It’s the little (junky) things

I was able to hit some antique stores over the weekend to do a little still life hunting. As regular readers will know, one of my favorite places to shoot is at antiques stores, sometimes just shooting the window displays from the street. The endless found “still life” scenes in the store displays, and by displays I mean just thrown about, are fun to browse and I like the challenge of trying to make some sort of composition out of them. The junkier the store the better. Serious antique folks probably wouldn’t be pleased with me poking around with a camera so I try to stay on the lay low.

I tend not to disturb anything since it isn’t my property and I like the sometimes weird juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated items on display.Lighting is my biggest challenge, as most stores are barely lit, especially in the dark crevices of piled up stuff, so I have to stay near the windows in most cases. A fast, single focal length lens and a camera that can shoot higher ISO’s is almost a must. I only had my Fujinon 18-55 zoom with me on this outing and, although it’s only f2.8-4, it is decently sharp when shooting wide open. Still, a 23mm or 35mm F2 or F1.4 would work even better.

I’ll start off with a few black and white shots and I’ll follow-up on the next post with some color images.