ArtAnywhere Blog » HOW TO

Why bother? – How to Shoot your Art I

Julian Haber — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:50:59 +0000

The goal of photographing your artwork is for viewers to forget they are seeing a photo and actually experience your work with enough richness of detail, color, lighting and mood to appreciate your art for what it is.

Presenting your art online and in digital form properly shot and formatted for optimal display is part of the many tasks extraneous to your creative work that must be included in your portfolio of skills. It is important that your art be shot as professionally as possible to allow viewers to see the works as you intend the work to be seen and not as a random consequence of whatever camera and lighting you have available at the time of the shoot.

You have two options: shoot it yourself or hire a professional to do it for you. This piece assumes you will be taking your own photos and will provide some guideline tips for getting a good shot that you can employ relatively inexpensively to ensure your art work looks great when viewed through on online gallery browser like the one found here on ArtAnywhere.com, or your electronic portfolio or personal website.

So how do you do it?

Photographing your artwork is not difficult, provided you shoot with a digital camera, ideally an SLR (single lens reflex), work with good lighting conditions and properly position your camera and your art. This piece will guide you through what you need to know and do so that you can get the image quality you need to show your work online or in your portfolio.

Don’t let a bad photo get in the way of sharing your art!

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How to Shoot your Art

Camera and Settings – How to Shoot your Art II

Julian Haber — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:40:58 +0000

1) Use a digital camera: Either a point-and-shoot or better, an SLR (single lens reflex). Borrow or rent one if you don’t have one. It doesn’t have to be the top of the line.

2) Optimal megapixels: Between 5 and 12 megapixels will give you optimal results, though 5 megapixels is probably more than enough. (I’ve shot images with 3 megapixels in the early days of digital and was perfectly happy with them – even the cheapest point and shoot camera will give you more than that to start with now).

3) Shoot highest quality JPEG: Many photographers will disagree with me here and while it is true that the RAW format captures more digital information giving you a higher quality digital negative to work with, for the purposes of most non-photography artists, the additional work and time needed to work with RAW images is not necessary. Set your camera to the highest JPEG setting in quality and shoot. When you upload the images to your computer for post-production, save them as a TIF or PSD (Photoshop) file type for the edits and you will be fine.

4) Manual zoom: You can use a manual zoom that can zoom to 50mm but only go as far as the mid-range of the zoom to prevent optical distortions on the edges.

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How to Shoot your Art

Positioning your Art – How to Shoot your Art III

Julian Haber — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:35:28 +0000

1) Go outdoors!: If you can move it easily and have an easel, you can set it up outside for cheap lighting (i.e., free). If you will be shooting indoors, hang your piece on a neutral colored wall or cover the wall with a neutrally colored background. Place the work flat against the background or wall. A black background is best, or a neutral/slate grey or white.

2) Remove the glass: If possible, remove any glass covering the work. If the work requires the glass to keep it flat, devise a solution to flatten it without the glass if possible. Shooting through glass is technically awkward and will give sub-par results.

3) Enhance, don’t distract: If your work is 3-dimensional, shoot it with a background that enhances but does not distract from the work.

4) Let the sunshine in: If your work is translucent (i.e., light flows through it), then position it or a light in such a way as to have light flowing through it though not directly into the camera lens.

5) Optimize your setup: Use the exact same set-up for all art with the same dimensions to avoid having to move the camera once you have the optimal set-up in place.

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How to Shoot your Art

Positioning your Camera – How to Shoot your Art IV

Julian Haber — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:32:26 +0000

1) Aim for the center: Position the camera on a tripod with the lens pointing directly at the center of the art work (at the same height as the work). Make sure your art is at a 90-degree angle to the camera.

2) Match the camera’s orientation to the work: If the work is vertical (longer than it is wide), shoot vertically; if the work is horizontal (wider than it is long), shoot horizontally. Try to have the sides, top and bottom of what you see in your viewfinder align as straightly as possible with the work. Here’s my set up at home.

3) Fill the frame with the work: Cut away (just) the frame if possible.

4) Never use the camera’s optical zoom: It simply enlarges pixels and degrades the quality of the image.

5) Back off! Position the camera close enough to the art work to fill the frame but not too close. If you have a manual zoom, setting up your camera a little further back will help flatten the image and prevent the fisheye effect that happens if you are up too close. (Imagine sitting in the mid-row vs. front row of an IMAX movie theatre)

6) Can’t touch this: Use the camera’s self-timer function so you can trigger the release without physically touching the camera to eliminate camera shake. Don’t move around when the camera is operating to avoid sending vibrations through your floor.

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How to Shoot your Art

Shooting the Art – How to Shoot your Art V

Julian Haber — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:30:50 +0000

Water Nymphs by B. Kelly-Goulem

1) Get that focus right: The most important aspect of everything you are doing in photographing your work is getting the focus right. Use the correct exposure and shutter speed as indicated on your handheld light meter or built in meter to get the right focus.

2) Experiment with your f-stop: Remember the lower the f-stop number (i.e., f/2.0) the closer and tighter the focal point will be measured in distance between your lens and the subject; the higher the f-stop number (i.e., f/22), the greater the depth of field you will be and the broader the area in focus will be. Experiment until you find the optimal range for your shot.

3) True colors & white balance: Set your white balance to ensure your colours are as true to life as you can get them. (This will be done automatically in most digital cameras in the auto mode, but it is worth your while to read your camera manual to learn how to set your own white balance – usually it entails nothing more than pushing a button or two and then you just shoot what looks good to you on your camera)

4) Low ISO: Keep in mind (if you are in manual mode) that the lower the ISO setting (i.e., 100) the sharper the image; the higher the ISO setting (i.e., 1600) the grainier the image will be appear. For shooting art, you want as sharp an image as possible.

5) Shoot and approve: Shoot the work and check your camera’s LCD for the focus by zooming into the captured image (go as far as 5xs if you can, or higher) to see in fine detail how sharp the image is. Scroll over the entire image to ensure focus is even and sharp throughout. If it isn’t, change your settings and try again. Keep trying until you get it right. If you can, output the first few shots into your computer where you can see more easily if the image is sharp or not and then make the necessary adjustments as required.

6) A range of options: Take at least three shots of each art piece, setting your exposure one higher, and one lower than the “correct” one as indicated by your light meter (either handheld or built into your camera) to give you choices when making your final selections.

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This piece, “Water Nymphs” by Bernie Kelly-Goulem was shot with two OPUS Pro OPL-K250 flash heads flanking the work, set to 1/8^th their maximum output using my Canon 5D Mark II camera with a 24-105 mm lens. Although the work itself is intentionally blurry in areas, you can see the focus is even and sharp throughout with enough detail to see the brush strokes and raised edges of the painting showing this artist’s technique of painting on torn papier mâché strips of paper glued to her canvas.

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How to Shoot your Art

Lighting – How to Shoot your Art VI

Julian Haber — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:29:10 +0000

1) Use natural light: The easiest (least expensive) set-up is to use naturally available light (i.e., the sun). The best time to shoot would be on an overcast or cloudy day (though not rainy) and if you can set your work(s) up under a white canopy to diffuse the light, even better. Setting up a canopy in the garden if you have one and shooting under that will provide further diffusion of light (i.e., softening of light). The best time will be either 10 am or around 2 pm depending on where you live on an evenly cloudy overcast day. Avoid shooting at high noon, as the shadows cast will be too hard.

2) No flash please: Using the built in flash on any point-and-shoot camera is not recommended. If you are using an SLR with an adjustable flash head where you can bounce the light, you can try it out but you may have difficulty getting even light dispersion across the full surface of the work you are photographing. Better to use two flash heads on stands reflecting into umbrellas or through softboxes positioned on either side of the work giving a uniform coverage of light across the work’s surface.

3) White light: As there are many possible lighting products to choose or use I will avoid referencing specific types of lighting. Essentially, you want to use a single white light source (or two lights casting a uniform light) to prevent modifying the color of your artwork.

4) Spread the light: If you have access to strobe flashes you can use at least two flashes with reflector umbrellas, placing each at the same level as the artwork and the camera. Your goal is to spread the light evenly across the surface of your artwork so that all areas of the art (right, center and left) receive the same amount of light.

5) And measure it: If you have a light meter, measure the light from the right, center and left sides of the work to get a reading equal for all three.

6) Control it: If you are using a light set up indoors, be sure that no other light is leaking into your readings (windows, overhead lights etc).

7) Move that couch: Be aware of the color of large items around your set up (walls, ceilings, big couches, etc). Color shifts in your final image may be caused by color casts from these. If you detect them, either move your set up or correct the image in post processing.

8 ) Look out for shadows: Check your LCD screen often to see that the lighting is as you want it to be. You are trying to minimize unwanted shadows (you may want some shadows to show brush strokes, for example) and other visual distortions. Move the lights further or closer from the work, or adjust their output till you get the lighting effect exactly how you want it. (Keep in mind that the LCD screen on your camera will make your image look sharper as it shows the image at a higher contrast than is really there).

9) Humans are not machines: How we see light as humans and how cameras see light as machines is not the same. Our brains adjust to automatically “correct” lighting in ways cameras do not. This is why it is important to check your images on your LCD and computer screen to be sure you are capturing the lighting you expect and not assuming that because it looks good to your eye it will look good as an image. Viewing on the camera’s LCD will make it easier to read the evenness of the light. Use the histogram view if you know how to read one. A good one should look like the image at the beginning of this post.

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How to Shoot your Art

Editing your Image – How to Shoot your Art VII

Julian Haber — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:28:26 +0000

1) Load it: Load your images to your computer and open them up in an image editor like Photoshop. IMPORTANT: The first thing you must do is save your image as TIF or PSD file type. Never work on a JPEG image and resave it, as you will lose quality with each save until the image is degraded beyond use.

2) Anything but the focus: Editing an image can improve the tonal qualities of the colors, correct and / or improve lighting and allow you to crop and straighten out the image as necessary amongst many other things assuming you have working knowledge of your image-editing program. What editing cannot do is correct an out of focus image, which is why above all else, getting a sharply focused image is critical.

3) Balance it all: Check that the darkest areas still have detail and the lightest areas are not disappearing into whiteness.

4) Focus, focus, focus: Check that the whole image is in focus.

5) Save it: Save the file first in the format you are editing in and then save a JPEG copy set to the requirements of the site or purpose you will be using the image for. (72 dpi is sufficient for correctly displaying an image on the web).

If you have set you art work and camera up properly as described here and taken the time to make sure you have the right lighting, proper exposure and sharp focus on your image when you refine the image using your preferred image editing software you will end up with a photo that optimally displays your art work and ideally helps you to find new fans for your work.

Further Research

There are many helpful sites online where you can go to find more information on how to shoot art and more tips on photography in general. Here are a few of the main ones I used as references for this series:

www.kenrockwell.com

http://www.dallasartsrevue.com/resources/How-to-Photo-Art.shtml

http://artlinkswap.org/photographing_art.shtml

http://finerworks.com/hints&tips/photographingartwork.asp

http://www.theartistsweb.net/wiki/How_To_Photograph_Artwork

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How to Shoot your Art – The Series

How to Prepare a Top-Notch Artist Packet

Lara Evoy — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:33:16 +0000

The most important thing that you can do as an artist, apart from creating great work and taking the time to get to know the people who work and hold influence in your field, is to take the time to put together promotional materials that reflect your artistic vision, creativity and level of professionalism. Over the years I have seen hundreds of portfolios and artist statements, and here are a few tips that I can recommend :

1. Your Portfolio is Everything: Your presentation package or portfolio should reflect who you are as an artist. EVERYTHING COUNTS, from the quality of materials that you use, to spelling and grammar. Choose a portfolio that mirrors your image. Remember that it is often the first thing that you will present to people, and will allow them to get an idea of who you are and what you do.

2. Using the Best Quality Materials: You should invest in the BEST QUALITY MATERIALS THAT YOU CAN AFFORD, especially with respect to any visual material or reproductions of your work. Forget about photos taken at home with your work on the wall and stuff scattered in the background. The technology is there (hyperlink). You can now scan images, or crop photos with Photoshop. If this seems daunting, get someone to help, a niece or young neighbour. Barter art work with a professional photographer. If you do take photos of your work, find a blank wall, preferably white, with good lighting. Focus in on the art work. Crop as close as possible. Also include several installation shots of your work, to provide a sense of dimension and overall perspective.

3. Identifying Your Work: Any image of your work needs to be accompanied by DETAILED INFORMATION on that art work. Always include the following information for each work of art:
a. Artist’s Name
b. Title of Work
c. Date
d. Dimensions
e. Materials
f. Price Rental / Price Purchace

4. The Artist Statement: Take the time to write-up a compelling ARTIST STATEMENT that clearly expresses your artistic vision (I didn’t say this was going to be easy… you will probably need to rewrite your statement several times and read it to others to get it right). Don’t be afraid to ask others what they think! This will help you make sure you are being clear and that even uninitiated art-lovers will understand what you are trying to express. You don’t have to include all suggestions, but you should try to listen carefully to suggestions that might be helpful.

5. More on the Artist Statement: Your artist statement should describe your artistic vision and approach to art-making. Use concrete examples to highlight your ideas. Speak about HOW you work (materials, technique, approach), as well as WHAT is important to you (vision, values, philosophy, ideas, passion). Most artist statements are between ONE PARAGRAPH and TWO PAGES long.

Check List of What to Include in Your Artist’s Package:
a. Artist statement.
b. Biography or professional C.V.
c. Visual material or images of your art work, that are of good quality and clearly identified (this goes for digital images as well as printed images).
d. Printed or electronic invitations, pamphlets or posters.
e. Catalogues and publications.
f. Business card.
g. Good quality copies of favourable reviews, published articles or links to blogposts. If you have many entries include only the most important articles, the others can be cited in your CV.
h. Website

Once your artist portfolio is complete it will serve you for the next few years. Don’t forget to keep adding invitations, reviews, letters or appreciation, and any other promotional material related to your work.
You can also draw from your portfolio to create an artist packet to be sent out to prospective galleries, art fairs, funders or calls for submission. All the information will be in one place!