Still Life Art Competition 2023
For this art competition, 2D and 3D artists, worldwide, are encouraged to submit their best work depicting an arrangement of everyday inanimate objects. The still life works can be traditional or contemporary in nature, with the content exhibiting everyday objects which are natural (e.g., food, flowers, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or which are manufactured (e.g., bottles, glasses, pottery, books, jewelry, coins, pipes, etc.).
Image requirements: jpeg format, 96 dpi; under 1 Mb in file size; no frame, mat, or watermark.
Judging criteria: creativity, originality, interpretation, quality, overall design, demonstration of artistic ability, and usage of your chosen medium.
Online submission of digital photographs via the website. No more than a total of 5 images will be accepted in any one submission.
All still life pictures require a background of some sort. This can be as simple as a plain piece of cloth or a battered old table. Choose carefully and don’t let the background take over the image. Make sure it complements the objects placed on it, or in front of it, but that it’s the last thing you notice in the picture. Always ask yourself what is the ‘star’ of a picture and make sure that your eye goes to that object/person first. As for lighting, again, simple is best. What did the great 18th-century painters do? Put things next to a window, and, if necessary draped a sheet over it to soften the light. This is exactly what I do. There is no fancy lighting set-up. Just a big, soft sidelight, if needed a diffuser, and normally some sort of reflector to lift the shadows slightly. You really can make it as complicated as you want but, quite frankly, if it worked for Rembrandt, it’ll work for me.