This first image was made in 2017. I was very pregnant and not able to talk photos like I been use to so I started to experiment with still life photography. My styling was very…lacking and my lighting way too harsh. Honestly, i’m embarrassed at this when i look at it, but if I hasn’t had done this I would not have grown as a photographer and artist.
This image is from 2021. I have spent the last few years studying still-life painters and really trying to emulate their styles in my work, Rachel Ruysch is my favorite. There is so much detail in their work from the lighting to how the items are arranged in the paintings. It takes a lot of work to think about all those details when creating a still-life photograph like this. Most of the time I don’t really know where I am going with it. I have a subject and I just start to build a little world around it. This is why they usually take me a great deal of time to create.
Anyways, I say all of this to make a point that creating for the sake of creating is important to grow as an artist. Have any other artists felt the same way?