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An Adaption Into Clothing Still Life

Pre lockdown I had completed the three shoots that had focused on mannequins. It had never been my plan to just shoot mannequins and I had already wanted the last few shoots to be something different that could still represent the title ‘absence of body’.

Since I wanted to avoid using models for my project and with the lockdown rules it obviously wasn’t even an option anyway, it was obvious that I should be looking at clothing in some way. I had already looked at still life photography in the research project even though the subject was very different, but it had shown me possible ideas. I decided to research further into clothing still life and these are the artists I looked at:

Riccardo Maria Chiacchio

The idea behind this still life projects is the obsession for clothes, that continues especially when they aren’t worn but become just an “object”. 

Through the reality of objects you can live that moment again and again: it’s right in front of you, you can touch it, whereas all the rest is gone. It becomes a story. For example, if the person you love breaks up with you, you can recreate this person and its memories by visualising whatever this person was wearing in your happy times and re live every emotion. You can also use it as a starting point to build a different story using the power of the associations objects-emotions.

In fact, the dualism between object and emotions turns the concreteness of clothes in something alive that creates a scene or a fantasy.

Eloise Capet

I like to tickle minds by creating mysterious pictures. My stylized compositions are recognizable in the poetic sceneries and in the whimsical faceless self-portraits that I capture. I stage visual narratives that tell stories. To express my ideas and my imagination, to keep the creative juices flowing, I construct images that I conceive a long time before shooting.

Wales Bonner

Although without much context I love this Wales Bonner set of images. The high contrast, sunny rocky landscape images are so appealing in a way that it doesn’t detract from the clothing, it only enhances it in my eyes. Something very important to consider when photographing still life is the backdrop which you put it against.

Marni

This Marni campaign is saturated with colour in a way which isn’t overpowering to the eye. I love the foresty backdrop to these images and the way the clothing complements it especially in the first image. The use of chairs is also nice as it gives the clothing a different structure although I also think it detracts from their human function. In sense these images work perfectly as look book images.