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tips on
photographing Your own art |
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my
digital jury image services |
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Tips for Photographing
Paintings |
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| First set your camera properly. Read my article on
how to set your digital camera to
photograph art, and make sure to use a tripod. If you intend to use
stationary lights, check out my page of
lighting diagrams. If you're depending in sunlight or open shade,
consider setting up your white canopy on an overcast or cloudy day. Set up
three walls with a display panel to hang the painting on in the center of
the middle wall. Place the fourth wall on the floor to bounce the light back
up and give you more even exposure over the entire painting. Set your tripod
up where the fourth wall would be. Set the camera horizontally to
photograph horizontal paintings and set the camera vertically to
photograph vertical paintings. Compose as tight as possible but still
leave space around the painting, even if it isn't composed exactly square
because the image can be straightened and squared afterwards in Photoshop.
If the painting is framed, crop in as tight as possible but still leave a
little of the frame all around. Do not photograph your framed paintings
leaving the entire frame within the image because once properly cropped
the image may be too small for jurying. |
| If the painting isn't framed it will make life easier.
Glass causes reflections, and even if you use a polarizing filter it will
probably dull the colors slightly. Besides the problems caused by trying
to shoot through glass, the frame itself will cause a dark shadow along
the two sides in the direction the light is coming from. |
| If you are shooting
through glass, you need to control what's being reflected. The best way would be
to shoot at an angle to the painting and hang a large piece of black
fabric where the reflections are coming from. You will find that the
larger the painting, the more severe the angle you will have to shoot but
that won't be an issue if all that's reflected is the black fabric, which
actually won't be visible because it will counter the reflection.
Afterwards the image will have to be cropped to the edge of the painting
and squared and then proportioned back to the original proportion of the
painting. |
| If you're having me do the post processing, I will also
need to know the original size of the painting unframed so I can correct the
proportion and give you an accurate jury image, like the example
illustrated below. |
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As an example, I photographed this painting under glass
and you can see the black fabric I hung to control the reflection
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After cropping and squaring the image of the painting,
you can see that it's much narrower than the original
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Correcting the proportion (and color) of the image
based on the original size makes it look more accurate for jurying
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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 |
