Re: What fee should I charge?
I’ve shot 3D art work before many years ago, but not 2D. I know I’ll need to get even illumination across the subject. The gray cards I have are very old and discolored from age. Thinking about using my incident Gossen meter to check exposures. Nice thing about digital is I can check the camera’s histogram and connected the camera to a laptop to see what I’ve got……..instant gratification can be nice. :)
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When two egotists meet, it’s an I for an I.
Re: What fee should I charge?
To those experienced with shooting artwork with digital, does the inclusion of a grey card guarantee an accurate color rendition assuming you white balance for your lighting prior to shooting? How often to you end up tweaking the color balance due to some odd color shift? The OP just needs to produce digital content, not prints, so maybe just address the rendition of the digital image. Since this can pose a risk to the project timewise, it would be a good idea to know how often this is an issue so that it can be factored into the price.
Re: What fee should I charge?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jim Michael
To those experienced with shooting artwork with digital, does the inclusion of a grey card guarantee an accurate color rendition assuming you white balance for your lighting prior to shooting? How often to you end up tweaking the color balance due to some odd color shift? The OP just needs to produce digital content, not prints, so maybe just address the rendition of the digital image. Since this can pose a risk to the project timewise, it would be a good idea to know how often this is an issue so that it can be factored into the price.
I use a three toned grey card that has known values for the white-grey-black. Once I set the white balance, then I set my curves to those known points using a Photoshop plug-in called Curvemeister. It gets me pretty close.... :) I only do this with very large pieces that are too large to stitch on my scanner... you can't beat the scanner for fidelalty.
Re: What fee should I charge?
Hi Jim,
Yea, I’ve thought about the color balance and all. I’m using 5500k lights (would prefer 5000K, but could find any locally) and a Kodak color & gray scales. Setting the camera white balance (hopefully) I will record the true colors.
Thanks
Milton
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Dockyard: A physician`s garden.
Re: What fee should I charge?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Milton Tierney
Hi all,
I am a member of a small local art gallery and have been asked by one of the painters to photograph her work and burn it on a CD. Others arts (painters, sculptors, potter, etc.) may want their work photographed also. What would be a reasonable price to charge?
Milton
I'd say be very careful before accepting this. I wouldn't do it myself. First of all, it is easy to get an accurate printing result of about 85%. Beyond that, it gets harder, depending on one's skills in Photoshop. If one wants to take a shot at 100% color matching, be prepared to spend a lot of money on paper and time (anywhere from 5 to 25 test prints and lots of time masking). Last year I decide to increase my setup rates tenfold, then I finally backed down to charging the time, whatever it took, by the hour. If you are in a tourist destination, where there are clearly going to be a steady demand for reprints, that's fine - it comes back. Where I live, painters sell something every once in a while, and all the extra work on the front end never pays off. I support artists too, but I won't go out of business, and lose my home, for anyone, if I can avoid it. I damn near did.
Now that I have that off my chest, I'll get back to the point. Please excuse the digression. The danger here is that artists often say - I just need enough quality for my web site. Intrepid photographer goes off and creates that, everyone is happy, and then something else happens. A few people want an inexpensive print. When someone tries to do that in 8x10 size, or for postcards, its fine, but invariably, they will want to make a 36 inch print from your file. Then they will come back and tell you how horrible you are for providing such a low rez piece of junk. How could you, what do you mean you have to shoot it again? Scan!!!? Rent a bigger digital!!!? Are you nuts - how much does that cost!!?? (No good deed, etc.)
If they just want a small file, and have no idea in mind that they will use it for anything other than sending it on a cd to a gallery, or putting it on a web site, and that's real, fine. Get it in writing, in large 14 point type. Put a big paragraph on there about any time they want to make a print larger than 10 inches they understand it will have to be shot again and make them read it before they sign it. Preferably in blood.
;-)
Lenny
Re: What fee should I charge?
Thanks Lenny for a dose of reality. I make it clear that I only shoot at 10megs and what ever they want they have to use the CD that I give them. I know people can be difficult or just &))*)#$%^&. That’s why I like dealing with animals; they are more reasonable.
Milton
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Incongruous: Where bills are passed.
Re: What fee should I charge?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kirk Gittings
I did this as part of my living for many years before I had enough architecture to do that exclusively. I don't think artists deserve a break just because they are artist. Like it or not art is a business and they need to be realistic about what it costs including having their work properly documented. If you want to do this as a public service at least make it clear what your time is really worth and take that in trade or that you are doing them a favor. When I was doing it many years ago, I was charging $100 an hour plus all expenses like film (including markup braketing exposures etc.) and Polaroid.
I am with Kirk on this one. A portion of my income was derived from such assignments while working as a freelance professional photographer many years ago. If you have doubt as to a fee, perhaps you should not charge. A fee suggests that you are a professional, and capable of delivering a professional product.
Re: What fee should I charge?
One reason artwork photography is a professional LF specialty area is because it is often used in high-end lifestyles magazine inserts and gallery handouts, and the production values have to be so high as to work with 200-300 line screen resolutions at full bleed, etc. Another issue is that you need camera moves and/or polarized lighting setups to keep the camera out of the shot as a reflection in framed works with glass. If that weren't enough, faithfully reproducing artwork can be complicated by the gamut of color contained in artwork often exceeding the color space of digital sensors and film alike (no matter what color temperature lighting you use).
Unless you want to dive into this niche, I'd also be leery of doing this as more than a one-off favor for a friend, and/or doing it too cheaply.
Re: What fee should I charge?
I've done lot of art copy work, using mostly 4x5 transparencies a few yrs. ago but digital mostly now. I took a slightly different strategy from some other posters and used a lower "artists rate". I can't say it was the right decision for sure, but I enjoyed the shoots as I would use the opportunity to learn about what the artist was doing, his thought processes, etc.. They usually come for photos when something is happening in their career.
There's a macbeth like chart on the net that Ctein produced that I always use in the first shots. I can print and mail that reference along with proof sheets that give the client an idea of how close we got. That reference was a big help recently with a problem, not with the artist, but with his gallery that was disputing the colors.(!)
Lenny makes an excellent point about it being easy to get fairly close, but very hard to be exact. That is where your customer-relation skills come into play. The most problematic is the neophyte artist who has the impression that quality means being anal. I had a series of 3 of these in a row last year and just about wrote off this activity. Its wise to address their expectation level in the early meetings!
You can use the chart and get a very close print from your system, and the print of the painting may still be a little off, I've learned. There really is no substitute for having the painting to compare when you're printing. If I don't have access to the original, I make sure the client knows I'm at a disadvantage. Often the paintings can't leave the artist's studio.
I have one steady client who's work I've shot for 15 years and I've found that I can actually sense his color and adjust to the original without using a reference. Sometimes repetition is a great friend in photography.
This post is getting too long, but do a search on the polarizer question. Use them on the lights and camera.
Re: What fee should I charge?
Just a few quick thoughts:-
Do a search for a program called Equalight (from Robin Myers) - used properly it will digitally compensate for a less than perfect lighting setup. It is also very cheap for what it does and I think there is a trial version available.
Don't cross polarise for every image - it can suck the life out of art reproductions. It is necessary sometimes but save it as a last resort.
Watch out for colours that react differently to a digital sensor, particularly under studio lights, than they do to your eyes. These are why 85% accuracy is easy but to move up from there is difficult
Hope this is helpful.
David Whistance