Early 17th century still life poster

In another fruitful collaboration with Kirsten Benoufa, stylist with the LIGAWEST styling agency in Düsseldorf, this recent photograph came into existence. Impressed by the style and composition of 17th century still lifes, created for instance by Flemish artist Clara Peeters or Dutch painters like Pieter Claesz or Willem Claeszoon Heda, we embarked on this personal project.

In the tradition of the vanitas paintings the image consists of reminders of decay, ageing and the certainty of death. Like the fruit, which is now colourful, vivid and sweet and in the next moment pallid, rotten and inedible.

Contrary to other recent projects this image has been shot pretty straight forward with only little involvement of CGI and post production. For those wondering which part is CGI: It’s tiny, crawling and often the reason to call the pest control.