One* Slinky, five ways

All you need is a good eye and proper light make something feel sculptural. For this still life study, I used Slinkies to explore repetition, collapse, and the power of lighting and color to shift a viewer’s perception.

*Ok yes, I technically used two. Let me live.

Why a Slinky? I wanted something familiar, playful, and flexible. The Slinky is all those things; it can be perfect or chaotic, poised or collapsed. And it’s cheap. Win-win.

I shot five variations: some neatly arranged, others tangled and twisted. I used different colored backgrounds to shift the tone and let light shape the emotion of each piece.

One Slinky stayed structured. The other became an experiment.

Each composition was lit and styled intentionally to explore how a single object could perform differently under changing conditions. Color, shadow, and form were the main variables.

With the right light, even a coiled toy starts to feel like a modernist sculpture. Shadows became part of the subject. Color set the emotional tone. Small shifts in camera angle totally changed how clean or chaotic it felt.

This shoot reminded me how much range you can pull from a single object — especially one as kinetic and graphic as this.

Creativity doesn't always need more stuff. Sometimes it just needs more curiosity.