

For this photograph I was using the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro Lens, and in order to get a large Depth of Field I had my aperture set to f/16. Using this setting ensured that the apple was nice and sharp.

Once I had my camera and lighting set the way I wanted, it was time to give the apple itself a little attention. The first thing that I did was to polish the apple, to get the skin nice and shiny. I took a little bit of Aquafor (a skin cream that has a very similar feel to Vaseline) and polished the apple to a high sheen.

Next was to create the drops on the skin of the apple. The real trick here is that it isn’t water! If you use water you will find that it simply runs down the side of the apple, and just leaves streaks. I wanted nice big, fat, round drops! So I created a mixture of glycerin and water, at a 50/50 ratio, that I then put into a small spray bottle and simply sprayed the apple with the mixture! The drops stayed in place for about 30 minutes, which allowed more then enough time to create the fine art still life photograph that you see here.

You can see more of my Fine Art Still Life Photography here in my gallery!