Vanitas are closely related to memento mori still lifes which are artworks that remind the viewer of the shortnes and fragility of life (memento mori is a Latin phrase meaning ‘remember you must die’) and include symbols such as skulls and extinguished candles. However vanitas still-lifes also include other symbols such as musical instruments, wine and books to remind us explicitly of the vanity (in the sense of worthlessness) of worldly pleasures and goods.

The term originally comes from the opening lines of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible: ‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’

gradually increasing exposure

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thinking of Darsham flowers and how to avoid cliched flower pics.I love the photographs of Mapplethorpe and Irving Penn as well as botanical pics

This is one of my favourite shots. It is of the escalator taken on long exposure with deliberate camera movement, I like the abstracted image and the different lights seemingly reaching down to the straight lines of the escalator.

This is my other favourite shot- abstracted escalator. I Like the combination of straight and wavy light lines and the pinpoint lights seemingly floating in the upper 1/3 of the shot. The composition includes rule of thirds and leading lines. It has a somewhat ethereal feeling.

The lines reminded me of strings – guitar or piano so I took some long exposure shots of my piano with deliberate camera movement. I think these have a similar pattern within the composition and a similar emotion.

Otto Steinert made luminograms by holding his camera up at street lights and car headlights.

Otto Steinert, “Luminogram II” (1952)

“German avant-garde photographer Otto Steinert created his “luminograms” by holding up his camera to street lights or headlights for extended exposure times (reproduced here in negative print). Like photos of sparklers on bonfire night, they remind us of photography’s literal meaning of “light-writing”. Steinert believed that rather than representing reality, photography should be an autonomous and experimental art form that “arises in the darkroom”. Although he made his name in the decade that Jackson Pollock popularised abstract expressionism in painting, Steinert saw photography as an entirely independent medium, with light its sovereign raw material.”

Other artists – Kansuke Yamamoto, a Japanese surrealist, Monika Van Both, Man Ray.

walking and shooting downward over black and white tiled floor

© ESTATE OTTO STEINERT, MUSEUM FOLKWANG, ESSEN

I took photographs of giant allium using 120,macro,wide angle and 50 mm lenses. They are shown below in that order from top left. My favourite lens is the 50mm , however I need to do some work with other lenses so I will take pics of same still life using diff lenses.

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Next I used the Olympus zuiko 12-50 lens and the Lumix 14-42 .The Lumix seems to give brighter colours and more clarity.