Autumn Strawberries

At the beginning of this summer I bought a red hanging basket with a strawberry plant in it from the local Aldi. There were only leaves and a couple of tiny pink flowers on the plant. I thought it was something different to hang on the garden fence and was looking forward to seeing how the plant evolves. Well, it has been flowering and producing sweet and juicy strawberries all along. At the end of September I was surprised to see it was still going strong with new strawberries springing up. I decided it was high time I took some photos.
I had a choice of taking some macro shots of the fruit hanging from the basket, or cutting up a few stems for a still life image. Not being a huge fan of macro photography I opted for the latter. I feel still life work gives me more scope and flexibility in creating an interesting image. I found my vintage wine bottle, put the stems inside and arranged them so the strawberries form an appealing composition and the single pink flower faces the camera. For a touch of autumn feel I placed a couple of withered and dried fruits on the table in front of the bottle.

I wanted to team up the red of strawberries with some interesting colour background, so I went for a grey background which I then turned into teal blue in postprocessing. I have recently been drawn to the still life work by Delph Devos. Delph has been my Flickr contact for a long time and more recently a Facebook friend too. I particularly love her dark still lifes, and the dreamy, soft haze her subjects seem to disappear into. The low key tones of my image were inspired by Delph's work, but for my own work I chose a bit more contrast and clarity.
I am quite happy this rather unusual autumn still life came about; and in the last moment too, as I am sure very soon there will be no more strawberries.