Artwork Reproduction - Lighting

[P. Victor]

I read AJB's question and replies. some other questions came to me since then. I´m the photographer's assitant of my father. He owns his own studio, but sometimes we take lighting and camera equipment out. We photopraph paintings and sculptures with 4X5"(210mm lenses) and 6X6. Recently, we went out to photopraph an oil painting that had been restaured. The restauring technique seemed to use some kind of varnish, because there was some intense glow spots, specially over the brush mark endings. I didn´t want to use a polarizer because the contrast of the work could not be affected. The film used was Astia Fufichrome 100, daylight.We used two flash spots pointing to each other making a 90° angle with the painting, as so with the camera. When we develop the slide there where some white reflection spots. It hasn´t ruined the photographer, but i didn´t like it. Was this the best ilumination for this case? What about in general 2D artwork photography, what are most proper lighting techniques to medium and LF? Thank you all in advance.

regards

[adrian tyler]

your illumination tequnique sounds right, each strobe at a 45 degree angle to the painting. you are probably getting some light bouncing off a piece of furniture or something a bit reflective in the background, try taking black cloths over and blacking all the possible reflective surfices. on the other hand if the painting has a lot or texture it is possible that you'll get reflections and there is not too much you can do about it. a normal varnished canvas should give no problem though.

[Tim Hettinger]

I have been doing this sort of work- both 35mm slides and 4x5 transparencies for additional income for about two years now. While you followed the general rule, it doesn't always work and is really only meant to be a starting point. You can do a couple of things if you can't use polarizers. Try moving your lights so that they are more off camera access- putting them instead of 90 degrees in relation to each other, make it more like 110 degrees or so. Keep moving them until the glare disappears. Make sure you use an indident meter and check all the corners of the piece and the center- it gets more and more difficult to get the light even as you do this! The other thing you can do is use a longer lens if you have one and if you have the room. You can then move back from the painting and out of the angles in which that glare falls. The same technique can be used for plexi or glass covered pieces. In that case, it is important to cover your tripod in a black cloth, and shoot in a room free of anything shiny- it will all be relfected clearly in the glass otherwise!! good luck

[Gem Singer]

It probably would help to keep the specular highlights to a minimum if you used diffusers for the flashes instead of spots. Try using soft boxes, or bouncing the light off of umbrellas.

[P. Victor]

Thank you all. there were probrally a reflective surface in the backgroun. Next time we go photograph out of the studio, I´ll avoid these conditions.

Cheers,