It’s always challenging for me to find a new way to style my still life photography. Although I have to say that there are a few styles that seem to be my favorites.

• A clean white background
• Backlight
• Flatlay with white
• Flatlay with rustic

Okay, so as I put this little list together I realized I have more favorites than I thought. 🙂 When you scroll through my Instagram feed, you’ll see that most of my photos have either a white background or are backlit with my window light. But I do like to change things up sometimes, so I look for ideas to do that.

Today, I’m sharing an idea that I ran across somewhere … (If I could remember where I’d link back to them.) Just know that it wasn’t my discovery.

A few days ago, I posted this photo on Instagram. What do you think of the bokeh? Can you tell what it is that I used to get that effect?

It’s a crunched up piece of aluminum foil sitting behind my subject by about six inches. With the window light shining in from the right, it creates a very interesting background.

You can get a similar effect with a tree or shrub in your yard using the window as backlight, but using the foil, you can get sidelight, which adds more shadow and interest.

Because I never take just one photo, here are a few others I took in the same session.

I really like the top down angle. I love all of the light and shadow of the blueberries in their little ceramic container. I think the green branches add some contrast in the color scheme.

 With this last shot … that I’m sharing here, I have more! … I did more of a traditional angle with a white background.

The editing I did created more of a tan effect on the back and a bit more gray on the front.

Typically I would try to make the whites more white, which is something you can do in either Photoshop or Lightroom, but I kind of wanted different looks.

I wonder which you would prefer?

As always, I appreciate you stopping by and reading. If you’re interested, you can sign up to receive my posts by email either by clicking the little arrow to the left or by commenting below and clicking the ‘notify me of new posts’ box.

Thanks! Hoping to hear what your favorite is … or any other comment. 🙂