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tips on
photographing Your own art |
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my
digital jury image services |
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Backgrounds for Photographing Art |
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| Seamless Paper |
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Seamless Paper comes in 53 and 107 inch by 12 yard rolls.
Most artists can use the 53 inch size, but make sure there is enough room
on either side of your work to leave a visually pleasing amount of space.
If need be, you can run two pieces of 53 inch paper together, taping it on
the back and remove the vertical line in Photoshop. I suggest that white, black or gray
should be your only choices. Never introduce a color (or texture) into the
background because it might draw the juror's eyes away from the work in
the few seconds they have. You
may choose neutral gray as a background color, but from personal
experience I feel that it's too dark and can make the photograph of the
art appear dead looking. I prefer slate gray as a gray background
because the lighter gray brings more life to the artwork.
And whatever background you choose, whether solid
or graduated, all the pieces should be photographed the same for a uniform
body of work. |
| Seamless paper can be purchased (or ordered) from most
decent size camera stores. For mail order, I prefer
B&H Photo
and Adorama in
New York. |
| For those difficult to photograph object that need a jet
black background, B&H Photo sells a
Midnight Black Velvetine seamless paper. |
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| white |
slate gray |
black |
neutral gray |
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| Graduated Backgrounds |
| Graduated Backgrounds seem to be what most artists are
currently using. Varitone graduated backgrounds are vinyl and are reusable
if you are careful not to scratch them. They come in three sizes, 42x62
inches and 31x43 inches, both sizes with the graduation vertically and
21x15 horizontal paper, which is suitable for photographing smaller items
like jewelry. I recommend three background color combinations. Keeping
in mind about not introducing color into the background, black to white (Varitone
#9) is by far the most popular, dark gray to white (Varitone #39) or light gray to white (Varitone #
28). You can also cut the backgrounds down with a scissors or razor to fit
the EZCube or Lowel Ego. Varitone #9 is the most popular and the one I use
most of the time. |
| Varitone Graduated backgrounds can be purchased from
Photo
Tech in Wisconsin. Flotone graduated background can be purchased from B&H Photo in New York. I haven't tried the Flotone backgrounds yet but will next time I need to order one |
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| Varitone #9 |
Varitone #39 |
Varitone #28 |
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| Reflections |
Besides the backgrounds mentioned above, jewelry is sometimes photographed on what looks like black plexiglass and has great looking (but sometimes distracting) reflections. What it's really photographed on is glass with black fabric underneath. The glass creates a reflective surface over the black which can graduate the background depending on the positioning of the lights. For this kind of setup, the room lights have to be off because the mirror like surface of the glass will show anything that's reflected. Be aware that adding reflections makes your image area larger and in some cases makes the jewelry look smaller. |
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Tips on Photographing Your Own Art |
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Hire me
to Prepare your Digital Jury Images |
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Examples of my jury slide photography |
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Digital Jury Resources |
