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tips on
photographing Your own art |
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my
digital jury image services |
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Lighting Tips to Photograph Art |
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| Soft diffused light is the best lighting to use when photographing your artwork. Never
use the built in flash or an accessory flash mounted in the hot shoe of your
camera. Either will create direct contrasty light that will leave glare
and hot spots on the artwork, making the jurors think that you're an
amateur and don't care enough about your work to present it in a
professional manner. |
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| For my main lighting, I prefer to use two studio
strobes bounced into oversize white umbrellas (above left) for balanced soft diffused
lighting. Sometimes I use an additional strobe in a strip (12x36 inch) softbox
(above right) overhead on a boom stand for a rim light to separate the top of
the piece from the background. If I'm photographing two dimensional artwork like a painting,
I'll crop out the frame (and mat) to the edges of the artwork which is all
that is needed for a jury image. And for photographing 3D objects, my
choice of backgrounds depends on what I'm photographing and how best to
make it stand out from the background. |
| For artists who want to do their own photography, daylight florescent
bulbs are an easy light source to work with but the lighting still needs
to be diffused or softened. I tested the Cloud Dome,
Lowel Ego and the
EZCube and found them all adequate depending on the size
and type of items you
need to photograph. |
| For items too large to photograph with the above lighting items, I
suggest setting up your 10x10 white canopy outside on an overcast or cloudy day.
Connect three of the white walls and lay the fourth wall on the ground to
reflect or bounce the light back up to give you more even exposure over the
artwork. Consider using one of the suggested backgrounds
clipped to the back wall. If you have highly reflective work, you can hang black fabric on
the open side just in front of where you set up the tripod and cut a hole for the camera lens.
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And while you have your canopy set up, consider shooting a more
controlled booth picture than you can take at a show. It goes without
saying that the booth picture can be much better if set up for the
picture, not to sell. |
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Tips on Photographing Your Own Art |
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Examples of my jury slide photography |
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Hire me
to Prepare your Digital Jury Images |
