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When I started trying to photograph paintings of [http://www.print-of.co.uk] things I found that there were an awful lot of problems. The actual colour of the painting never seemed to match up with the final colour of my print and because printer paper comes in all forms whether it be matte or satin or glossy each one of these forms seems to present different colours all by themselves. So it might seem natural to have to take the opinion that it is the printer that is at fault. But this is not necessarily the case, who's to say that your camera is actually recording the correct colours in the first place. And who knows what you're imaging programme is doing to those selfsame colours once the file is in the computer. Add to this the problems of reflection on the surface of the painting or the furthest reaches of a large painting that you photographed being slightly out of focus the whole exercise becomes fraught with difficulty. This blog is going to show you how to set up a temporary studio in your own home so that all of these problems become controllable.
Step one. The problem of the ambient light
Ambient light is the number one cause of glare and reflection in your photographs of paintings of. The natural reaction to this is to try to reduce the amount of light coming on to the painting and then taking your photographs accordingly. But this results in a lot of visual noise in your photograph and increased lengths of exposure in order to gather enough light into the camera to get a ½ decent photograph. A steadfast rule in photography is that you can never have too much light, after all light is food for cameras. The first thing I'm going to get you to do is to black out all your windows. This is fairly straightforward, a piece of dark material over the window should do the job, but bear in mind that if you're material has a colour to it, say it's a deep red then that deep red light is going to influence the result of your photographs so try to get a black blackout if you can. I use a basic system where I hang my blackout material on to a rod which fits over self adhesive hooks there are fitted to either side of my window frames. Once you've done this you're going to need to cut down the glare within the room, most people have white ceilings and very often white or very light coloured walls, these all act to bounce the light around within the room. Where you have light bouncing around you are not in control of it. So you're going to need to darken your walls in some way. The simplest way is to erect a dark enclosure of hanging curtains or sheets. If your situation prevents you from darkening the interior of your room in this way then don't worry too much as is only becomes very important when the painting you're photographing is dark and has a sheen to it. Place the painting in a position you are going to photograph it in and then stand with your eyes in more or less a position where your camera lens will be situated. Check for glare across the surface of the painting because anything that is showing there will show up, often more noticeably in the photograph. If you do notice any sort of glare or reflection try to find where this is coming from, it may be worth placing an obstacle somewhere in the room to reduce this part of the reflections.
Next part of Free Paintings of Glare will deal with the lighting.
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