Conceptual Still Life

Artist's Statement

In this series of photographs, I started as a documentary of “Things on My Desk” but as I moved along, I found a narrative of “Plushie Takeover.” The concept is essentially all my office plushies have now taken over my desk, finding their preferred spots and/or activities. The setting is my desk in my office from various vantage points. There were three windows and overhead tungsten bulb as organic light sources operating to both assist and as constraints. However, the overall room was dark. This force me to adjust my settings primarily in the way of decreasing my shutter speed. For a couple of photos, I supplemented the lighting with a practical tungsten bulb and also used an LED lantern to help highlight the figures. I really wanted to show what kinds of shenanigans these characters can get into and give them their own interests and personalities using other objects already on the desk or with their positioning on the desk. For post edits, I wanted the feeling to be cooler, as if there were some ongoing nefarious activities. I also, mainly stuck to darkening highlights and brightening shadows as I had to work with some contentious light sources in a small space. On the sixth photo in the series, it made sense to add some contrast to the screens.

1. 
   Bob-omb
   Camera Settings
   f/5.6 - SS 1.0 - ISO 125
2. 
   Berry Bear
   Camera Settings
   f/5.6 - SS 1.0 - ISO 125
3. 
   Octopus
   Camera Settings
   f/5.6 - SS 1.0 - ISO 125
4. 
   Chain Chomp
   Camera Settings
   f/5.0 - SS 1/8 - ISO 100
5. 
   SUSE
   Camera Settings
   f/5.6 - SS 0.5 - ISO 100
6. 
   Fl0ffy
   Camera Settings
   f/9.0 - SS 1.0 - ISO 160