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Photographing paintings
Wed, 9 Jan 2008 — Adrian Fowle
I should be very grateful to anyone who can offer tips for photographing paintings. I want to keep a record of my own work.
Small paintings I scan, which seems to work well. Larger paintings need a camera. Clearly the camera and painting have to be aligned properly, but in practice I find this difficult to do well. I am sure there must be ideal focal lengths and so on that the professionals use. (I cheat and straighten things up in Photoshop, but this is not ideal ...)
Then there's the problem of lighting, too much / too little and avoiding glare and reflections.
And colour balance too !
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photos
I agree with Gilly; outside and not in bright sunshine, a dull day is best. Set up the painting vertically and make sure that the camera is in the same plane - use a level across the front of the lens. Make sure that the centre of the lens is absolutely horizontally in line with the centre of the painting. Use a telephoto lens and take the photo a little distance away from the painting, Fill the frame with the painting. Use a remote controller or set the camera to take the pic with the built-in automatic timer. Lastly, make sure the photo is taken before the painting is framed and certainly before it is covered with glass.
Here is a link that you may find useful:
http://artlinkswap.org/photographing_art.shtml
Thank
Gilly, Allan
Thank you both. Where do I get sunlight?
Adrian Fowle
Webmaster, Bromley Art Society
Photographs of your paintings
Hi Adrian, Many thanks for your help this evening.
I find the best way to photograph my paintings is to take them into the garden, rest them against a wall and rest the camera on a small cheap table tripod failing that on the top of a chair. They photograph well in light shade and the colours remain true, and I find some interesting effects can be achieved in sunshine too.
Not exactly rocket science, but I find daylight is best.
Best wishes
Gilly