Shades of Red: Images of Southwest Utah

Today we're releasing a collection of photographs I took in the fall of 2022 while we were visiting Southwest Utah. Rather than displaying the images one by one on social media, where they would at best be quickly viewed then forgotten in favour of cat videos, I chose to create this collection so the images could be enjoyed at leisure and as a group. In most cases these images represent my first edits; in coming months I will likely edit and re-edit each image until they fully reflect the moments and feelings I hoped to capture when I held my camera.

This wasn’t the first time we visited Southwest Utah and if all goes well it will not be the last. Diana and I visited the same area briefly about eight years earlier to backpack in the Kolob Canyons section of Zion National Park. It was a wonderful trip but much too short; we wanted to return to stay longer and see more.

This time we were fortunate to stay three weeks in a location that allowed us to access many scenic areas and enjoy downtime when not out hiking. And though we had not planned it, everywhere we went the dominant theme was red, even in areas outside parks. Red rocks, red dirt...even red-tinged skies. Hence the title of this collection: Shades of Red.

I have presented photographs from most of the areas we visited, including Zion National Park, Red Cliffs Desert Reserve and other, less-celebrated areas. In most cases I have not cited specific locations, though many are well-known and identifiable. Instead I refer to each area generally and leave it to the viewer to explore on his or her own.

I hope you enjoy these photographs. If you’re interested in prints of any of them, please drop me a line at timidturtlecreative@gmail.com.

Download Shades of Red here:

Shades of Red Collection.pdf

Download PDF • 65.65MB

15 tips for taking better photos of your art with a smartphone

If you’re an artist who wants to photograph artwork for display on social media or your website a smartphone may be all you need. Smartphone cameras have come a lng way in the last few years; under the right conditions they can produce results that rival more expensive digital cameras.

Ready to give it a try? Follow these tips to get the best results:

Getting ready

• Use — or create — soft light — The best light for photographing art without glare and shadows is soft and even. That’s why you’ll find some of the best light outdoors on an overcast day. If you have to work inside using artificial light, or if you have bright sun pouring through a window, soften it by hanging a white sheet over the window or light. And be sure to place your painting against a wall or dark background to be sure no light comes through the canvas from behind.

• Stick to smaller paintings — For best results, shoot only paintings that comfortably fit in your frame. Why? If you need to move back significantly to fit a large painting in the frame, you’ll likely be left with a lot of empty space on the sides or top of the image. This means you’ll need to crop most of the photo to isolate the image of your artwork leaving you with with a low-resolution file. Photographers solve this by shooting large paintings in pieces, then stitching them together using image-processing software. That’s beyond a smartphone’s capabilities, however…and don’t even think of using the panoramic photo option!

• Use a tripod and smartphone holder — Smartphones are good at image stabilization but for the best, sharpest results always photograph your art using a tripod. You don’t need a fancy professional tripod — a table-size model will do. If you do have a tripod, a smartphone adapter costs only a few dollars and is well worth the investment.

Camera Settings

• Turn off the flash — The flash on a smartphone can create annoying hotspots and glare on your artwork. Be sure to turn it off before photographing your artwork.

• Turn on your camera’s grid option — Most smartphones have an option to superimpose a three-by-three grid on the phone’s screen. This is useful for ensuring your artwork is properly centred in the frame and square to the camera.

• Don’t use HDR — HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. Using it, your camera takes several exposures then blends them to create a single photo that preserves details in both the scene’s dark and light areas. This works best in high-contrast situations such as landscapes, where the sky is bright and the ground is comparatively dark. When photographing art, however, it can unnaturally darken and lighten areas and affect colour. Best to leave it turned off and ensure you have good even light instead.

• Skip the fancy filters — Smartphone camera apps allow you to apply filters both when taking a photo and when editing it after shooting. Neither is good when photographing art. Your goal is to produce an image that resembles your original work as closely as possible. Filters look cool, but they won’t help you create faithful reproductions.

• Turn on “do not disturb” — This tip is included just for the sake of your sanity! There’s nothing more frustrating than setting up art, getting everything just-so and being interrupted by a text or a phone call.

Technique

• Use the back camera — Smartphones have two cameras — one on the back and the other on the front. The lower-resolution front camera is used mainly for taking selfies or making FaceTime calls. For best results, use the higher-resolution back camera.

• Don’t use zoom or wide angle — Zooming too tightly or backing the camera out to capture a wide angle can both introduce undesirable distortion in your photo.

• Don’t completely fill the frame — Usually we advise filling the camera’s frame with your artwork. For smartphones we don’t, and there’s a good reason: Smartphone cameras have small, relatively wide-angle lenses; if you move close enough to fill the frame you risk producing a distorted image. So back up a bit, make sure the artwork takes up a good portion of the frame without distorting, and shoot.

• Use the self-timer — A tripod helps, but using the self-timer removes all camera movement and produces a sharp image. Use the 10-second timer for best results..

• Keep your painting upright — To avoid distortion (such as the bottom of your image being wider than the top) make sure your painting is upright — either by hanging it on a wall or propping it on an easel. If you can’t achieve a perfect upright position, ensure your phone and painting are at the same angle.

Processing

• Process using Snapseed or similar — All smartphones come with built-in image editing apps; on an iPhone it’s as simple as opening the image in Photos and pressing Edit. Doing so offers options to change the photo’s orientation, correct distortion, change colour, contrast, exposure and apply filters. While the built-in app is powerful, Snapseed (a Google product) is even better, with more options and controls — and it’s free to download and use.

• Straighten, crop and check colours — You shouldn’t need to do a lot of processing if you have good light and good technique. But at minimum, check to be sure your image is straight, crop out the background and make sure your colours look the same on-screen as they do in real life.

Give these tips a try the next time you shoot your art with a smartphone. And let me know if they helped you or if there are other tips you’d suggest!

If you’d like to keep these tips in a handy format, download this tip sheet I created!

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!