Photograph Your Art Like a Pro

Photo by Getty Images | Photograph Your Art Like a Professional | Quick Tips to Know
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Our contributing writers John Hulsey and Ann Trusty of The Artist’s Road wrote a really informative piece about how to get the most out of a photograph of your painting or drawing, and I wanted to share it with you — plus an opportunity to put your “shooter” eye to good use by turning photos into paintings. Enjoy!

Photo by Getty Images | Photograph Your Art Like a Professional | Quick Tips to Know
Photo by Getty Images

Insights from Behind the Camera

All the hard work and unique vision that we pour into our painting and drawing can result in artwork that we are proud of. The next step is to accurately photograph our art to share with friends, collectors, galleries and perhaps to enter into juried exhibitions.

Film holder frame attached to my light stand. Understanding how to shoot your art leads to understandings of how to turn photos into paintings.
Film holder frame attached to my light stand.

The essential component to that sharing process these days is the making of a professional-quality digital recording of our art. We have two choices — pay a hefty fee to have a pro shoot our work, or invest a small amount of money to purchase our own professional equipment and learn how to make these photographic exposures ourselves.

 Lexan/polarizing film sandwich I made to fit in the film holder frames.
Lexan/polarizing film sandwich I made to fit in the film holder frames.

Ann and I have done it both ways and believe that, in the long run, it is far more economical, efficient, and fun to take the pictures of our art ourselves. Here are a few tips we’ve learned along the way.

Camera Lens

Regardless of which brands of lights, stands and filters you use, it is essential that you purchase a camera with a good-quality glass lens. Every image must first pass through a lens of some kind. So, it is far better to get a camera with good optics but perhaps lower megapixels than the reverse! Buying a good used professional camera is a smart way to do this.

Lighting

Lighting is essential. I have an Impact Universal Film Holder frame attached to my light stand, along with a Tota-Light and heat shield.

I also use a Lexan/polarizing film sandwich I made to fit in the film holder frames. The Linear polarizing film can be purchased in various sizes and cut to fit, if necessary.

Filter

Note the Tiffen linear polarizing filter on the lens.
Note the Tiffen linear polarizing filter on the lens.

When a Tiffen linear polarizing filter is placed on a camera lens, the filter is rotated to 90-degrees from the orientation of the film in front of the lights (cross-polarization). The hot-spots and glare on your art will disappear, and the colors will increase in saturation, depth and fidelity. This is why the circular polarizer often sold for digital cameras won’t work here.

You can really see the difference that polarizing made in these two images of my oil painting, Another Night. On the left, no polarizing, and essentially a useless image. On the right you can see how the spectral highlights (hot spots) vanished, leaving well-balanced, rich tones without the heavy influence of the red-yellow tungsten light spectrum.

All that was needed was to crop the image and tweak it a little here and there in Photoshop.

Another Night by John Hulsey, oil painting. Another Night by John Hulsey, oil painting.

Worth the Investment

A small investment in the proper filters and lights pays big dividends in the results. With most juried shows relying on the quality of our photos to decide who will make the first cut, it is imperative artists get professional with their photography.

Without top-notch high-fidelity images to show, there is no way to get a fair assessment of our work. And that is entry-fee money down the drain. We should do all we can to learn about taking professional-quality photos of our art. It is easy and fun. And, learning how to take better pictures is also rewarding because you can capitalize on all that you learn shooting photos of your own work — if and when you decide to turn your photos into paintings.

From Photos to Paintings

Once you learn how to photograph your art like a pro, why not master how to turn photos into paintings? A great resource for accomplishing just that is Paint Stunning Landscapes from Photos with Johannes Vloothuis. This collection combines 24 lessons on working from photos to create landscapes, which is roughly 50 hours of instruction! What’s more? The lessons include demos in pastel, oil and watercolor. Learn more, and discover how to work from photos with Johannes Vloothuis’ help, here.

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Join the Conversation!

  1. i’m running in to issues with color calibration. the linear polarization film seams to make the light slightly purple? Which i think is throwing off my color calibration. The color-calibration software is making blues, reds and purples more muted. I think this is to compensate for the purplish light? Is this something anyone else has noticed?

  2. P.S.
    If anyone wants to go a little further and learn how digital cameras work, go to http://www.theartistsroad.net and read our extensive articles: The Artist’s Guide to Digital Cameras, Parts I and II, in the member’s section. No technical jargon, just plain talk aimed at explaining the why and how of digital cameras. Join the site to access them and over 150 other informative articles, videos and tutorials about artists, painting and travel.

  3. RickG has provided some great info as well!
    Our own experiences with the circular vs. linear filter has been that the linear works better for us on our Canon 5D – others may not get the same results with different equipment. While it is true that all digital cameras require a circular type filter in order for the light meter and the autofocus to work properly, in this controlled situation, I do not use the autofocus, and I bracket all exposures, so my meter is not that important. It is absolutely necessary to have the lights and filter film in combination with the lens filter in order to eliminate glare and hot spots. After a few tries, the novice will quickly discover the perfect combination of F-stop, speed and distance for the camera and the lights, and then the process will be nearly automatic. Concentrate on getting a good, not necessarily perfect exposure in RAW or TIFF format. The fact is, the really important adjustments, including out-of-square issues will be made in the digital darkroom software, and we encourage artists to invest in a professional-level copy of Photoshop CS and perhaps take a seminar in how to use it. It will be money and time very well-spent.

  4. Courtney, thank you for sharing this invaluable information. I have been in need of serious help in this department since I started to document my work in high school. This post has provided some great tips.

    RickG, thanks very much for sharing your PDF! It contains the answers to a lot of my questions.

    I definitely have to invest in some good equipment as soon as possible.

  5. thanks for your articles, Courtney.
    I am just a principìant, but using my little camera 10 mpixs , and by diferent kind of accident or casuality, (trought a pair of ocassional dark glasses, or a peace of infrared glass of my set for weld…etc. could to work with some nocturnal fotos, from flowers and skyies light., like the moon among trees, etc.
    EXUSEME MY ENGLISH, PLEASE.
    tAKE A GOOD YEAR.

  6. Lori, the important factor is that you use linear polarizers on your lights in conjunction with your polarizer on your camera’s lens. The information in the blog is great, but the comment that a circular polarizer on your camera won’t work is incorrect. I use one all the time and it works great. Circular polarizers actually have linear polarization built into them. They include another element that allows the passage of circularly polarized light, which is essential to the functioning of the metering systems of most modern DSLRs. Spend your money on the polarizing filters for the lights and try your existing circular polarizer with the new setup. You should be able to rotate the polarizer on the camera to eliminate glare.

    Rick

  7. Thank you for this article. I consider myself professional yet always struggle to remove glare from photos. I have a regular polarizing lens but didn’t not realize I could do better with a Tiffen type. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

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