Week 12 {Dutch Masters Still Life}

This weeks photochallenge was based on the 17th century Dutch painting style of still lifes. The paintings from this period had a true sense of realism and displayed the artists mastery of light. The Dutch still life painting of that era are usually represented by several different categories.

Vanitas which symbolizes the vainness of earthly life, this type of painting usually depicted skulls, hourglasses, old books and whithered flowers. Pronk which was an ostentatious display of wealth of the owner. These paintings usually showed a display of rare foods, rich colors and precious china or silverware. Other types include Ontbijtjes, Banketjes and Toebackjes which depict just one or two objects of humble origin.

This was my attempt at recreating the look of the Dutch Masters. This was an extremely hard challenge for me because still lifes alone are really out of my realm of comfort. The other challenge was the lighting. To try and recreate the feel of that period I needed my lighting just right and using candlelight seemed like the right way to do it. This was a 10 second exposure at f/22 and ISO 400. I did a quick sweep with a flashlight at about 5 seconds in to give it a little bit of a highlight on the pears.

This was a fun challenge and it definitely makes me want to try this technique again. My biggest issue with this weeks challenge was the styling. I tried a ton of different setups, but ended up liking this one the best.