Rocking Horse, Bobbins and Musical Biscuit Tin

I must admit my favourite props for still life work are the usual, classic flowers and fruit. I suppose the reason is their natural beauty - colours, shapes and textures that lend themselves well to a poetic and artistic depiction. However, sometimes it is a good challenge to try something different.
Interesting objects can make for an appealing still life too. Being a vintage and antiques lover I have a few shelves in my study where I display small, old and vintage objects picked up at charity shops, antiques centres and fairs, car boot sales etc. A lot of them are bought with a still life photography shoot in mind. So occasionally I turn for inspiration to these little treasures as well as other larger things around my home.

I found the wooden toy rocking horse in a charity shop and the bobbins in the "Oh la la" vintage shop in Haworth. I like the parallels between these objects: they are all made of wood; they echo the red and green colour in each other; the bobbins in front of the horse are evocative of old fashioned plough....

I thought the bobbins would look good on their own as a textured close up shot at a wide aperture with my "nifty fifty" f1.8 50mm lens.

I bought this lovely musical ginger biscuit tin at the local Aldi supermarket. I didn't need any biscuits but I just had to have the tin. Love its colourful past times charm reminiscent of joyous childhood funfair rides. I thought I'd create some magic around it by applying a motion blur effect in photoshop and some blue, wintry, snowy texture layers.

I had great fun creating these images. They were a perfect antidote to unpleasant winter days not conducive for outdoor photography.