Contemporary Still Life With Reference To The Traditional

Still Life is everywhere around us, the objects, the rocks, the trees and the flowers. Yes, they are life forms but they don’t move. Always in the same place so that they can delight your eyes.
Not everyone has time to just stop for a second and acknowledge their existence. We don’t have time to admire the shapes or just admire their true beauty.
Every time you put flowers in a vase you create an invisible painting full of colors and beauty. We do this because it’s not enough that we just see them in the fields, we want them in our home, in our life and soul.
I admire the work of Josef Sudek because of the way he plays with the shapes and the light. How he creates something truly beautiful and delicate from different objects or even flowers. He is a great artist , he is one of the most mysterious of all the great photographers. He has a private, almost personal vision. He transforms common materials that might appear in a kitchen or a working space into art.
The key in understanding Sudek’s art lies in the concept of available light. Lighting is very important in still life photography. The most natural form of lighting is daylight; although it gives a softer touch to the images it cannot be controlled.

One of Sudek’s images reminds me of a Van Gogh painting .



Photo from : Josef Sudek 55



Photo from : http://famousartistsbirthdays2.blogspot.com/2011/02/eugene-atget.html

You can see that both of them used the same flower, the flower that lets us know that spring is close, the beginning of a new life after the harsh winter has ended. Both of them give me a warm feeling, the feeling of home,of closure. The apple blossom from Sudek's photograph refers to spring time, and the old apple tree in the background might refer to past, to a life that is close to an end.