I took this photograph during the first couple of months that I was in photography school. At that point we were all just learning how to shoot tabletop photography, and this was our first still life assignment where we had the freedom to decide what we wanted to shoot. Before that, we had only shot a few things in the school’s commercial studio, such as a simple product on white seamless (now I call that “the boring stuff”). As you can imagine, I was very excited to finally be able to use my creativeness and create something that I really wanted to. I had so many ideas in my mind of what I wanted to shoot. I finally decided to go with an elaborate idea that involved slate, fake moss, mason jars, natural sponges, red rose petals, little purple flowers and some trimmings of one of my landlord’s house plants. I was so excited for this assignment that I went into the studio the night before, dragged all of my props in and shot my picture.
The next day during our studio time, I showed one of my instructors the picture. He liked it a lot, he was a little shocked that I went to such a great length of finding all these props but little did he know that it was only the beginning! Looking back now, that picture is a little much, but at the time I was satisfied and excited.
After my partner was finished shooting her picture for the assignment we had two hours left in the studio. I had these pretty little daisies that I bought the day before when I was buying the roses and I brought along those tiny scissors, too. I figured I’d take advantage of the extra time we had so I photographed the other idea that I conjured up in my head. This picture is the one you see here. It was finished in a matter of minutes. It was so much simpler than my elaborate, fairy tale and garden inspired image that I shot the night before. After some hemming and hawing, I decided to turn in my first picture for the assignment.
I got a good grade for that picture and since I didn’t turn in the image you see here, it got pushed back on my hard drive and covered by all the new images I was taking. A couple months later when we had to decide what area of photography we wanted to go into, I had a meeting with one of my instructors who was the head of the commercial studio. I told him that I wanted to specialize in still life photography and he said ok, show me what you have. Together, we went through all the pictures I shot in the commercial studio. The last image that was in the collection (that I had actually almost forgotten about) happened to be this one. When he clicked on it, I started to dismiss it and say, “Oh I shot that a while ago… it’s nothing special…”, but he stopped me. He asked why he never saw this before and I told him because I handed in the other shot for the assignment. He looked at the other picture and said, “This… this is nice, it’s good, ya know”.
Looking back now, I realize that this image was the first one that really showed the style that I would soon start to develop and that I now incorporate into all of my images. All I needed was someone to point that out to me and guide me in the right direction. It marked the beginning of a new chapter in my photography. I went on to turn that image in for an assignment later in the year and it ended up being chosen as the cover image for my class’s graduation invitation, which in itself was a huge honor.
To this day, it is still one of my most liked images in my portfolio and people have no clue it was taken so early on in my career (well now they do).
So a quick thank you to Dick, for teaching me, guiding my way through the commercial studio, and ultimately pointing out to me that this image and my abilities are something special. And thank you Joan, for giving me the information and confidence I needed to develop my own sense of design and for thinking of my work and choosing my image for the graduation invitation. You both are of huge importance to me!
Rikki Snyder is a freelance photographer and stylist specializing in food, product and still life. She is currently available for work in NY and Boston.
Blog: http://rikkisnyder.com/blog
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/RikkiSnyder
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rikkims/
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