Curing the headaches we all face when photographing art

A color checker is an indispensable item to make photographing artwork easier.

As an artist, you’ll eventually want to photograph your art — to post on social media or your website, to submit to a gallery or contest, to create a series of greeting cards, to make giclée prints to sell…or even to print on mugs, pillows and T-shirts. Heck, we know one artist who printed his work on shower curtains!

For some purposes, such as social media and websites, photographing art isn’t necessarily a problem or even difficult. Provided you have soft, even outdoor light, most smartphones are capable of taking a decent photo. But for other purposes you’ll need to get a little more sophisticated, using high-resolution digital cameras, tripods, studio lights, colour checkers, polarizing filters, computer applications and more.

However you choose to photograph your artwork, you’ll soon find doing so presents a laundry list of challenges — or headaches, as I like to think of them:

• Glare/Uneven Lighting — Glare can ruin a photo of a painting, obscuring details, shifting colours and making it unsuitable for printing or displaying on social media and websites. In the same way, uneven lighting creates dark and light areas that change the painting’s appearance and colours.

• Colour Cast/Inaccuracy — Your goal when photographing art is to produce an image faithful to the original when displayed on-screen or printed. A colour cast (a shade that affects the whole image) or incorrect colours make this impossible.

• Distortion/Keystoning — If the camera is not parallel to the painting, the top or bottom of the image may appear to be different widths. If using a wide-angle lens, the image may “bow” in the middle.

• Noisy/Grainy/Blurry Image — If the camera is not focused correctly or moves during exposure the image will be blurry. If there is not enough light you will need to use a higher ISO, producing unusable grainy or noisy images.

• Painting Too Large — A large painting may be difficult or impossible to fit in the camera frame; moving back to fit it in may produce an unusable low-resolution image.

• Images Look Different On-Screen vs Printed — Ideally, the image should look the same on-screen and printed; both should match the original painting.

• Resolution Too Low — If produced incorrectly or using unsuitable equipment, images may not have enough resolution to use for making prints, cards, etc.

The good news? There are solutions to each of these headaches. Based on my own experience photographing art I’ve put together a document that summarizes each challenge and lays out solutions you can apply in the studio and during post-processing.

Read it here and good luck!

Disappointed by the turnout at your art show? Ask yourself these questions….

Tell me if this sounds familiar: You’ve been painting for a few years, gradually improving at your craft and you decide it’s time to hold an art show. You work gruelling hours to prepare, painting harder than you’ve ever painted, burning through canvases furiously, framing paintings, setting up the gallery and buying piles of refreshments for the opening. On opening night only two or three people show up. And they’re either your friends and family (if you’re lucky) or (more likely) fellow artists looking for a free glass of wine, some hors d’oeuvres and a chance to reassure themselves they are superior creators.

It’s happened to all of us. And it hurts — it’s embarrassing, it’s humbling and it just plain feels bad. But rather than throw your hands up in despair, toss out all your canvases and convert your studio into a storage unit, ask yourself the following questions to help prepare for your next, more successful show:

1. Do you, yourself, attend others’ art shows?

If not, why would you expect others to attend your show? There’s no official swearing in or application process, but you’re part of an art community and it’s important to give to the community as well as expecting to receive from the community. A little quid quo pro, if you will.

2. How did you promote the show?

Let me guess — you created a Facebook event and posted one story on Instagram. And you were surprised no one responded, besides your mom giving you a “like.”

Promoting an art show isn’t simple, isn’t fast and isn’t guaranteed. There is a lot of competition out there for people’s time: families, work, shopping, movies, travel…the list goes on. Stacked up against those things, your art show might not stand out as a priority.

3. Realistically, what did you expect? To sell out on opening night?

That’s the dream, isn’t it? Little-known artist from a small town holds her first art show, sells everything to eager collectors and is suddenly catapulted to fame and fortune. Right.

It’s important to set realistic goals for your art show. Unless you’re already a big-name artist, it’s unlikely folks will flock to your show. Unless you’re giving away free cars or something. In which case I’ll definitely be attending your next show.

4. What else was happening on opening night?

It’s hard to imagine, but your art show opening might not have been the only event in town. As we discussed earlier, there is a lot of competition for people’s attention and can’t plan around all of it — movies happen all the time, for example — but if you know there is a big concert coming to town or a big sporting event…maybe pick a different day to hold your opening.

Other happenings are more difficult to control. For instance, if you are holding your art show in the winter there could be a blizzard. Who wants to go out in that? In spring your town could be flooded. In summer wild fires. Etc. You can’t control the weather. And as we’ve seen recently, there’s no controlling things like pandemics, which can shut down your show in the blink of an eye.

These are just a few questions you should ask while you’re sitting in a quiet corner philosophically drinking all the wine you bought for opening night. The important thing (besides hydrating while you’re drinking all that wine — you don’t want tomorrow to be even worse!) is to learn from the experience, determine what you’ll do differently next time and — most importantly — get back to making art.

See you at your next show. And let us know how it goes!