Photographing art

[MacEye]

I need to photograph some works of art but have no idea what emulsion to use. Medium format will be used. Light source will probably be strobes but will consider tungsten if there seems to be a compelling reason to choose it. It's going to be a real mixed bag of artworkils, caseins, watercolors, silkscreens and pencil drawings. Does anyone out there have experience doing this sort of work? Any input will be greatly appreciated.

- MacEye

 

[asp.artist]

Hi, photographing artwork is a bit different type of photography. You concern is a reproduction that is consistent with the art work itself. Color needs to be right on. So, tungsten lights with tungsten film.
That done you can start worrying about the texture, moving the lights or rotating the art work will help. Are you shooting this just as a record? We artists seem to need either slides or jpgs for everything.

 

[MacEye]

These images will be just a record initially, but the image quality needs to be quite high because they may be published in catalogs or textbooks in the future. I wanted to shoot E-6 and then have the images scanned.

 

[asp.artist]

I have switched to digital just for the purpose of shooting artwork. E-6 sounds fine. The concerns are color, light and reflection (lights about 45% from the art and evenly spaced) and making sure that the camera focal plane is parallel to the art work. If there is an area that is especially complex (like the saw dust and wax paintings I shot Tuesday) you add a detail shot. Making the artist happy is the hard part!

 

[dpurdy]

I have done an awful lot of that type work, from shooting maps on 8x10 for the Navy to shooting sculpture on table top and all flat mediums behind glass or not for highest quality reproduction to portfolio slides. I don't do it any more because it is all being done digitally.

It is more difficult than you would think to do a perfect job. The light has to be right and the camera orientation has to be right. I found it easiest with flat art to shoot it hanging on a wall. You set your camera up at exactly the same height as the middle of the artwork (assuming the art work is hanging level) and then you make sure your camera lens is perfectly perpendicular to the plane of the art work. It is a matter of getting the height of the camera set right and making sure the artwork is square in the viewfinder.

It is probably easier to use some sort of copy stand that automatically sets the camera lens perpendicular to the plane of the artwork, but I never had such a thing and artworks often are too big.

As for film I always shot transparency film and I either chose Ektachrome EPN or the equivilant in Fuji.

I used to have several clients that depended on me to do all their work but they have all gone to someone who will shoot digital now. And in fact most shoot their own.

 

[wazza]

Shooting artwork

I have shot a great deal of artwork mostly behind glass, I used tungsten lights with tungsten film or daylight film with colour balancing gels over the lights(you can use a filter also). To eliminate unwanted reflections I would place polarising sheets on the lights and a polarising filter on the lens. Then turn the filter until the reflections disappear.
I have used this set up and obtained consistent colour accurate results, if using film suggest Fuji Astia or Provia.
Regards
Wazza

 

[Philippe-Georges]

I used to have several clients that depended on me to do all their work but they have all gone to someone who will shoot digital now. And in fact most shoot their own.

I had the same problem, but now the majority is comming back as after having a 'bad trip'.

Most of the art reproductions, I shoot on 4" x 5" and 13 x 18 cm, a tiny bit on medium format (too small for good detail).
For the parallelism, I use the old Hasselblad mirror system, it works perfect and is accurate to a few seconds of one degree. I have an adaptor to use this system on my Linhof.
For film, I find Provia the best. It responds good to the slight colour shift provoked by the 3 Polarisation filters I use to reduce the reflections in the brush strokes, particularly on varnished paintings. And it is giving the best results whit the processing I have over here.
The lights are strobes, 3200 J generators with the silver standard reflectors on the torches plus barn doors. The filters, I mount on the lights, not on the lens, are UV B1 and the usual Colour correction filters.
The lenses are Apo-Symmar M and G-Claron.

But, as usual, this is very personal, everybody will, soon or later, find their own way of working...

Good luck,

Philippe

 

[Terrence Brennan]

I have done a great deal of that in the past (it's how I earn my living), formerly with film, and now with digital equipment. Check this APUG post: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Yes, you should polarize the lights, but I would reserve the use of a second polarizing filter over the lens (called double polarization) for special tasks. The light polarizing filters will solve most reflection problems, but when you add the filter over the lens, virtually all reflections will vanish, and you will see a dramatic increase in contrast and saturation, which is usually much too much for transparency film.

I usually reserve this technique for situations where I was photographing paper (such as a drawing or pencil sketch), or a very old photographic print, where the edges had "silvered out." When photographing paper, close examination of the transparency will show that some of the paper fibres show specular highlights; double polarizing will most often control that. Another idea is to rotate the original 90°; this works especially well if the paper has a "grain" to it.

With digital, contrast and saturation control is much more easily achieved; with conventional colour materials, you may have to push/pull transparency film to get the desired results. I have used Kodak duplicating film, in both the sheet and 35mm formats, when an original was highly saturated. One example which comes to mind was when I had to copy several Cibachrome prints; I copied them on Kodak E Dupe film, using electronic flash. As I recall, the filter pack was something like CC40C + CC80Y, with an effective Exposure Index of about EI 10, which meant f/22, with about 8 flash "pops" in a totally darkened studio.

Drop me a PM if you have any specific questions.

 

[eddym]

Where I have found the need to use the polarizing filters was not for works behind glass, but for oil on canvas, especially if it has been varnished. The gloss is such that each little thread of the canvas becomes like a rounded mirror, and there is no way you can position the lights so that there are no reflections. The polarizers save the day.

 

[eddym]

War story:
A couple of years ago I shot a painting for the cover of a local magazine. I've been working for this client for several years, and always shooting 4x5 EPN with great results. That year, they asked me to shoot digital. Reluctantly, I did, and delivered the finished files on a cd. Couple of days later I got a call from them saying that the colors were off; that the painting had a lot more orange in it. Well, I didn't remember so much orange, but then I did not have the painting in front of me to verify it. So I took my laptop to the client's office and tried to correct the colors. NO WAY could I get as much orange in that painting as they insisted was there. Finally I had no option but to reshoot. I did so on EPN and delivered the film.
Got a call the next day... The orange was not there in the EPN either! The painting did not have the orange that the boss remembered when she selected it for the cover! So they asked me to reshoot yet another painting for the cover. For this shoot, I charged them.
The moral of the story: EPN does not lie.

 

[WarEaglemtn]

You may want to get some Fuji and Kodak L(long exposure) tungsten balanced film. The Kodak seems to have better values when copying oils and the Fuji when doing pastels. Don't know why, just my experience doing copy work on these materials. For many other media each seems to work well.