Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Photographing your Art to SELL!



 Part 1. Equipment- The right tools for the job. 

A picture is worth a thousand words. In regard to art, done right, a picture can also be worth a thousand dollars! Make no mistake, high quality photographs are your best sales tool. They spark the necessary romantic affection a buyer must feel for your artwork to produce a sale.
Taking great pictures is an art in itself. There are so many details to consider that the job can be overwhelming. But once the whole process is broken down into simplified tasks, it becomes quite manageable. 

Producing high quality images requires a certain amount of specialized equipment including a digital 35mm camera, a sturdy tripod, a size appropriate photo cube and two or more studio lights. The primary piece of equipment is the camera. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but it does have to have adjustable features such as the focus, resolution and aperture settings. 


Let’s start with the focus. An adjustable focus enables you to take multiple shots of the same piece of art with several different focus points to determine which one shows the piece best. This is particularly helpful if the piece is rectangular or tall. Depending upon the shape and color of the art, I sometimes focus on the outer edge. Other times I dial in on the center because it gives a better representation of the whole. 

Resolution refers to the number of pixels in the digital image being taken. The larger the number, the higher the resolution and the better the image quality. When shooting my artwork I usually shoot at a high resolution so I have flexibility in regard to how I use the image. I generally shoot my images at 4000 x 3000. High resolution is appropriate for print media such as magazines, brochures, post cards etc. Low resolution images are used for web based applications like websites, newsletters etc. A high resolution image can always be made smaller and used for any number of purposes. Low resolution, on the other hand, cannot be made larger, limiting its potential uses. 


Glass is particularly hard to photograph due to the rich color, its transparency and the reflective quality. A camera with adjustable aperture settings makes this tough job a lot easier. The aperture is the size of the opening inside the camera lens. A large aperture allows more light into the camera while a small aperture blocks some of the light, preventing it from entering. When photographing my gallery art I do what’s known as bracket the images. I take three pictures of the same piece of art. Each picture has a different aperture setting. The first shot is taken one setting above the camera’s automatic setting, +0.3. The second is taken on the automatic setting, 0.0. The third is taken one notch below the automatic setting,-0.3. Bracketing enables me to capture the best possible color representation of my art. After taking the pictures I review them on the large computer screen and select the one image that best represents the glass colors. 

Red is a particularly difficult color to photograph. If a picture is taken with the camera on the automatic setting the red glass appears dark, almost black instead of ruby-like or jewel toned. When photographing pieces with red, I generally select the image taken with an aperture setting of +0.3 or sometimes +0.7. The number isn’t as important as showing the true color of the art accurately. When I’m not sure which aperture setting will work best, I expand the aperture range and take extra pictures.

Camera Features at a glance:
35 mm, adjustable focus, resolution and aperture setting
Next time we’ll look at the tripod, the photo cube and the lights. 


Happy fusing,
Lisa

Lisa@LisaVogt.net
Web www.LisaVogt.net
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