Photographing Your Work
One of the best things about being an artist is being able to share your artwork with those you are close to. This can be especially challenging when you want to share physical works of art digitally over the internet. The easiest way to go about this is to take a photo of your art, and there are some key tips that can help make the photos you take reflect all the hard work you put into your art in the first place! To illustrate these tips, I would like to share some of my art with you…
What’s wrong with this picture?
There is too much in the background! I am trying to share my drawing with you, but it is hard to focus on with so much going on around it. The table, books, pillow, and rugs are not a part of my work, and distract from what I am trying to show you. Let’s get closer!
What’s wrong with this picture?
Not all of my artwork is in the frame, and there is still too much in the background. Can you read the sentence I wrote, or does the angle of the paper make it too tricky? It is important that you fill the frame of your photo with your artwork, so let’s do that.
What’s wrong with this picture?
The lighting! This is a pencil drawing, so having shadows fall on the paper makes the image harder to see. Make sure your body is not blocking the light when you are taking the photo. To make this easier, I am going to move into a room with bright lights and put my artwork on the floor for my photo so I can easily take the photo from above…
What’s wrong with this picture?
This is almost perfect! You can see the artwork in full, the angle is straight on, taken from above, and there is enough light to make out the details. There is still too much rug showing behind my artwork, but that can easily be fixed by either zooming in or cropping the photo…
Zooming and Cropping?
The easiest way to make this improvement is to zoom into your work with your camera before taking your photo, but cropping your photo afterward is almost as easy. Open your image and select edit, then crop, and drag the frame of the image to the size you want, then save the picture.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Nothing! It is well framed, well lit, and easy to see. The only edit I had to make was to crop the background out of the image! This is much easier to share with those I care about digitally, in my Teams classroom, on social media, or even through email.
Let’s review what we learned!
Photograph your artwork from up close, with as little in the background as possible.
Take your picture from above and at a good angle, so that everything can be seen clearly.
Be aware of where the light is and where you are to minimize shadows on your work.
Zoom into your work before you take your photo, or crop the photo afterwards.
