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
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Thanks, need this at the moment
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