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Thread: Photographing art work

  1. #11
    photobymike's Avatar
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    Dec 2006
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    Re: Photographing art work

    Oil paintings are the hardest to photograph. There are chemicals and fluorescers in the paints themselves that reflect light differently. The colors recorded on film may be so far off from what your eyes see. Remember film records light that our eyes cannot see. As a wedding photographer for more years than i care to remember ... How many times have had to explain why the brides white dress is slightly purple or pink or bluish when the color balance is perfect. I have even dodged a print with a CC filter trying to eliminate this. Modern oil color paints have many color formulas that fool your eyes ... that cant be seen or are different in color from viewing on film verses original. LOL Dont forget the UV CUT off filter and polarized light source. Photographing oil paintings are a very specialized part of the photo biz.

    this is a quick answer http://www.wikihow.com/Photograph-Oil-Paintings

  2. #12
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Photographing art work

    I've seen a fair amt of Fuji RTP Tungsten 4x5 still around, even though it's officially disc -
    but if you're going for daylight, you can created a softbox effect on a misty day, or using
    a diffuser. Tricky to balance color unless you have a color meter and set of filters. Beware
    of shade under a bright blue sky or a cold clammy kind of overcast. Remember your bellows
    ext factor. For a daylt chrome film I would choose E100G or Astia 100F while they can still
    be found. As already noted, don't expect perfect color reproduction with any film, though
    the three I mentioned are about as good as it gets.

  3. #13

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    Re: Photographing art work

    Quote Originally Posted by hmf View Post
    This is a photograph of an Alexander Calder oil painting owned by family friends in Connecticut. The intended use is to make a 4X5 transparency for some sort of Calder registry. I was asked this morning to do this job on Sunday, when I am in town for another occasion.

    Based on the helpful comments thus far, I can enumerate how many ways I am unprepared to do this:
    1. Never used color film or true working knowledge of color balance.
    2. No flat field lens.
    3. No means to accurately align film and object plane.
    4. No artificial light source or true working knowledge of their use.

    It sounds like I will be wasting all of our time, and their film. I think I will decline the 'job'. Thanks all, for your input.
    I think this is prudent. There are a lot of quality nuts here, who can be quite picky about one thing or another. Is that flat field lens really absolute? I don't think so. What if you have an alignment tool, but not the lens, or vise versa? Cross polarizers? When you add up all the factors up, things can go haywire.

    Being out of town, having to use a setup that isn't at your studio brings a level of difficulty that I don't like... I don't do it enough. The biggest factor, for me would be the lack of experience with color film. Many of us who have done this over the years had a lab close to us where we could leave the camera and the painting up until the film came back and we were sure everything was right... that is much harder to do these days with so few labs developing color film.

    I second what photobymike said about oils and color. I once was trying to get a particular color in a small section to work properly in a reproduction and the color was hardly there - it was a coral color. I finally went back to the chrome and the color was just missing, the chrome was clear where that color should have been (in an otherwise well done chrome). I wouldn't have believed if I wasn't looking right at it. Things can happen...

    Tell them to find a local photographer who does this all the time.

    Lenny
    EigerStudios
    Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing

  4. #14

    Join Date
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    Re: Photographing art work

    If you were going to do this as a favor, you might pull it off in a pinch and get acceptable results with a very pure white diffusion screen in daylight, perhaps using Astia, and a polarizer. Even if you get the color balance right, it can still be frustrating trying to capture accurate color with paint pigments that are beyond the gamut of color films.
    If this was to be a paying gig, re-photographing artwork without a clearly demonstrated workflow can be tantamount to professional hari-kari.

  5. #15

    Join Date
    Dec 2006
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    Silver Spring, MD
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    Re: Photographing art work

    This was not going to be a paying gig. Happily, the owners got my thinly veiled message and hired a professional.

    Thanks to all for great suggestions and support. This is a great forum!

  6. #16
    John Olsen
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    Jan 2012
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    Madison, WI
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    Re: Photographing art work

    I think you're right to decline this job. The client has no idea what is required, so their offer was off target. If you're interested in this type of work, get lights, polarizers for the lights and a polarizer for the camera. You'll need an incident light meter for adjusting the lights for uniformity and polarization. You should shoot test shots either with some kind of instant film or a digital camera, either of which will need to be calibrated to the film you use. Frankly, it's not worth the bother unless it's going to be a continued activity. Thank them for the offer, but don't enter into a frustrating waste of time. You've done yourself a great service by questioning whether you want to do this. Congratulations.

  7. #17

    Join Date
    Apr 2012
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    Oso,Washington
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    Re: Photographing art work

    Quote Originally Posted by davisg2370 View Post
    There is a great Kodak book called "Copying and Duplicating" that contains a lot of excellent information on how to do this type of work on both a small, occasional scale, and a large professional scale. It is worth getting a copy.
    I second this; well worth it.

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