Traverse the Sky - 10/3/12 Even though my Canon PowerShot is a vast improvement over my old Sanyo digital camera, it still can't capture the true depth of my paintings. Not all of my paintings have texture but those that do are best appreciated by curious fingertips running over the unique ridges and valleys of the acrylic medium. Perhaps it simply isn't possible to take a photo of any of my paintings that begs the onlooker "touch me." I have been trying for many years to take good pictures of my paintings and certainly some of them are more photogenic than others. If I've used metallic paint in the creation it will reflect the flash and wash out the detail of my brush strokes. Not using the flash though makes the picture appear darker than it is and doesn't capture the colors and layers of paint. Taking my paintings out on my deck to photograph them in the sunlight definitely helps. I'm forever crouching down at weird angles or tilting the camera funky to get the painting in the view screen straight so I don't have to crop it later and lose the details around the edges. I only have a few photos where the entire painting is actually in the shot, most of them have been cropped because the photo came out more skewed than I thought. It feels like an endless and frustrating quest when all I truly seek to do is share my art with the world. Photographs of beautiful places can compel and invite people to visit a particular destination or perhaps seek out similar beauty where they live. A photograph of somewhere real probably has more pull than a photo of a two dimensional painting. Yet if that painting is one of many great works on display in some amazing art museum it can in a way be a destination. My house is far from a museum but it is definitely a gallery. Nearly everything hanging on my walls is a painting I created. Some of those paintings are framed but most of them aren't and even the framed ones aren't behind glass. As I said earlier, my paintings need to be touched to be truly appreciated. Glass casts reflections and hinders the view of my paintings and so I have a stack of frame glass tucked next to my dresser in my bedroom. Maybe someday I'll paint upon that glass and see what I can create that way. In the meantime canvas and watercolor paper are my surfaces of choice and I will continue to use them to express the artist that lives forever within me.
3 Comments
10/5/2012 09:25:40 am
First, take all photos of paintings outside w/o flash
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JulieAnn
10/6/2012 01:04:45 am
Thank you so much for the tips, Bob! I will definitely try them when the sun comes out again...which might be a while. I only have Adobe Photoshop to work with though. I didn't see a link in your comment but I would love to see what's possible. Thank you again!
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10/6/2012 04:06:14 am
When you enter the link, guess it is under the name off the person who leaves one. Just clicked on it to try it... We use Photoshop for post processing as well as light room... It is not necessary to learn all it will do. Just what you need, as you go along. A good book would be PS for Dummines and a reference for Pros... or something like that.
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