Excellent example for an artistic (concept) painting. Great experiment you conducted w/ nice light and shadow play for sure. Good job.

Shell

Tea! My most favorite drink! I love the lights and shadows in this Rob, excellent work!

Yay! I love tea :) you did a good job on the shadows, we can even see a part of the shadow of the teapot on the mug. Very nice.

Still Lifes are a tricky thing to do, in my opinion ... and you have done well on this except for a couple points (to MY eye)

the scene is a little too sterile for me .. almost as though it is created with 3D models\software ... you need a few more details, napkins, spoons, saucers, DUST, home'iness ... etc

and .. I would like to see something in the background .. and this will be another lighting challenge on top of what you have accomplished already .. because it will need to be muted\subdued just right ... it is the lack of a background\setting that is contributing to the 3D feel ...

just my twenty five cents

hmmm. i might've placed that tin a bit to the left.i like the lighting..it reminds me of an oil painting. also, it does seem a bit sparse...or was that your intent?

Yes, perhaps a bit sparse; and I think it's OK for the table to be centered in this case, although it probablly also would have worked if it were off to one side (think rule of thirds), but if you are going to centre it try to make sure it is perfectly centered (it is closer to the left side of the frame slightly). I probably would have shown a bit more of the table legs also as it seems cut off a bit too abruptly. My other criticism (and I am deliberately being very critical here as I assume that is what you are after) is that the lighting is a bit bright on the mug. This is due to it's reflective nature and the white color, if it had been stoneware as with the pot it wouldn't have been an issue but with this material the detail gets washed out. Overall for a still life I think you have done well and I suggest you keep experimenting; personally I have never had much success with anything that isn't outdoors so you are ahead of me in any case...

A great play of light and shadows. It has a dramatic impact on this still life. :)

Still life. I ought to try one of these someday. Third_eye and Samatar both bring up points that I agree with. The tea tin could be moved a bit to the left to be seen a bit more and the light on the white mug is too bright. I'm good with the placement of the table within the photo however you've got some negative space on top which allows us to see too much of the background. looks like there's some sort of slats or boards that end in a wall? I would think that it would work better if the wall were excluded either through a crop, clone or have the boards (floor?) cropped out with a lower camera angle.

A great shot.

Mark.