ABSTRACT
One notable industry where still-life reigns supreme in photography is in commercial photography, in advertising and industrial photography. Harnessed to the sale of commodities and the lifestyles in which they make sense, advertising images effuse an effervescent optimism. Still-life remains one of the most neglected genres, not only in photography criticism but also in the history of art. The pack-shot type of still-life picture in advertising, is extremely common and regularly encountered. In the heyday of Dutch and Flemish still-life painting during the seventeenth century, bowls, glassware, foods, cutlery, and linen for example, were meticulously painted against simple cloth backgrounds. Still-life object-orientated photography remains a consistent if still “minor” category within art, preoccupied with a whole range of philosophical thoughts. Still-life images today are not exempt from such techniques in making meanings, and any photographer ignores the symbolic dimension of what they photograph at their own peril.
