On Wednesday 3 December 2025 we were delighted to welcome Rojer Weightman to the club with his wonderfully illustrated talk “Still Life, Allegory, Vanitas and Memento Mori”.
The talk covered the history and the differences between still life and its variants in Art and Photography.
Still life is the art of capturing images of inanimate objects, such as flowers, food, household items, or found objects. Unlike genres such as portrait or landscape, it gives the photographer complete control over the subject, lighting, and composition.
Rojer used to teach art and photography and has always loved still lifes. He got the idea for a talk when the judge assessing one of his still life images remarked “I don’t understand all these objects. It’s just a pile of stuff!”
So Rojer developed his talk to inform photographers (and judges!) of the history of still life, particularly the contribution of the Dutch master painters of the 17th century.
Still life is “stilleven” in Dutch. And “pronkstilleven” is ostentatious still life and Roger’s favourite, with strong rich colours and a single light source in the style of Caravaggio. This style is used in M&S food adverts! Still life is “nature morte”, literally “dead nature”, in French.
Photography has always been influenced by art. The title of the talk refers to different categories of art. And Rojer showed how these categories cross over between art and photography within the still life genre.
The various sub-genres include:
- Allegory – Pictures that use literal images to represent hidden, deeper meanings or abstract concepts, such as life, death, or love;
- Vanitas – Pictures symbolising the transience of life and the futility of earthly pleasures; and
- Memento Mori – Literally “remember you must die”, pictures about the inevitability of death.
Rojer described the history of the genre as art, with a particular emphasis on the Dutch Masters, and the way the objects in paintings and their arrangement can be used to explore themes and concepts. He also explained the symbolic meaning behind many of the objects in the paintings. The four elements and the five senses can all be represented with objects. For example, a lamp or candle would denote fire and a violin would depict hearing.
Later Rojer showed us how he replicates this style of art within his photographs, how he sets up his shots, and the lighting he uses. So, in addition to many examples of still life paintings by the Dutch Masters, the talk also included many of his own images.
Rojer generally shoots at F11 and stays between F8 and F16, always at ISO 100. And he usually shoots in natural light. He uses a tripod and likes long exposures, even up to 30 minutes, as this produces an ethereal quality of light.
And Rojer also gave us some of his guidelines.
- Don’t hurry. Be calm and focussed.
- Don’t complicate the arrangement with too many objects.
- Join objects that should be joined. Create bonds that surprise.
- Don’t start with difficult objects (such as, glass)
- Consider the normal rules of composition (such as the Golden Spiral).
- But know that less is more.
As he put it, “you just need a moment of calm and a pile of stuff”.
This was a splendidly creative talk, with plenty of marvellous illustrations, and Rojer certainly gave us much food for thought as we seek to expand our creativity. And on 21 January our meeting was a still life workshop where we were encouraged to draw inspiration from Rojer’s talk as we practised our skills.
More of Rojer’s images can be found at https://gurushots.com/Scirocco/photos
